It’s common practice to connect your CRM system to IT tools such as your business system, email client, website and marketing platform. But did you know that it’s also possible to connect your cloud-based PBX to your CRM tool? If this is new information to you, we’ll be happy to tell you more about what it means and why connecting two of your most important IT systems to each other should be a given.
Most businesses have some form of telephone exchange, but a cloud-based exchange offers businesses a platform to bring all kinds of communications together in one place. In addition to good old-fashioned phone calls, cloud-based switches also offer video calling, voice and video messaging, text messaging, group chats, conference groups and much more. In short, it’s a powerful tool for all kinds of communication – internal as well as external. And just like a CRM system, cloud switching helps you build really great relationships.
The benefits of connecting your CRM system to a cloud switch
An integration between your CRM tool and a cloud-based switchboard does not only give your employees the tools to work more efficiently. It will also benefit your customers, who will be able to get quick help when they contact you thanks to the integration. It also enables management to work more data-driven with analytics and feedback, so that business can be steered in the right direction and become more efficient over time.
Customer overview in a flash
When you connect your CRM system and cloud switch, you’ll get available information right on your screen when you receive an incoming call. This gives you full visibility of important information such as the name and company of the caller, what products/services they have, what they have been helped with before and much more. This gives the person receiving the call the basis to respond to the customer in the very best way and ensure they get the help they need in a jiffy. This not only makes life easier for employees, but also contributes to shorter waiting times, shorter calls and ultimately more satisfied customers because they get help quickly.
Easier case management
Sitter du i supporten och får in ett samtal från en kund som behöver hjälp med något som du inte klarar av att hjälpa till med direkt så underlättar det att rapportera ärendet i ditt CRM och eskalera ärendet till den kollega som är bäst lämpad att lösa problemet. Med en koppling till molnväxeln får du automatiskt upp företagskortet när kunden ringer och kan registrera ärendet direkt. Om en kund ringer för att följa upp på ett ärende så kan du också se direkt vad det är för ärende det handlar om och kan hjälpa dem direkt. Snacka om enkel ärendehantering!
Read more: What is ticketing management?
Reduced administration
When you receive a call from a customer who needs help, it’s a matter of course to make a note of everything important that has been said and promised in the CRM system. But how nice would it be to avoid the step of looking up the company or person you spoke to before you can make your notes? With an integration to your cloud switch, such administration is a thing of the past. If the caller’s phone number is already registered in the CRM system, both the name and company card will pop right up on the screen, so you can start taking notes right away.
Quick automatic dailing
When you’re calling prospects to book sales meetings, you’re most likely spending far too much time manually keying in each phone number – unless you have your CRM system connected to your cloud switchboard, that is. Avoid typing in long phone numbers or searching through contact lists on your mobile, and find and call a contact directly from your CRM system instead. Dosen’t that sound nice?
Unbeatable internal communication
We hope you’ve never called a client to make a pitch and been told that they were contacted by a colleague of yours just a week ago about exactly the same thing. Unfortunately, this happens all too often to companies that don’t have a structured way of gathering history and information about their customers. An integration between your CRM system and cloud-based PBX makes it easier for employees to record all kinds of interactions with customers and allows colleagues to see who last spoke with the customer and what was discussed. In addition to call history, you can also save recorded calls and voicemails in the CRM application so that all important information can be found. You don’t have to search for customer information in different systems and excel files and can spend time building customer relationships instead.
A basis for analysis and BI
A link between the business switch and the CRM system gives you a great basis for working more data-driven. The integration allows you to analyse things like how long salespeople spend on a particular customer, or how often a customer calls in to customer service. This gives you the basis to understand your customers and identify opportunities for improvement. Which customers are taking the most time away from support and may need extra training? Do you have sales people who spend long sales calls that never lead to a deal and if so, what can you do about it?
Using key sales and customer data from your switchboard CRM integration, you can follow up on KPIs and easily produce analytics and evidence to help you steer your business where you want to go and drive business more effectively over time.
Why integration is the obvious choice
As you can see, integration between your CRM tool and cloud computing saves time and money for employees. Not only that, but it also leads to happier customers and a more efficient way to monitor and steer your business in the right direction.
At Lime, we use Telavox itself in our daily work and of course it is integrated with our Lime CRM. The integration makes the daily life of our support and sales staff easier and gives us the tools to communicate effectively with both customers and colleagues in multiple markets. We also have several customers who have chosen to integrate their Lime CRM with Telavox and where we have helped them manage the integration itself to get them up and running with the connection as smoothly as possible.
