When implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, many businesses consider computer telephony integration (CTI) a piece to be saved for phase 2 – but is this the right strategy?
Choosing to invest in CTI at a later date, rather than from the beginning of a project, denies you the chance to reap a wide number of benefits. Instead of looking at CTI only as a secondary option to help improve your CRM strategy, CTI should be included in your initial CRM decisions, as the effect it has on improving CRM performance is so potent.
In this article, we’ll look through the benefits that come from prioritizing CTI with your project, and why doing so improves your CRM investment all round. Below is a list of all the advantages you can gain from including CTI in your core CRM strategy, along with an explanation of why you need them.
Plan workflow integrations from the beginning
Defining the right CRM workflow for your project ordinarily takes time, and time in business is precious (not to mention expensive). CTI solutions can help you define the agent experience and customize the user interface to ensure that all of your needs are met, and agents are working as efficiently as possible.
When setting up workflow integrations, a CTI provider will sit down with you to discuss your goals and what you hope to gain from your CRM project. They’ll work with you to build a workflow strategy that will help you meet these goals, along with CTI configurations that will unlock the full power of your contact center and drive productivity forward.
Observe and report
It’s all very well having a CRM platform in place, but unless you can monitor and report on how often and to what effect it’s being used by your agents, you’re never going to be able to ascertain its true value. Gathering this information, however, is not always easy. CRMs are complex tools, and the thousands of interactions a contact center receives in just a single day creates an abundance of data.
CTI solutions can generate a wide variety of detailed, yet easily comprehensible reports on a wide variety of metrics regarding agent performance and CRM usage. By analyzing these reports, you can make whatever changes you need to ensure your CRM is operating at maximum proficiency within your contact center.
Accelerate ROI
CRM platforms are a big investment for any business, which is why some organizations are reluctant to spend further capital on CTI. After all, the overall goal of CRM is to make money and burning capital on something you are unsure of always feels like a risk. In this case, however, the age-old maxim of spending money to make money has never been more relevant.
Yes, CTI is an additional cost. But the benefits it brings are well worth the investment and in the long run, create positive return on investment (ROI). If you’re looking to accelerate results for your CRM investment, then CTI is a great choice. As well as speeding up user adoption of the CRM by automating many processes, CTI solutions also ensure that businesses can get more value from their CRM out of the box.
Achieve bigger, better results
A CTI solution can also help you achieve so much more with a CRM than you thought you could. By prioritizing CTI and including it with your initial CRM purchase, you are given an upper hand over competitors. You can start using your CRM platform in ways that are going to not only speed up your ROI, but will also improve agent performance and rapidly improve the efficiency within your contact center.