CRM VoIP Integration: Which Phone Providers Boost Agent Efficiency?

How are you using customer relationship management (CRM) to augment your customer experience when you reach out to them using VoIP? CRM software like Salesforce has become too important to ignore, especially if you want repeat business from these customers. CRM customer obsession delivers better engagement and using CRM VoIP integration to provide customer information in real-time results in happier experiences.

According to Nucleus Research, for every dollar spent on CRM, a value of $8.71 is gained.

Why do Businesses Need CRM VoIP Integration?

Before the era of VoIP, copper wire-based public switched telephone networks (PSTN) were how businesses communicated with their customers. These telephone networks were widely used, but customer data had to be managed by manual data entry, and what if your customers have multiple telephone numbers? It was very difficult to keep accurate records and keep agents updated in real-time.

Did the customer respond more pleasantly at certain times of the day? What is each customer’s adjusted lifetime value? What services or products has the customer purchased? What percentage of customers were led to your brand by new marketing initiatives? Each of these vital data points had to be managed in a separate database and manually linked to existing customer info.

With VoIP and CRM working in tandem, this information is added automatically as you or your agents interact with the customer. For example, you’ve reached out to a particular lead seven times, but only three of those times have resulted in actual contact. These contact times happen to have been around 2 PM on weekdays.

CRM software will take note of these important statistics automatically, which will help your agents to understand the potential best call times for this particular lead.

Effectively, when combined with VoIP, CRM systems link customer info with call recording records so that complete master data for each customer is created in real-time. CRM isn’t particularly new; the first CRM originated in the early 1970s, but its implementation with VoIP has made it one of the most essential business technologies for organizations in the last decade.

Here are some critical points to help you understand the value of CRM with VoIP and why your company will need it:

- Artificial Intelligence-powered CRM, like Salesforce’s AI, cuts down on manual data entry, which accounts for 17% of agent time.
- Mobile CRM is increasing the success rates of sales.

CRMs increase revenue by as much as 41% per salesperson.
CRM-nurtured leads tend to spend 47% more.
CRM improves the chance of conversion by up to 300%.

What are the Benefits of CRM VoIP Integration?

crm voip integration benefits

Having CRM VoIP integration can be a significant boost for your business, especially if the integrations that you use make your day-to-day operations much more productive. With the right CRM VoIP integrations, your system will take information from the two platforms and use them together. Let’s explore some of the benefits that your company can experience.

Enables One-Click Calling

When your company makes sales efforts, it’s important to know information about a potential lead before you make the call to contact them. One-click calling puts all of the critical information on the same screen and allows you to see it while making the call. Information like the best time to reach them and what was said on the last interaction will all be available for agents to see on the CRM application. When they are ready to make the call, it’s as simple as pressing a button.

Updates Customer Data in Real-Time

After every interaction, the database needs to be updated before the next call to be made. This offers valuable insight to the next caller and sheds light on ways that the potential lead turns into more. When an agent types everything that happens into the system, it’s time-consuming. With CRM integration, information can be logged in real-time. Some CRM integration allows the agent to attach an audio file to the profile to use at a later time.

Creates Personalized Customer Interactions

When integration adds information to an agent’s screen about the prior calls, it allows them to personalize the interaction. When a customer is addressed by their name, they feel like the company values their business. It also decreases the amount of time that an agent needs to check the notes for the customer to find details that could help during the call.

Does a customer have a favored nickname? Does he or she have a newborn that they love to talk about? This information is recorded by your agents and used later to make the experience more personal and pleasant for the caller.

Depending on your company and the CRM integrations that you use, information including the frequent searches and past purchases could show up in the database as well. This allows your agents to focus on the preferences of the individual and potentially lead to a sale. Shorter interactions lead to higher customer satisfaction, which is your goal.

Combines Marketing and Sales Efforts

In any business, marketing and sales go hand-in-hand when it comes to getting new leads. Both play an essential role in customer interactions, so bringing together the efforts of the entire sales team is beneficial to the overall process.

For an agent to see how a customer reacts to marketing promotions helps them know what the customers are interested in before starting a conversation with them. This helps reduce call times and expedite sales instead of relying on long explanations to figure out what the customer needs. On the other hand, marketing specialists have the advantage of knowing when customers are home to see their marketing efforts. This takes all of the estimations and makes both marketing and sales efforts more streamlined.

Makes Managing Teams More Efficient

Managing the way that your team performs is essential to make sales and ensure that your employees are handling customers in the same manner. With this type of CRM VoIP integration, it’s easy to track the number of outgoing calls made, the conversations that occurred, and sales that are made. Call times are easily trackable as well, and managers use this information to give agents constructive feedback that helps them become a better agent.

It also helps the managers see how many incoming calls are answered at specific times. If agents are only getting voice mails and not reaching leads during a particular time, they can adjust the number of agents on staff.

What are the Must-Have CRM Integrations?

top crm integrations

Each VoIP solution includes optimized CRM integrations. Some businesses will require certain features that CRM integrations offer. Let’s take a look at some must-haves for businesses.

Contact Management

Contact management is imperative to improve customer satisfaction. It helps agents know who they are talking to before they start the conversation and ensure that phone calls are more organized and efficient. This allows you to not only have the customer’s contact information available but critical information that could help convert a lead into a sale as well.