Effective communication is critical in the world of business. It has an important role to play in each and every department of your organization. Take the case of your sales team. Good communication can be the difference between winning or losing a prospect in a deal. Now, there are numerous tools and technologies that help in building an ecosystem of seamless communication. A very popular one is Computer Telephony Integration or CTI.
What is Computer Telephony Integration(CTI)?
As the name suggests, Computer Telephony Integration(CTI) is all about fusing the analytical power, speed, and performance of computers with the fluidity of telephony to create an effective communication channel. CTI enables your employees to engage in call-related activities directly from their desktops or mobile phones. There is no need for a dedicated telephony device. All that they need is an active internet connection.
CTI also facilitates a pathway for devices like computers, mobile phones, fax, or even printers to communicate with each other. For users, it gives them centralized control of all the communication devices through a single interface.
How does a CTI work?
CTI uses Voice over Internet Protocol to transform your computer into an extension of your phone. It uses software like FreJun to make your customer contact information (phone number) interactive by letting you dial a number with a single click. The software ensures that you have all the basic controls, like call routing, call forwarding, etc., on your screen, making it ideal for those working in a contact center.
While the call is happening, the phone system and the computer collects and stores valuable data, such as call recordings, date, time, duration, etc., into the cloud and to the CRM. CTI will also interact with the CRM to ensure that there is a single source of truth for all customer-related communication.
Why should you adopt Computer Telephony integration?
Here are some compelling reasons to adopt CTI at your organization –
1. Gives greater control over calls
Most CTI software comes with an array of powerful features such as call routing, click-to-dial, call analytics, and much more. These features ensure that you have much greater control over your calls. Take the case of call analytics. Many CTI platforms have powerful analytics engines running round the clock generating key call data such as call volume, call outcomes, etc. Such data gives you 360-degree visibility over all your calls, while the generated insights help you make informed decisions. End result – total control over all your calls and your business!
2. Improves productivity of your team
CTI can produce a huge positive impact on your team’s productivity. Not only can it make it easier to keep track of conversations, but it can also streamline the workflows of your team members no matter where they are located. CTI also makes it extremely easy to share information internally and externally, thus multiplying the productivity of all teams.
3. Improves client experience
CTI drastically elevates the overall brand experience for your customers. For example, interactive voice responses, one of the many features of CTI, helps customers resolve their queries instantly without having to wait for a person to answer them. Similarly, when your CTI software is integrated with a CRM, it gives your employees deeper insights about your target audience. This helps in developing personalized conversations with the customers, thus improving their overall experience.
4. Reduced operation costs
CTI is much easier to install and maintain than traditional telephony systems. You do not need dedicated employees to manage CTI, unlike traditional PBX systems. This saves you on personnel costs. Also, since it is device-agnostic, your business can scale up in no time without emptying your coffers. The best part is many CTI software come with a flexible pricing model, where you have to pay only based on the number of employees you have.
Frejun even lets your employees make or receive unlimited calls when you subscribe to our plans, thus eliminating any fear of rising operation costs in the future.
Now that you know why CTI should be an integral part of your organization, you must know how to select the right platform. In the next section, we will help you decide by listing down the key features you must look for in CTI software that will help in your decision-making process.
5. Automates business processes due to integration with workflow tools
CTI platforms can also be integrated with a variety of workflow tools that facilitate seamless communication with one another. This makes it easier to keep everything in one place while taking full advantage of multiple tools. The best part is you no longer have to switch between multiple tools endlessly. Thanks to these integrations, you can unify some of your business processes with calling, and automate most of the tasks.
Key features to look for in a CTI
#1 Auto dialer
An auto-dialer is a must-have feature in your CTI, especially if your employees make hundreds of calls in a day. Without an auto-dialer, your employees will be simply tired of dialing a vast list of leads or customers, speaking, hanging up, and moving on to the next one.
To the unversed, an auto-dialer automatically dials from a list of numbers, and once a call is answered, it connects the call to a live person(your employee). Now, imagine the workload that’s reduced here. Your employees can skip the long dialing process, saving precious time it takes to input each and every customer’s number into the dial pad.
Due to the inbuilt auto-dial and click-to-call feature, Frejun lets you make 200-300 calls a day per person, as opposed to the usual 30-40 calls that can be made via a traditional telephony system.
#2 Call logging and recording
The next important feature to look for in a CTI is ‘call recording’ and ‘call logging’. Traditional telephony systems do not offer either. However, most modern CTI platforms such as Frejun automatically log and record your calls, letting you access the records whenever you need them. This is particularly helpful for training purposes when a new employee wants to learn from older employees how to handle customers. Also, when you integrate CTI with a CRM, the data is automatically fed into the CRM so that there is no error or duplication later.
#3 Dedicated Dashboard
Just having raw data on your hands might not help you make important decisions pertaining to your call. It is more important to have all these raw data in a visual and understandable format. This will help you draw valuable insights from them. This is where the need for a dedicated dashboard arises. So pick a CTI that comes with a dedicated dashboard letting you track and monitor all the important call metrics. Also, ensure that you are able to generate and download reports instantly for further analysis.
Frejun comes with a dedicated dashboard showing all the valuable call data in a visually appealing and lucid manner.
#4 Intelligent call routing
Imagine one of your employees is on leave, and their customer tries to reach your organization. Now, they will go back with a negative experience if their call goes unanswered. To avoid such a situation, you need intelligent call routing in your CTI. Through this, you can set routing rules so that even if an employee is not available to attend a call, it gets transferred to another one. This also reduces the waiting time of the customer and provides a quicker solution.
#5 Automated screen popup
A screen pop is an automated popup that displays relevant information about the customer/prospect from a connected CRM or database just before an outbound conversation starts. The popup generally displays the prospect’s history, including details such as which agent they spoke to the last time and the status of the deal. The popup usually supplements the auto-dialer feature to enhance the quality of the conversation even further.
10 Best Practices For Choosing Computer Telephony Integration
While selecting a computer telephony integration platform for your business, you need to –
- Take sufficient time to choose the CTI. It is very difficult to change to another provider once you make a wrong selection.
- Note down all your must-have and nice-to-have features. Make sure that the CTI you choose ticks all the must-have features and offers at least a few nice-to-have features.
- Check customer reviews in platforms like G2 and Capterra. Make sure that the platform has been reviewed positively by many people.
- Check for their uptime. You need to make sure that the uptime is above 99%.
- Ask all your questions, however simple they may be, to the CTI providers.
- Thoroughly understand their pricing structure and ensure that there is no hidden costs anywhere.
- Review the security measures they have in place and make sure it is secure enough.
- Try to pick those platforms which have a trial plan. Ask your employees to use the platform and get their feedback.
- Ensure that the platform can easily migrate data from your previous platform (if you were using one).
- Check if the platform can be customized to your exact needs.
Conclusion
In today’s highly competitive world, your business needs that competitive advantage to avoid falling through the cracks. A CTI provides that advantage thanks to its bouquet of features that comes along with it. It reduces operating costs, saves time, increases the productivity of your teams, and expands your customer base.
Now, if you are on the scrounge for a CTI, your search ends here as Frejun is the #1 CTI in the market that comes with all the features highlighted in this post. To know more, sign up for a free trial now.
Check out article about Push to talk apps