The Ultimate Guide to Salesforce CTI Integration for Businesses
Just as artists perfect their craft, businesses that integrate Salesforce CTI master the art of communication. Let's understand it with the instance of Sarah from a large technology company. She is responsible for overseeing service operations—ensuring that her team resolves customer issues and handles inquiries faster.
However, during the operation, her team faces a range of challenges—inability to get a full view of the customer interaction history, loss of time due to navigating between multiple systems, and failure to track real-time performance and key metrics. All these result in longer resolution times and inconsistent customer service experiences.
Therein, Sarah decided to use Salesforce as the primary CRM and a separate telephony system like GirikCTI to manage calls. And after a month of using these solutions, Sarah and her team witnessed faster issue resolution, quality customer experience, and reduced call handling time. Follow along to learn more on Salesforce telephony integration and how it eliminates the struggles of traditional calling.
What is CTI?
CTI, commonly known as Computer Telephony Integration, is the merged form of computer and telephone systems. As it integrates computer network with the current telephone system, users can easily handle and monitor all call activities from a single place.
Equipped with features like call transfer, hold, call connect, hang-up, call recording, caller identification, etc., CTI lets you conduct every task easily without any hindrances and obstacles. Thus, enhancing productivity, efficiency, and workflow.
What is Salesforce CTI Integration?
Salesforce CTI is a robust CTI added to Salesforce to support your sales efforts that rely on calls. While eliminating the need for dialing numbers, it lets your sales team call instantly with just a simple tap. Beyond this, it allows you to skip the reliance of logging into another program or using a physical phone.
In short, you can handle everything—answering calls, dialing numbers, and talking to people—from a unified CTI for Salesforce. Moreover, you can get relevant information about customer’s name, interactions, notes, etc., at your disposal to turn each interaction into a leading opportunity.
Advanced Features and Functionalities of Advanced CTI Integration
Discover the essential features and capabilities equipped inside Salesforce CTI that make each interaction meaningful and impactful.
1. Call Monitoring
Call monitoring includes the capabilities of listening to calls. It is a must-have, especially in such businesses where prospects are turned into leads via calls. CTI for Salesforce lets you leverage the same feature, using which you can assess how agents are responding to queries or complaints.
On top of this, you can get updated information on the quality of calls, thus pinpointing areas of improvement for enhanced engagement.
2. Call Whispering
This feature allows sales executives to give assistance, instructions, and advice to an agent during a live call. The best part of this feature is customers cannot hear the monitor’s comment, nor do they realize their presence.
However, agents can easily hear and act upon those instructions while being on the call. Thus, ensuring to provide the best experience for the customers.
3. Call Barging
With this feature, managers can join the live call instantly and speak with both the agent and the caller. This quick interaction allows them to intervene immediately upon encountering an issue.
Beyond this, it ensures immediate assistance without having to reroute the caller to another agent. This saves customers’ time and resolves their complaints faster, further leading to enhanced customer satisfaction.
4. Power Dialer
Power dialers increase the efficiency of outbound calls. It does not let you manually dialing a phone number. Instead, it automatically dials the next contact in the list once the operator finishes a call.
This automation minimizes the time agents take to dial the contacts manually. Moreover, it eliminates the chances of mistakes that manual dialing may cause. The best part? There is no learning curve for how to use the feature as it’s fully automated.
5. Call Forwarding to Up to 9 Numbers
Call forwarding is as simple as redirecting incoming calls to up to 9 numbers at a time. Let’s understand it with an example of a customer who initiated a call, this is called an incoming call. With call forwarding, your phone system will make an outgoing call to the primary extension.
If it is not available or busy, the call, then transferred to a secondary, tertiary extension, and beyond until it receives an answer. This way, the feature bridges incoming and outgoing calls together for businesses that are always online and don’t want to miss any calls.
6. Call Transfer
Call forwarding and call transfer may sound similar, but they are not. The latter is as simple as transferring an ongoing call to another number when the first person cannot adequately resolve customers’ queries and requires assistance from another team members.
For instance, you transfer the call to the finance team if the caller wants to seek support for payment-related issues. The same way, you can transfer the call to another department, agent, and external phone number for quick and efficient resolution.
7. Call Conferencing
We all have experienced call conferencing during online meetings and interviews. However, in Salesforce CTI, the concept for call conferencing is different. While typical conferencing tools often focus on web based and video collaboration, Salesforce CTI concentrates purely on voice interactions.
Several participants from their comfort places can enable direct connection with a single conference call. Therein, they can seamlessly enjoy group discussions, team meetings, and client interactions.
8. Call Routing
Another magnificent and most important feature of Salesforce CTI is Call routing. Based on the predetermined condition and rule, it forwards the incoming call to the right place. Also known as Automatic Call Distributors (ACD), it automatically distributes inbound calls.
An example of this is rerouting of a call by a Spanish-speaking caller to a Spanish-speaking agent. Here are different types of call routing that significantly enhance the businesses’ efficiency.
Skill-based Routing
It directs calls to agents who are skilled enough to handle customers’ inquiries, issues, and problems.
Time-based Routing
It routes calls to agents who are available on a specific day and time, thus managing call volume during peak times and improving resolution rates.
Priority Routing
On predefined criteria like urgency and customer status, it prioritizes calls, answering high priority calls for enhanced customer satisfaction.
Geographic Routing
It connects customers to those agents and service centers that are closest to the caller’s geographic location, providing localized support.
Round-Robin Routing
With the equal distribution of calls among agents, it prevents burnout and ensures that every agent can seamlessly manage calls.
Top Benefits of Using Salesforce CTI Integration
Discover how the integration of CTI with Salesforce brings multiple benefits to your table with this section.
1. Faster Sales Deals
With all the important caller information right in front of their eyes, agents can escape the hassle of switching between different systems. Thus, handling different processes with ease and enhancing sales deals faster than ever before.
2. Decreased Call Handling Time
Information related to customers like their past interaction, queries, and preferences, appears on the screen from the moment they call. This reduces the need for agents to manually locate customer records, decreasing the time to handle calls and increasing efficiency.
3. Improved Problem Solving
You will be able to resolve problems sooner only if you know the root causes behind them. The data stored within Salesforce helps you locate issues that customers are facing. Acting upon that, you can either resolve that issue or pass the call to an experienced agent who is well equipped with that area and domain.
4. Less Missed Opportunities
Thanks to the ability to forward calls to up to 9 different numbers, agents can easily redirect calls to available extensions, reducing the chances of missed opportunities. This ensures that every lead gets the attention it deserves and prioritized accordingly.
5. Enhanced Work Output
Unlike earlier when agents must manage everything manually, CTI for Salesforce enables them to execute their tasks more seamlessly with some taps on the screen. This does not only let them put their valuable time on making customers happy but also creates a more productive work environment.
6. Better Reporting and Analytics
Salesforce CTI integration provides companies with valuable data too. Using that data, managers can easily track essential metrics and KPIs like call duration, resolution times, call volume, etc. Thus, identifying areas where improvement in service operations is required.
7. Shortened Wait Times
Advanced call routing and transferring feature ensures that calls are directed to the right agent at the right time. This reduces the need for customers to wait for longer, thus guaranteeing that they get the best level of service, adding more to their satisfaction level.
How GirikCTI can Help You Make the Most of Salesforce CTI Integration
Computer telephony integration using GirikCTI lets sales reps access real-time customer data, optimize call routing, and automate power dialer. With these incredibilities, businesses can make a significant difference in enhancing customers satisfaction. Moreover, they can simply escape the hassle of time-consuming coding with a solution that runs on simpler clicks.
And if we talk about the installation, then it will hardly take 5 to 10 minutes to conclude the entire Salesforce telephony integration. That means, in no time, you can simply execute and automate the task of handling calls. However, to transform your call interactions with the best CTI capabilities, you may require assistance from GirikCTI’s experts. So, connect with them and get set ready to drive your sales efficiency.