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CIS: October 20, 2008 eNewsLetter
October 20, 2008

Improve Call Center Effectiveness by Phone-enabling the CRM System

By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Senior Editor

One of the things that a call center organization can do to be more efficient is to integrate the customer relationship management (CRM) and interactive voice response (IVR) systems. This can result in optimized prospecting, lead capturing, and customer support.



 
To find out exactly what it means to perform this kind of integration, referred to as “phone enabling CRM,” TMCnet caught up with Ahmed Bouzid, senior product manager at Angel.com. Bouzid explained how combining systems in this way is beneficial, and how such a deployment works in the real world.
 
TMCnet: What exactly does it mean to “phone-enable” a CRM application?
AB: By phone-enabling a CRM application, Angel.com makes it possible to access and update a CRM application through the phone. Some of the functions this can enable for sales, marketing and support include:
 
  • Popping a lead, contact, account, to an agent prior to routing a call to that agent.
  • Integration with support centers. Automatically check the status of a case, open a new case, update a case description, or transfer to a live agent- enhancing the customer experience.  
  • Automated capture and delivery of phone leads- directly into the salesforce.com application.
  • Instant access to incoming caller information. Angel.com provides an easy-to-use web interface that will identify incoming callers and help route them to your sales department.
  • Phone-based, ‘on the road’ access to your CRM. Angel.com makes it possible to access, update, and manage key prospect information directly in salesforce.com through a simple phone call.
  • One-click outbound calling. Users are able to place outbound calls by clicking on a link within an object. All outbound call activity is then logged automatically.
TMCnet: How does integrating CRM and IVR result in more efficiency?
AB: By providing a phone-based portal into Salesforce.com (News - Alert) records, information is collected and extracted more quickly, accurately and efficiently than through typical CRM use. This means that:
 
  • Sales and support agents are able to provide more informed support to callers by having automatic access to the caller’s record through a screen pop.
  • Sales/ field representatives gain the flexibility and ease-of-use to manage their accounts while on the move, eliminating the need to access the Internet to maintain CRM records and enhancing the productivity of the sales process.  
  • Angel.com provides an easy-to-use web interface that will identify incoming callers and help agents quickly and easily route them to the appropriate party.
  • Angel.com makes it easy to open, update or check the status of a case, identify incoming caller needs, or even transfer to a live agent, maximizing response rates.
  • The solution provides instant capture of customer satisfaction survey responses, integrated call information capture, and automatic recording of information- directly into your salesforce.com application.
  • The solution provides instant capture of phone leads and automatic recording of information- directly into your salesforce.com application.
  • Angel.com’s web-based Site Builder application enables customers to manage a solution end-to-end, in real-time, from a simple web site.
TMCnet: To get more specific, can you elaborate a bit on some specific use cases for integrated CRM/IVR?
AB: One example is Lyris Solutions. To enhance customer self-service and improve its overall level of support, Lyris took advantage of Angel.com’s integration capabilities by tying its IVR solution with Angel.com’s SupportByFone application. With SupportByFone, Lyris customers can indicate the Salesforce.com support case they are calling about, and information from the case is automatically presented to the technical support engineer — enhancing the data and information provided to the support team while reducing the time required to resolve the customer issue or request.
 
Another example is Health Benefit Systems. HBS uses SurveyByFone to conduct automated consumer surveys to help quantify the value of their benefit communication and enrollment services. Survey responses — including voice responses to open-ended questions – are captured and entered into a Salesforce.com database, where they’re available to HBS personnel and their clients instantly.
 
Valerie Thompson, CRM Manager and Technology Coordinator for Health and Benefit Systems, told Angel.com that Salesforce.com integration is critical to the success of the company’s reporting.
 
“Salesforce.com is our main support database,” explained Thompson. “We use it to manage all of our records and reporting. By allowing survey results to be integrated with the rest of our data and made available to our customers at a moment’s notice, we offer them a complete picture for evaluating employee benefits, policies and exclusions.”
 
TMCnet: How does Angel.com’s Web-based approach to CRM/IVR integration differ from competitors?
AB: Angel.com differs from other IVR/ACD offerings precisely in the way that Salesforce.com differs from other CRM solutions. It is not only hosted and on-demand, but is easy to use and empowers the user to be in full control of their IVR/ACD deployment through a simple web browser.
 
As a result, the combination of Angel.com and Salesforce.com offers a uniquely powerful way of deploying CRM-enabled IVR/ACD solutions without the expensive integration complexities that such integrations usually entail. The user has access from a simple web browser to both ends of the solution, and within their salesforce.com account they can configure their CRM, their IVR/ACD, and the interactions that enable the two sides to communicate with one another. As a result, deployments that used to take weeks to deploy can now be launched within days or even hours.
 
TMCnet: More specifically, what is “Salesforcebyfone” and how does it work?
AB: Salesforcebyfone is Angel.com’s phone-enabled integration with Salesforce.com. Our products include:
 
Supportbyfone — Screen-pop and click-to-call, with personalized, automated self-service options to your customers; finally, what clients who use Salesforce.com for service and support have been waiting for.
 
Salesbyfone — Access, update, and manage key prospect information directly in salesforce.com through voice commands; no typing or Web access required. Just call, leave notes about meetings, lookup someone’s phone number, send an email by just talking on the phone.
 
Reachbyfone — Click-to-call sales automation; place outbound phone calls by clicking on the contact phone number in salesforce.com and have all your outbound phone activities logged automatically.
 
Surveybyfone — Customer phone surveys that allow you to capture responses directly into salesforce.com and report on feedback from you customers.
 
Leadbyfone — Automatically capture all phone leads, including name, address and phone number, and populate caller data directly into salesforce.com as a new lead.
 
Recordbyfone — Record and analyze all phone calls made and received by your sales and support agents. Link to call recording hosted by Angel.com stored right into your Salesforce.com account.
 
TMCnet: Why did Angel.com choose to partner with salesforce.com to integrate IVR with CRM?
AB: Salesforce.com is a worldwide leader in on-demand CRM services. It is used by thousands of organizations to manage sales, marketing, customer service, and support. Through the AppExchange, Salesforce.com promotes the integration of partner solutions that help enhance productivity and efficiency for its user base. For these reasons, Salesforce.com was a natural fit. In addition, as software-as-a-service companies, Angel.com and Salesforce.com follow similar models and both products are designed for ease of integration with partner applications.
 
TMCnet: What else should people know about Angel.com’s CRM/IVR integrations generally, and the partnership with Salesforce.com in particular?
AB: The offerings described above are meant to showcase what Angel.com can do with Salesforce.com and do not represent the limit of what integrations can be deployed. We have deployed dozens of clients who have used varying combinations of the above features, each able to solve their unique set of problems by leveraging the flexibility inherent to the Angel.com-Salesforce.com approach to deploying phone-enabled CRM solutions.
 
To learn more about phone-enabling CRM, and other call center applications, please visit the IVR channel on TMCnet.com, brought to you by Angel.com.
 
Don’t forget to check out TMCnet’s White Paper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
 

Mae Kowalke is senior editor for TMCnet, covering VoIP, CRM, call center and wireless technologies. To read more of Mae's articles, please visit her columnist page. She also blogs for TMCnet here.

Edited by Mae Kowalke

(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/ivr/articles/43298-improve-call-center-effectiveness-phone-enabling-crm-system.htm)








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