No matter the size of a company, business owners are constantly looking for ways to improve their productivity without losing focus on offering a great service. In light of this, many organisations are investing in digital solutions that can help exceed today’s customer expectations.

One great way to improve customer experience and retention, as well as increase staff productivity and sales, is to invest in “computer telephony integration” (CTI). In fact, over 92 percent of customer interactions still take place over the phone[1], meaning it is essential that your phone system can keep up with the demands of your business.

Less messing around

With CTI technology, handling calls is much simpler as businesses no longer need a traditional handset. Simply put, a customer service agent can click buttons on their computer screen to control customer calls and functions like answering, hanging up and transferring. As all the handling is done ‘on-screen’ there is greater efficiency and less fumbling between computer screens and desk phones.

This technology also enables relevant data (personal information, support tickets, cases, events, purchase history) in your CRM to be integrated into a singular customer view. This gives customer service agents a more complete picture of who they are speaking with and offers them additional information in one place, so they can handle calls more efficiently.

By integrating with your businesses’ CRM, computer telephony integration can also reduce call times by helping to authenticate the caller. This saves a significant amount of time and eliminates one of the biggest irritations of today’s customers – repeating their personal information over and over again so the agent can pull up their account.

Centralised customer information

A CTI phone system is also capable of capturing all important call data and transferring it automatically into your CRM, which greatly reduces call administration and wrap-up times. In addition, this allows customer service agents on subsequent calls to scan through customer’s information while speaking with them. Having this information all visible in the agents screen for quick viewing enables agents to offer personalised service and supportive conversation. This also significantly reduces handle time as agents don’t have to dig through multiple databases and business tools to find the callers information.

Reduced costs

Due to the high volume of calls that many businesses, in particular call centres receive every day, they need agents to handle them as efficiently as possible. Business owners know only too well that call abandonment or long hold times lead to a loss of business and increased costs. By adding CTI, call times can be reduced by an average of one minute, which based on an average of 30 calls per day multiplied by 10 customer service agents can save a business up to five hours of call time per day. This is a significant labour cost saving and could optimise the number of staff members required to effectively serve the customer base.

CTI can enhance the customer experience as well as improve the company’s image and volume of calls. Knowing the caller’s identity and background before greeting them allows customer service representatives to offer a personalised experience. Having this information at your fingertips allows the representative to personalise the call immediately because the can instantly see the customers association and interactions with the company. Not having to repeat information also helps to reduce customer frustration and call handling times. Ultimately this technology allow a business to transform their customer experience by enhancing customer visibility to their customer service which results in increased productivity and a high quality customer service experience.

[1] https://blog.thebrevetgroup.com/21-mind-blowing-sales-stats