I’ve written multiple blogs in the past about how Unified Communications (UC) can improve workforce productivity, collaboration, etc. We even have an excellent white paper outlining some of the actual financial benefits of UC for an SMB. In my last blog about UC a few weeks ago, I said “and UC also enables tie-ins, from the phone system, to other business systems such as CRM.” I had a few comments come in about what I meant by that, so here is a blog to explain it. I meant a couple of things actually. First, if your UC phone system is tied to your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, then it’s easy to make calls from the CRM tool. I know this from experience. I am a heavy user of Sangoma’s CRM tool, and it’s nice to go in there and make phone calls directly from the CRM when I need to. It’s just faster and easier to do that. The phone numbers are all there. I don’t need to go find them, and I can just click to call. Another consideration is the improved service time that CRM integration can provide. From an inbound customer service perspective, a tie-in to the CRM tool is very cool. The customer information can easily be accessed by an agent, improving service time for the customer. The customer’s phone number can pull their information from the CRM so when an agent gets on the phone, they already know who the customer is and what they may be calling about. And whether it’s a real agent or a bot agent is a different question, but, either way, the agent, because of the tie-in to the CRM, can make the call go faster. Not to mention if a customer service rep needs to find an expert in the company, a UC system with presence technology can help the rep get an answer fast. To provide solutions for this need, Sangoma has a full Unified Communication suite. Improved service times and customer service are just one aspect of how UC can improve businesses. Read about the 128 benefits of UC here.  

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