Are you getting the most out of your CRM and Contact Centre?

Introduction

Feature rich, complex contact centres used to be very expensive.  They relied on complex & costly infrastructure, and unfortunately took a long time to deliver from business inception to actual go-live.

This has changed dramatically for the better, with the introduction of Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS).  Organisations now have solutions available that promise very quick spin up, zero on-premise infrastructure and general low barrier to entry.  Not only is Text-to-Speech, Analytics, Voice Biometrics, GenAI all available to these CCaaS services, but also open APIs, which allow for much easier integration to 3^rd party systems.

A key use case for the open APIs is to integrate with the CRM solution.  Screen-pops, and CRM data dips are nothing new, but again, as Contact Centre software has moved to the cloud, so has the CRM.  Cloud-to-Cloud APIs have allowed these integrations to be much easier, and often available out of the box between CRM and CCaaS providers.  One of the key ways CloudWave adds value is to build out this CRM integration to meet customer-specific outcomes.

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Key Considerations

So when designing an integration between a CRM and Contact Centre platform, here are some key requirements to consider:

1)      Is the CRM data of good quality?  So often aspirations of a customer-centric IVR journeys are hampered by low-quality CRM data.

2)      Defining the scope and agreeing on what is included for the MVP – what are the key use cases that give the most bang for buck?

3)      Is there initial value to be had just in unifying the softphone and CRM interface?

4)      How are customers identified when they are called? Can we reliably use the customer phone number? (CLI aka ANI) Or will we identify customers another way?  If via CLI, how are phone numbers stored in the CRM? Likely a mix of dashes spaces, international dialling codes etc..

5)      If we’re lookup up a customer record in the CRM – can we use that customer data to influence routing decisions?

6)      Rather than just read the CRM records – is there a benefit to creating a call record against the customer for example (and screen-pop the call record)

7)      What do we want to show on the contact-centre agent’s CRM screen on a call? Is it the customer record, is it a task/call record? A helpdesk ticket?

8)      What other workflow can we integrate to the CRM – other media channels, other back-office ‘work to be done’ ?

9)      Will the reporting/analytics function stay in the contact centre tool, or do you want the data available in the CRM?

10)   Is the integration out of the box or is custom work required? And if so, how far can we customise?

11)   We recommend talking to someone who’s done this before and knows the pitfalls – ideally in the same industry

12)   Standard Security considerations - how will the system authenticate? Where will the data be stored, any PII or PCI considerations? Do we need to cycle APIs keys, what’s the process etc

13)   Performance – in crafting workflows between CCaaS and CRM, could we hit API limitations?

14)   Will there be a cost overhead in storing contact centre data in our CRM?

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Reach out for more info

At CloudWave we are experienced at integrating to CRM systems – our contact Centre products have out of the box adapters to the most popular CRMs and due to our products’ open nature, we can usually integrate to any web-based application.  Please reach out to find out more!

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