Computer telephony integration - CTI software for better agent and customer experience
Informed interactions with call data from your cloud call center software
What is CTI software?
Computer telephony integration, or CTI software, empowers the modern worker to use his or her computer system to interact with the company phone system for centralized control over all call-related tasks. This cloud contact center feature provides your workforce with an intuitive dashboard interface that serves as a central hub for all office communications on their own desktop or laptop. Call center managers can also monitor their team and allocate resources for better data-driven decision making to encourage collaboration and cost savings.
Enhance call control on a single interface
Build meaningful relationships and close new deals
Measure and monitor KPIs
Benefits of Computer Telephony Integration
Enhance call control on a unified dashboard interface
Manage phone controls and other communications functions from computer screens. Agents are able to improve call management by integrating all forms of communication (for example, voicemail, fax, mobile, SMS, support tickets, live chat, etc.) into one unified dashboard, Whether this is for a contact center, a telephone system, or a hosted VoIP solution, CTI technology enables your business to expand without requiring resources to maintain a costly infrastructure.
Personalize customer interactions for better customer experiences and sales performance
Present screen-pops with critical customer data, such as the case number and lead or contact records, from your CRM systems to agents so they may deliver personalized and smarter customer experiences. Improve customer relationship management and increase customer satisfaction by authenticating callers through matching incoming caller’s information with data from your back-end system. That way, they aren’t required to repeat personal information multiple times to verify their accounts. This efficient caller information pull up process should also help your company implement better sales strategies for better sales performance.
Manage your contact center workforce more effectively
Call center managers can effectively monitor team performance through call storage, logs, and recordings. Equip your call center managers with agent supervisor tools that allow them to whisper instructions to agents or barge into a live call. Improve workforce optimization through real-time call analytics and historical call reporting to fine-tune staff and resources to cultivate a more productive workforce.
How does CTI work?
Common Functions of CTI
Through a computer telephony integration (CTI) capability, your cloud call center software can enable a host of features that can help your workforce improve productivity and efficiency through a unified dashboard. These advanced calling capabilities make your agents’ jobs easier while providing excellent customer experiences and improving workforce management. These features include:
- Phone controls - CTI allows your workforce to use their computers as telephones for inbound and outbound calls, which allows them to answer incoming calls, dial outbound calls, put callers on hold, and terminate calls.
- Call controls - Aside from basic phone control, computer telephony integration software also lets you enable advanced call management options like call forwarding, call screening, and caller ID.
- Agent supervisor tools - CTI software solutions can also enable call monitoring tools that can help supervisors provide direct assistance to agents. With CTI, supervisors can use their computer to call whisper (provide instructions without the caller hearing it) or call barge (take over a live call).
- Interactive voice response - allows your callers to navigate a pre-set multi-level voice-based phone menu for self-service resolution or to route calls using the automatic call distribution feature (ACD) to the appropriate agent or department.
- Predictive dialers - instead of manual cold calling, CTI solutions allow your contact center system to auto-dial phone numbers then connect the call to an agent when a live person answers.
- Skills-based routing - Working in tandem with IVR software, agents are assigned phone calls based on their skills and established knowledge base. With a more logical approach to the routing of calls, agents only handle calls within their area of expertise, which leads to better agent performance and faster call handle time and resolution.
Integrations that streamline your operations
When you implement computer telephone integration technology, you are essentially turning your business phone system into a computer program. This allows your CTI solutions to integrate with other applications and software for improved efficiency and productivity. This, in turn, leads to better customer experience and satisfaction while also improving agent experience as well.
Whether it is for a contact center platform, unified communications, or a VoIP PBX phone system, there are a number of application programs that you can integrate into your cloud communications solution through your CTI system.
The most common are CRM integrations, with Salesforce telephony integration as the most popular. This allows your cloud contact center solution to integrate CRM into the call flow that includes getting a screen pop of the caller’s information by matching their credentials (like phone numbers) to existing entries in the CRM database. This allows agents to instantly access customer information and history without having to ask the caller for the same information every time they make contact with the organization.
RingCentral, in particular, has a digital application program interface (API) library that businesses can use to integrate their own application programs to streamline call center operations. Add notifications, automate tasks, and integrate analytics through the CTI platform.
Whether you want to integrate a 3rd party solution to a contact center solution or if you want to develop a customized contact center workflow through APIs, RingCentral has the flexibility to adjust to your business needs.