About the organization of Telephony in the Sales Department and integration with CRM
The telephone is one of the most important communication channels with customers. Although the development of new technologies calls into question the need to use it (some companies almost completely exclude this type of communication with their customers, as this is a relatively expensive type of interaction), most people still prefer to use this traditional type of communication. A phone call is one of the essential channels to get leads to a company.
It is no secret that the emergence of virtual PBXs has led to the widespread adoption of so-called Cloud IP Telephony services, which can offer flexible conditions, low-cost tariffs, and wide functionality, including integration with CRM. Let's look at this through the eyes of a small business entrepreneur and formulate (not giving in technical details) the business requirements that Telephony must meet to ensure an effective Sales Department.
As the theater begins with a hanger, the telephony begins with a number. The "correct" phone number is still an element of trust. A city telephone number, that is, with a city code (in Moscow it is 495, 499, and in St. Petersburg 812) for many consumers may be part of determining the seriousness of a company. If a mobile phone number is indicated on the company's website, then for a certain audience this may indicate a lack of solidity of the company. Of course, a lot depends on the type of business and target audience. For example, an agent of a major pop singer may well use a mobile phone number on the site and this is unlikely to be perceived at the expense of reputation, or a small designer clothing boutique that takes orders via Instagram - the mobile number will be perceived as proximity to customers, creating a “sidelines” establishment . So for them it is not a problem.
We should also note that often on sites and landings a picture with a phone number, or a phone number without a country or eight code is used. How terribly annoying it is when you need to memorize and interrupt a number when entering such a site from a smartphone. Whereas in most smartphones you can simply click on the text of the number and a call will be automatically made on it. Especially when it is done driving a car or just outside in frosty weather. Just having text with a phone number can significantly simplify the life of a potential client.
')
The number 8 800 incurs additional costs for the company, since for the customer the call to such a number is free. But, if the organization conducts activities throughout the country, the presence of such a number lowers the barrier of the call to you. Obviously, a potential customer would be more willing to call such a number. Its presence automatically means that you are a company that sees its work in all regions, and not only in the capital.
Thus, choosing the right phone number and placing it on the website can significantly reduce the barrier when dialing into your company, and thus increase the number of potential leads. Therefore, the requirement for the sales department is to carefully consider the choice of a phone number and their publication on websites and landings.
Call tracking
Call-tracking is an important technique that has appeared in recent years, which carries the integration component of telephony and web sites. As you know, when analyzing traffic to the site, it is extremely important to analyze how the user who entered the application got to the site. If the form is filled in, it is clear that, by tracking the session, you can get information on which keyword the user entered the site, went from VKontakte or clicked on an advertisement in Yandex.Direct. When the user does not fill out the form, but calls by phone, it turns out that he can all this information be lost.
In order to be able to analyze the source of traffic in the case of a phone call, an approach called Call Tracking is used. The essence of the approach is as follows. A specific pool of numbers is used, which is assigned to the company. The site for each user with the help of a special program code displays its phone number, and when a call occurs, you can identify with which session on the site it is associated. In a simpler case, each phone number is assigned to some specific advertising source, and, for example, users who have switched from Vkontakte are shown one number, and users with Yandex.Direct are different. In a more complicated case, each individual user is shown their own phone number.
It is clear that the accuracy of this method is not 100%. It depends including how large a pool of phones is used. There is always some error, because a person who remembers a number a few days or hours ago may call, and now there is a session with the display of this phone for a completely different user. Nevertheless, this method is used, and it must be taken into account that the use of the Call-tracking service may be part of the requirements for the Telephony system.
When using such a service, it is important to determine the rules for using phone numbers - what should be used for outgoing calls, which numbers should be used in offline advertising, where phone numbers from the call-tracking pool, etc. will be maintained.
Not so long ago, in order to organize high-quality communication in the office — the assignment of internal numbers, call forwarding, integration with CRM, etc., it was required to install additional equipment. With the advent and spread of IP telephony, another time has come. To organize communication between employees and customers, practically nothing is needed. With high-speed Internet access for small businesses, it is enough to use a virtual cloud PBX to organize full-fledged communications in the office. We will not go into the technical details of what is the difference between different types of PBXs, if you wish, there are many resources on which all these details are described. But, the point is that all the functions of the automatic telephone exchange PBX will be available from the Cloud. Everything can be organized via the Internet with the help of an external company that can provide all the features that will be discussed below at an affordable price.
You need to focus on what your sales department needs, not on what opportunities a particular supplier offers. At the same time, as it will become clear, further communication can be organized from anywhere and none of the employees will be tied to the office, you just have access to the Internet.
Thus, the requirement for the Sales Department is to use a virtual cloud PBX to reduce costs and provide flexibility in managing Telephony.
It is worth noting one thing. There are telecom operators that provide telecommunications services and are able to provide international, long-distance and local communications. While not all of them provide virtual PBX services and not everyone has the ability to integrate with external CRM, which will be discussed further. Solutions have appeared that provide only virtual PBX services, but without the services of the link itself, suggesting that the link can be obtained from the operator. As you understand, this means having to pay both parties at once, which is usually more expensive. Therefore, it is better to choose providers who can offer communication services along with a virtual PBX service.
Mobile operators also do not stand still. They also released their versions of virtual PBXs. Some of them even have integration with CRM. The convenience and flexibility of their solutions leaves much to be desired. But, they provide an important opportunity that other providers of virtual PBXs cannot provide, namely the seamless integration of mobile phones into corporate Telephony. While virtual PBX from mobile operators are not so popular, but perhaps in the near future the situation will change.
There are already companies where employees do not use landline phones at all. They either use a mobile phone or use the connection through their computers. However, for many more people it is more familiar and more convenient to use telephones on their desks in the office. Unlimited mobile communications are not affordable for everyone.
With the current state of affairs and widespread IP telephony, it makes sense to consider the following options for end devices for telephone conversations by employees (I draw your attention to the fact that I propose not to consider classic landlines):
Variants of using different types of terminal devices are a compromise of mobility, cost and flexibility of scenarios. A balanced choice between them can give maximum efficiency.
A fixed IP phone must always be connected to the appropriate gateway. On the one hand, it can be office equipment. And in this case, it needs to be configured to serve, etc. On the other hand, there are no obstacles to the phone connecting via the Internet to the cloud PBX outside the office. It is assigned an internal number to identify the subscriber. An employee can call him, as on a regular phone. And outwardly, it will look absolutely like a regular phone. The use of PBXs allows flexible call control in accordance with the needs discussed below.
The widespread use of cellular communication has led to the fact that it is no longer possible without it. Every employee now has a mobile phone. The advantage of this connection is that it is untied from the place and should work almost everywhere. But there are limitations: on the one hand, it is more expensive than IP telephony, and on the other hand, it does not provide such flexibility as the PBX.
A softphone can also be launched on the computer. Through a headset with a microphone and headphones connecting to a computer, the user actually receives a phone for calls. Most people met with this type of telephony using Skype, but as you know, there are now many alternatives. As a separate subtype of such a softphone - a softphone directly from the browser, which allows not to install additional programs on the computer.
Softphone communication is carried out by the appropriate means of IP-telephony and therefore has all the capabilities of the PBX to manage scenarios. The user is not tied to the office and can use it wherever he connects to WiFi via a laptop. Convenience also lies in the fact that it can be connected on a smartphone or tablet. At the same time, all PBX features, including CRM integration, are of course involved. Using softphones is especially convenient for remote employees who can make phone calls from a remote workplace, for example, from home. But, it is also possible to use a softphone in the office. A landline phone is more convenient in terms of ergonomics, but otherwise there is no difference.
Summing up, we once again emphasize the requirement for the Sales Department - the need to combine the use of different variants of end devices in accordance with the task.
Incoming calls to the company is gold. Any incoming call is a potential customer and how efficiently (quickly and accurately) employees can answer such a call depends on customer loyalty and the result of the seller’s work (transaction). It's funny, but there are still plenty of examples of companies that do not understand this. See, for example, the AmoCRM blog.
In the CRM system there is always a customer card with a phone number and a responsible employee. Based on this information, the incoming call should be redirected to the manager who is responsible for the client. PBX should allow such redirection. At the moment when the client calls, the client’s card must appear to the manager so that he can see all the information about this client - the status of the transaction, the history of communication with him and other information.
If this manager is not currently near his phone, then the system should redirect him to a mobile number or to the number of another manager from his department. If the manager is busy, then the system must either lose the message that he is busy and call back, or redirect to another manager.
For incoming calls from unknown numbers, the rules for their redirection must be assigned. Options may be different:
Other options are possible.
From the point of view of the Sales Department, it is important that, in order not to occur, not a single incoming call was lost. If for some reason no one answered the call, this fact should be recorded in the CRM system. A new number should be created contact and task specific manager. If the number is not assigned to anyone yet, the rule for determining the responsible employee must be defined in the CRM system.
For calls not from customers, an additional list can be made with an indication of whom to redirect the number in each case. You can use the "black list" to protect against calls from certain numbers. Creating a “white list” for a commercial organization is not justified, since there is a task, on the contrary, to receive potentially calls from any numbers.
Thus, the requirement for the Sales Department is the ability to customize flexible redirection rules in accordance with the information in CRM, depending on the number and the assigned manager for this contact.
Organizing a long wait for a connection with a specialist by means of a voice menu is not the best way to organize call processing, although this method of “greeting” customers is used quite widely. It is possible that for a large organization for this you can still find some kind of excuse, for a small business this is an absolute overkill. Obviously, for the convenience of the client, the incoming call must be quickly connected and accurately with the right specialist.
Recently, callback services have become popular. In the simplest version, this is the so-called callback button. This approach is not so common when the call goes through a widget on a page that works as a softphone. In this case, the client directly calls from the site. The disadvantage of this approach is that the browser does not always work correctly with the microphone and sound, besides, the operation of such a widget on mobile devices is in doubt. But, most importantly, the client at the time of the call does not leave his phone number, which means that we cannot identify him in any way and do not enter it into our database. Therefore, the importance of such a contact is greatly reduced.
More developed option CallBack services. This is a variant of incoming calls, but organized through an external service. The approach causes a wow effect on the client, since it turns out that the manager calls the user back within seconds after leaving the application. The essence of the effect is that in reality the system makes two calls at once - towards the client and towards the manager. The call is made automatically immediately after leaving the application. The loyalty of a potential client in this case greatly increases, since for many it becomes unexpected. Psychologically, it is easier for a client to leave his phone number than to call the company himself. In addition, it is possible that the client is waiting for him not to get through immediately.
The site is set to the appropriate code that provides additional interface elements. The user sees a floating tip, which calls to click on it to leave the information in the form of an application, where the client is promised that he will be called back within a few seconds. In the case of using such a service, the conversion of the client’s transition from the site page to the call increases. For a sales funnel, this has a significant impact on the sales result.
It is interesting that at the same time the capabilities of the virtual PBX are not already used in the company, although it would not be difficult to implement it with its means. For some reason, none of the suppliers of cloud PBX does not offer such a service. Basically, such opportunities are offered by external companies, that is, there is duplication. Services of this kind are quite developed, includes call statistics, call recording, etc., and therefore largely replace some of the features offered by PBX tools. They go even further and actually offer a comprehensive service of interaction with the client, including chat rooms, SMS and other means of communication. And of course, include integration with CRM.
Since the configuration of such features by means of virtual PBXs, as a rule, is not provided, and the conversion into a call for any sales department is extremely important, the inclusion of such a service becomes a necessity. Therefore, we attribute the need to use a Call-back service as a requirement for the Telephony of the Sales Department.
To ensure the redirection of calls within the organization, short numbers are used. They are needed to assign them to specific employees and are used when transferring a call from one subscriber to another.
Short numbers can be used for departments, then the number becomes common for a group of employees. An organization may have several common numbers - for different departments, for regional offices. In the case when one employee answers an incoming call and he has to transfer it to another, then the internal number can be used for forwarding. The general short number can be assigned to the department, then the call is redirected to it. The scenario of redirection to the common number must also be determined by the type described in the section on incoming calls.
Thus, the requirements for telephony can be attributed to the need to use short numbers to redirect calls between employees and departments.
The logic of outgoing calls is somewhat simpler, there is no urgent call task. Employees can more flexibly choose when to make an outgoing call.
Outgoing calls are conveniently made directly from the customer card, since customer numbers are stored in CRM. Interrupting customer numbers from the system to the phone is at least inconvenient and time consuming, so it would be right for the call to occur by pressing the phone number in the system. It should be understood that, both in the case of using a landline phone and a softphone, as well as a mobile phone, it looks like this: The PBX first organizes the incoming call to the employee’s phone / softphone, and then creates a separate outgoing connection with the client. It looks a little longer than a normal call, as for PBX these are two outgoing calls that are made sequentially. For a mobile phone such a call will be incoming. There are options for using the built-in softphone directly in CRM. In this case, the call comes from the softphone directly to the client.
If an outgoing call from an IP phone or softphone does not come from a CRM card, but is dialed directly, it is important that it be dialed from a phone connected via PBX. In this case, all calls will be recorded by the system and, when integrated with CRM, are automatically linked to the client card. In the case of dialing through a mobile phone without connecting to the PBX (for example, if you only use call redirection from the PBX), the fact of a call from a mobile phone will not be taken into account. This is important, as there is the task of fully accounting for all incoming and outgoing calls for communication with customers.
It is obvious that in all variants of outgoing calls a single telephone number should be used for this group of employees. This is necessary so that if the customer is not phoned, and he decided to call back, he could dial the telephone number that he had displayed.
When there is a mass call-up in the call-center, it is possible that the system dials the telephone numbers on the list at certain intervals. In case the client replied, the system immediately connects with the available employee. Such a system is typical for call-centers, but small businesses can also use similar approaches.
As a result, the requirement for the Telephony system should include the ability to make calls directly from the client's card to CRM.
Call recording at the moment is almost the norm of doing business. This possibility is important from different points of view.
First, it is the story of customer interaction. The conversation that was a few months ago, no one remembers in detail, and his record will allow you to return to that to restore them.
Secondly, the record is necessary for the employee and his mentor in order to hone the skills of conducting a conversation. Listening to the recording of the conversation and finding errors in the conduct of the conversation there is an opportunity to work on improving the quality and efficiency of the manager.
And only thirdly, the recording can be used for controversial situations in order to make out exactly which agreements and obligations were spoken during the conversations.
Obviously, the record is an archive and history of negotiations with the client. It should be accessible easily and conveniently, therefore, it is absolutely logical to place it directly on the customer’s card.
Conversation recording takes up space; the more conversations are generated, the more disk space is spent. Therefore, cloud telephony services charge a monthly fee for storing calls. This is part of the tariff plan. If you keep records for a long time, it makes sense to provide for the possibility of storing them on your carrier or by means of an external service, such as Yandex.Disk or the like.
Thus, the requirements must be attributed - recording conversations and the possibility of long-term storage.
Statistics is an important element of corporate telephony. In order to effectively evaluate the work of your Sales Department, it is necessary to understand exactly how calls occur - how many calls are not answered, how many are missed and they have been answered, how long the calls are. And this is not a phobia of spying on employees, but simply an operational need to control the Sales Department. All parameters are important: how many calls does a successful manager, how many minutes on average does he spend on a conversation with a client; how many calls does the “lagging” manager make, how many minutes on average does he spend on a conversation with a client; how does the average talk time compare with the closing of the transaction and others.
Obviously, the statistics on calls is not important in itself. It is important that it is considered in context and in the context of the overall performance of the Sales Department.
Therefore, an important aspect is the requirement for Telephony - the availability of statistics on calls in relation to its indicators of the Sales Department.
In conclusion, I wanted to say that, given the sophistication of modern tools for working with Telephony, it is not so easy to figure out the right way to configure them. Therefore, it is important to correctly assign the task to Telephony in the Sales Department in order to maximize the use of all the modern features of virtual PBXs and the proposed associated services.
It is no secret that the emergence of virtual PBXs has led to the widespread adoption of so-called Cloud IP Telephony services, which can offer flexible conditions, low-cost tariffs, and wide functionality, including integration with CRM. Let's look at this through the eyes of a small business entrepreneur and formulate (not giving in technical details) the business requirements that Telephony must meet to ensure an effective Sales Department.
Telephone number
As the theater begins with a hanger, the telephony begins with a number. The "correct" phone number is still an element of trust. A city telephone number, that is, with a city code (in Moscow it is 495, 499, and in St. Petersburg 812) for many consumers may be part of determining the seriousness of a company. If a mobile phone number is indicated on the company's website, then for a certain audience this may indicate a lack of solidity of the company. Of course, a lot depends on the type of business and target audience. For example, an agent of a major pop singer may well use a mobile phone number on the site and this is unlikely to be perceived at the expense of reputation, or a small designer clothing boutique that takes orders via Instagram - the mobile number will be perceived as proximity to customers, creating a “sidelines” establishment . So for them it is not a problem.
We should also note that often on sites and landings a picture with a phone number, or a phone number without a country or eight code is used. How terribly annoying it is when you need to memorize and interrupt a number when entering such a site from a smartphone. Whereas in most smartphones you can simply click on the text of the number and a call will be automatically made on it. Especially when it is done driving a car or just outside in frosty weather. Just having text with a phone number can significantly simplify the life of a potential client.
')
The number 8 800 incurs additional costs for the company, since for the customer the call to such a number is free. But, if the organization conducts activities throughout the country, the presence of such a number lowers the barrier of the call to you. Obviously, a potential customer would be more willing to call such a number. Its presence automatically means that you are a company that sees its work in all regions, and not only in the capital.
Thus, choosing the right phone number and placing it on the website can significantly reduce the barrier when dialing into your company, and thus increase the number of potential leads. Therefore, the requirement for the sales department is to carefully consider the choice of a phone number and their publication on websites and landings.
Call tracking
Call-tracking is an important technique that has appeared in recent years, which carries the integration component of telephony and web sites. As you know, when analyzing traffic to the site, it is extremely important to analyze how the user who entered the application got to the site. If the form is filled in, it is clear that, by tracking the session, you can get information on which keyword the user entered the site, went from VKontakte or clicked on an advertisement in Yandex.Direct. When the user does not fill out the form, but calls by phone, it turns out that he can all this information be lost.
In order to be able to analyze the source of traffic in the case of a phone call, an approach called Call Tracking is used. The essence of the approach is as follows. A specific pool of numbers is used, which is assigned to the company. The site for each user with the help of a special program code displays its phone number, and when a call occurs, you can identify with which session on the site it is associated. In a simpler case, each phone number is assigned to some specific advertising source, and, for example, users who have switched from Vkontakte are shown one number, and users with Yandex.Direct are different. In a more complicated case, each individual user is shown their own phone number.
It is clear that the accuracy of this method is not 100%. It depends including how large a pool of phones is used. There is always some error, because a person who remembers a number a few days or hours ago may call, and now there is a session with the display of this phone for a completely different user. Nevertheless, this method is used, and it must be taken into account that the use of the Call-tracking service may be part of the requirements for the Telephony system.
When using such a service, it is important to determine the rules for using phone numbers - what should be used for outgoing calls, which numbers should be used in offline advertising, where phone numbers from the call-tracking pool, etc. will be maintained.
PBX - automatic telephone exchanges
Not so long ago, in order to organize high-quality communication in the office — the assignment of internal numbers, call forwarding, integration with CRM, etc., it was required to install additional equipment. With the advent and spread of IP telephony, another time has come. To organize communication between employees and customers, practically nothing is needed. With high-speed Internet access for small businesses, it is enough to use a virtual cloud PBX to organize full-fledged communications in the office. We will not go into the technical details of what is the difference between different types of PBXs, if you wish, there are many resources on which all these details are described. But, the point is that all the functions of the automatic telephone exchange PBX will be available from the Cloud. Everything can be organized via the Internet with the help of an external company that can provide all the features that will be discussed below at an affordable price.
You need to focus on what your sales department needs, not on what opportunities a particular supplier offers. At the same time, as it will become clear, further communication can be organized from anywhere and none of the employees will be tied to the office, you just have access to the Internet.
Thus, the requirement for the Sales Department is to use a virtual cloud PBX to reduce costs and provide flexibility in managing Telephony.
It is worth noting one thing. There are telecom operators that provide telecommunications services and are able to provide international, long-distance and local communications. While not all of them provide virtual PBX services and not everyone has the ability to integrate with external CRM, which will be discussed further. Solutions have appeared that provide only virtual PBX services, but without the services of the link itself, suggesting that the link can be obtained from the operator. As you understand, this means having to pay both parties at once, which is usually more expensive. Therefore, it is better to choose providers who can offer communication services along with a virtual PBX service.
Mobile operators also do not stand still. They also released their versions of virtual PBXs. Some of them even have integration with CRM. The convenience and flexibility of their solutions leaves much to be desired. But, they provide an important opportunity that other providers of virtual PBXs cannot provide, namely the seamless integration of mobile phones into corporate Telephony. While virtual PBX from mobile operators are not so popular, but perhaps in the near future the situation will change.
Telephones
There are already companies where employees do not use landline phones at all. They either use a mobile phone or use the connection through their computers. However, for many more people it is more familiar and more convenient to use telephones on their desks in the office. Unlimited mobile communications are not affordable for everyone.
With the current state of affairs and widespread IP telephony, it makes sense to consider the following options for end devices for telephone conversations by employees (I draw your attention to the fact that I propose not to consider classic landlines):
- landline IP phones
- Cell phones
- PC softphones
- softphones on a smartphone or tablet
- softphone from browser
Variants of using different types of terminal devices are a compromise of mobility, cost and flexibility of scenarios. A balanced choice between them can give maximum efficiency.
A fixed IP phone must always be connected to the appropriate gateway. On the one hand, it can be office equipment. And in this case, it needs to be configured to serve, etc. On the other hand, there are no obstacles to the phone connecting via the Internet to the cloud PBX outside the office. It is assigned an internal number to identify the subscriber. An employee can call him, as on a regular phone. And outwardly, it will look absolutely like a regular phone. The use of PBXs allows flexible call control in accordance with the needs discussed below.
The widespread use of cellular communication has led to the fact that it is no longer possible without it. Every employee now has a mobile phone. The advantage of this connection is that it is untied from the place and should work almost everywhere. But there are limitations: on the one hand, it is more expensive than IP telephony, and on the other hand, it does not provide such flexibility as the PBX.
A softphone can also be launched on the computer. Through a headset with a microphone and headphones connecting to a computer, the user actually receives a phone for calls. Most people met with this type of telephony using Skype, but as you know, there are now many alternatives. As a separate subtype of such a softphone - a softphone directly from the browser, which allows not to install additional programs on the computer.
Softphone communication is carried out by the appropriate means of IP-telephony and therefore has all the capabilities of the PBX to manage scenarios. The user is not tied to the office and can use it wherever he connects to WiFi via a laptop. Convenience also lies in the fact that it can be connected on a smartphone or tablet. At the same time, all PBX features, including CRM integration, are of course involved. Using softphones is especially convenient for remote employees who can make phone calls from a remote workplace, for example, from home. But, it is also possible to use a softphone in the office. A landline phone is more convenient in terms of ergonomics, but otherwise there is no difference.
Summing up, we once again emphasize the requirement for the Sales Department - the need to combine the use of different variants of end devices in accordance with the task.
Incoming Calling
Incoming calls to the company is gold. Any incoming call is a potential customer and how efficiently (quickly and accurately) employees can answer such a call depends on customer loyalty and the result of the seller’s work (transaction). It's funny, but there are still plenty of examples of companies that do not understand this. See, for example, the AmoCRM blog.
In the CRM system there is always a customer card with a phone number and a responsible employee. Based on this information, the incoming call should be redirected to the manager who is responsible for the client. PBX should allow such redirection. At the moment when the client calls, the client’s card must appear to the manager so that he can see all the information about this client - the status of the transaction, the history of communication with him and other information.
If this manager is not currently near his phone, then the system should redirect him to a mobile number or to the number of another manager from his department. If the manager is busy, then the system must either lose the message that he is busy and call back, or redirect to another manager.
For incoming calls from unknown numbers, the rules for their redirection must be assigned. Options may be different:
- randomly at one of the managers of the department, which is not currently busy;
- send to an individual (secretary) who will hold a primary conversation with a client or transfer a call to customer support;
- automatically assign a number to one of the managers and make a call to him;
- The assignment can be organized according to the regional principle, when, depending on the region of the call, the call will be redirected to the corresponding short number of the branch / department that is responsible for it
- the call can go simultaneously to all employees of the department, and the one who first picks up the phone will be addressed to the call.
Other options are possible.
From the point of view of the Sales Department, it is important that, in order not to occur, not a single incoming call was lost. If for some reason no one answered the call, this fact should be recorded in the CRM system. A new number should be created contact and task specific manager. If the number is not assigned to anyone yet, the rule for determining the responsible employee must be defined in the CRM system.
For calls not from customers, an additional list can be made with an indication of whom to redirect the number in each case. You can use the "black list" to protect against calls from certain numbers. Creating a “white list” for a commercial organization is not justified, since there is a task, on the contrary, to receive potentially calls from any numbers.
Thus, the requirement for the Sales Department is the ability to customize flexible redirection rules in accordance with the information in CRM, depending on the number and the assigned manager for this contact.
Voice menu
Organizing a long wait for a connection with a specialist by means of a voice menu is not the best way to organize call processing, although this method of “greeting” customers is used quite widely. It is possible that for a large organization for this you can still find some kind of excuse, for a small business this is an absolute overkill. Obviously, for the convenience of the client, the incoming call must be quickly connected and accurately with the right specialist.
Callback button from the website and Callback services
Recently, callback services have become popular. In the simplest version, this is the so-called callback button. This approach is not so common when the call goes through a widget on a page that works as a softphone. In this case, the client directly calls from the site. The disadvantage of this approach is that the browser does not always work correctly with the microphone and sound, besides, the operation of such a widget on mobile devices is in doubt. But, most importantly, the client at the time of the call does not leave his phone number, which means that we cannot identify him in any way and do not enter it into our database. Therefore, the importance of such a contact is greatly reduced.
More developed option CallBack services. This is a variant of incoming calls, but organized through an external service. The approach causes a wow effect on the client, since it turns out that the manager calls the user back within seconds after leaving the application. The essence of the effect is that in reality the system makes two calls at once - towards the client and towards the manager. The call is made automatically immediately after leaving the application. The loyalty of a potential client in this case greatly increases, since for many it becomes unexpected. Psychologically, it is easier for a client to leave his phone number than to call the company himself. In addition, it is possible that the client is waiting for him not to get through immediately.
The site is set to the appropriate code that provides additional interface elements. The user sees a floating tip, which calls to click on it to leave the information in the form of an application, where the client is promised that he will be called back within a few seconds. In the case of using such a service, the conversion of the client’s transition from the site page to the call increases. For a sales funnel, this has a significant impact on the sales result.
It is interesting that at the same time the capabilities of the virtual PBX are not already used in the company, although it would not be difficult to implement it with its means. For some reason, none of the suppliers of cloud PBX does not offer such a service. Basically, such opportunities are offered by external companies, that is, there is duplication. Services of this kind are quite developed, includes call statistics, call recording, etc., and therefore largely replace some of the features offered by PBX tools. They go even further and actually offer a comprehensive service of interaction with the client, including chat rooms, SMS and other means of communication. And of course, include integration with CRM.
Since the configuration of such features by means of virtual PBXs, as a rule, is not provided, and the conversion into a call for any sales department is extremely important, the inclusion of such a service becomes a necessity. Therefore, we attribute the need to use a Call-back service as a requirement for the Telephony of the Sales Department.
Short numbers
To ensure the redirection of calls within the organization, short numbers are used. They are needed to assign them to specific employees and are used when transferring a call from one subscriber to another.
Short numbers can be used for departments, then the number becomes common for a group of employees. An organization may have several common numbers - for different departments, for regional offices. In the case when one employee answers an incoming call and he has to transfer it to another, then the internal number can be used for forwarding. The general short number can be assigned to the department, then the call is redirected to it. The scenario of redirection to the common number must also be determined by the type described in the section on incoming calls.
Thus, the requirements for telephony can be attributed to the need to use short numbers to redirect calls between employees and departments.
Outgoing Calling
The logic of outgoing calls is somewhat simpler, there is no urgent call task. Employees can more flexibly choose when to make an outgoing call.
Outgoing calls are conveniently made directly from the customer card, since customer numbers are stored in CRM. Interrupting customer numbers from the system to the phone is at least inconvenient and time consuming, so it would be right for the call to occur by pressing the phone number in the system. It should be understood that, both in the case of using a landline phone and a softphone, as well as a mobile phone, it looks like this: The PBX first organizes the incoming call to the employee’s phone / softphone, and then creates a separate outgoing connection with the client. It looks a little longer than a normal call, as for PBX these are two outgoing calls that are made sequentially. For a mobile phone such a call will be incoming. There are options for using the built-in softphone directly in CRM. In this case, the call comes from the softphone directly to the client.
If an outgoing call from an IP phone or softphone does not come from a CRM card, but is dialed directly, it is important that it be dialed from a phone connected via PBX. In this case, all calls will be recorded by the system and, when integrated with CRM, are automatically linked to the client card. In the case of dialing through a mobile phone without connecting to the PBX (for example, if you only use call redirection from the PBX), the fact of a call from a mobile phone will not be taken into account. This is important, as there is the task of fully accounting for all incoming and outgoing calls for communication with customers.
It is obvious that in all variants of outgoing calls a single telephone number should be used for this group of employees. This is necessary so that if the customer is not phoned, and he decided to call back, he could dial the telephone number that he had displayed.
When there is a mass call-up in the call-center, it is possible that the system dials the telephone numbers on the list at certain intervals. In case the client replied, the system immediately connects with the available employee. Such a system is typical for call-centers, but small businesses can also use similar approaches.
As a result, the requirement for the Telephony system should include the ability to make calls directly from the client's card to CRM.
Call recording
Call recording at the moment is almost the norm of doing business. This possibility is important from different points of view.
First, it is the story of customer interaction. The conversation that was a few months ago, no one remembers in detail, and his record will allow you to return to that to restore them.
Secondly, the record is necessary for the employee and his mentor in order to hone the skills of conducting a conversation. Listening to the recording of the conversation and finding errors in the conduct of the conversation there is an opportunity to work on improving the quality and efficiency of the manager.
And only thirdly, the recording can be used for controversial situations in order to make out exactly which agreements and obligations were spoken during the conversations.
Obviously, the record is an archive and history of negotiations with the client. It should be accessible easily and conveniently, therefore, it is absolutely logical to place it directly on the customer’s card.
Conversation recording takes up space; the more conversations are generated, the more disk space is spent. Therefore, cloud telephony services charge a monthly fee for storing calls. This is part of the tariff plan. If you keep records for a long time, it makes sense to provide for the possibility of storing them on your carrier or by means of an external service, such as Yandex.Disk or the like.
Thus, the requirements must be attributed - recording conversations and the possibility of long-term storage.
Statistics
Statistics is an important element of corporate telephony. In order to effectively evaluate the work of your Sales Department, it is necessary to understand exactly how calls occur - how many calls are not answered, how many are missed and they have been answered, how long the calls are. And this is not a phobia of spying on employees, but simply an operational need to control the Sales Department. All parameters are important: how many calls does a successful manager, how many minutes on average does he spend on a conversation with a client; how many calls does the “lagging” manager make, how many minutes on average does he spend on a conversation with a client; how does the average talk time compare with the closing of the transaction and others.
Obviously, the statistics on calls is not important in itself. It is important that it is considered in context and in the context of the overall performance of the Sales Department.
Therefore, an important aspect is the requirement for Telephony - the availability of statistics on calls in relation to its indicators of the Sales Department.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I wanted to say that, given the sophistication of modern tools for working with Telephony, it is not so easy to figure out the right way to configure them. Therefore, it is important to correctly assign the task to Telephony in the Sales Department in order to maximize the use of all the modern features of virtual PBXs and the proposed associated services.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/321764/
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