January 15, 2006

CRM and VOIP: Interesting Things Can Happen

CRM software is a powerful way to service your customers. VOIP technology is a powerful way to lower your phone bills and connect to the telephone system in NEW ways using PC power and not traditional phone line power. Combining the two together can give you even more and better ways to empower your business and DO MORE for your customers.

We'll touch on some of this at the upcoming Small Business Summit but News Factor gives some ideas and writes So you're sold on CRM-VoIP integration. Now what? The entry-level approach is to employ click-to-call service, which connects customers to a business after they click on an icon. This used to be difficult to set up and maintain with traditional phone systems. But merging HTML coding with telephonic technology makes it easier than ever to set up and use. Now it works the same as clicking on a MAILTO: link in a database file. "It takes very little effort," said Oram.

Perhaps the Holy Grail of CRM integration with VoIP is soft-phone service, which gives general-purpose PCs all the functions of a real telephone -- without having to attach additional hardware. To date, this service rarely has been implemented because it fully embeds CRM functionality into VoIP service. "It is very complex to add soft-phone controls into CRM packages," said Oram. "Because of its deep integration, it can take months to configure."

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