What Are Your CRM Options?

A CRM is one of the most critical programs to have in your call center software tech stack. But before you select a CRM, it’s important to understand the difference between the types of CRM available.

In general, there are three types of CRM to choose from:

1. Operational CRM | This kind of CRM is made to organize and streamline call center management and various operational processes in a call center. Most often, these solutions store all critical prospects and lead information to keep accurate records of customer interactions and preferences. All of this information is stored in a single space for all agents to access and review.

    Why choose this option? An operational CRM is an excellent place to start if you're buying CRM software for the first time. At a high level, these CRMs are designed to automate various administrative call center workflows.

2. Analytical CRM | Like an operational CRM, analytical options gather and store important customer and prospect data. What makes these solutions stand out is their extra analytical tools, such as service analytics.

    Why choose this option? An analytical CRM is ideal if your call center needs more data and insights to inform KPIs or adjust the overall customer experience.

3. Collaborative CRM | These CRMs are meant to break down departmental silos to improve the overall customer experience. A collaborative CRM is particularly useful for call centers with large teams that are spread across multiple locations.

    Why choose this option? A collaborative CRM comes with additional data warehousing capabilities that make it easy to share customer data from different departments, including sales, marketing, and customer service.

Really, whatever CRM software you choose, you stand to experience significant benefits. To help you gain these advantages, the best phone systems will provide a variety of call center CRM integration options.

What Are the Benefits of a CRM in a Call Center?

A CRM functions as a customer database and provides a complete view of how customers and prospects are interacting with your call center. Not only does this help call agents, it provides the insights needed to improve sales management and inform marketing decisions to attract quality leads.

Aside from these high-level benefits, a call center CRM can:

• Improve call productivity

• Personalize the caller experience

• Serve multiple communication channels

• Streamline internal collaboration and knowledge sharing

• Record and store calls for training and quality control

• Provide insightful metrics

• Integrate with other tools 

Why Is Call Center CRM Integration Important?

It’s extremely frustrating for customers to repeat themselves every time they interact with someone in your call center. Call center CRMs that integrate with the rest of your communication tech stack allow agents to access all vital customer information before and during a call. Additionally, agents can review support trends and use that information to recognize patterns in customer issues and complaints. This additional data empowers agents and their managers to solve common issues to improve the customer experience. Without proper integration, vital information can fall through the cracks, and your customers suffer because of it.

When it comes to CRM integration, call center software should be able to seamlessly integrate and interact with your chosen CRM. For example, Vonage’s Business Communications cloud phone system can easily integrate with most CRM, communication, collaboration, and productivity tools you use throughout your call center. We provide a unified platform and comes with various advanced call center features to assist with:

• Contact management

• Call handling

• Data management

• Real-time logging

Last but not least, Vonage can also integrate with critical communication systems like Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Slack, and more. We can also provide custom integration options for legacy software and less common systems.