John P. Joseph, VP Corporate Marketing, Envox Worldwide You Asked How can I apply the principles of unified communications to CRM to boost productivity and enhance service?

While unified communications refers to a broad range of applications, they all stem from the break down of barriers between different communications methods — phone, email, chat, the Web and more — and the applications that power an organization. For sales and service divisions, this means embedding communications functions directly within your CRM desktop applications. Two of the most popular examples are “click-to-dial” for outbound communications and a “screen pop” of caller information received by agents along with an inbound call.

Having the ability to “click-to-dial” from within the CRM application eliminates manual dialing errors and makes agents more productive. The user simply pulls up the customer record, clicks on a “button” within the record, and the call is placed automatically. While this may seem like a nice to have feature rather than a necessity, one of our customers estimated that approximately 10% of calls placed by agents were misdialed costing the company approximately $140 per thousand calls. Their “click-to-dial” integration not only eliminated this problem, but, it also ensured that each one of those calls was automatically captured in the CRM system.

The agent screen pop solution significantly increases the productivity of agents handling inbound customer communications. This application reads the phone number from which the customer is calling and checks the CRM system for a match. If a match is found, the application automatically opens that customer’s record on the agent’s desktop as it delivers the call thereby allowing the agent to greet the caller personally and create a more productive customer interaction for faster call resolutions. Another nice to have feature? It shouldn’t be. In fact, one organization reported that their screen pop solution shaves 60 seconds off each call, translating to a savings of $570 per thousand calls. And that doesn’t even capture the derived customer service level increases — personalized treatment, faster resolution of issues, etc. Again, these customer interactions are all captured within the CRM system which provides the organization with the data they need to evaluate root service issues, specific customer needs, traffic patterns, contact center efficiency and individual agent performance.

Unified communications solutions are becoming more and more prevalent and progressive CRM companies are partnering with voice solution providers to make this transition faster and easier. Begin the discovery process today for a more customer-centric, productive tomorrow.

John Joseph is vice president of corporate marketing at Envox Worldwide, a voice solutions provider based in Westborough, Mass. Envox Worldwide