The 10 Benefits of Using a VoIP Integration

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If you’re ready to streamline communication and collaboration within your company, VoIP integrations will set your employees up to work more efficiently. VoIP integrations operate like a gateway that brings all the latest business tools into one place to help you increase productivity — setting the stage for growth.

VoIP integrations are gaining in popularity because they give you the flexibility and versatility to customize workflows in a way that’s best for your company.

Plus, it’s now possible to have voice conversations through your computer via VoIP infrastructure. VoIP is a term that means voice over internet protocol. It allows your voice to travel directly through your computer microphone or through a headset and be transmitted via data packets over the internet.

By using VoIP integrations, you can have all your business apps, in addition to your communication tech, at your fingertips. VoIP integrations are a great asset for call centers and they’re quickly becoming the way of the future.

Why VoIP Integrations Are Important

The VoIP part of the equation also means that you get the convenience of being able to access your business apps using any device, so long as you have an internet connection.

Unlike plain old telephone systems (POTS or PSTN) where voice travels along cables with copper wires, VoIP technology hosts data securely in the cloud. Older systems with their original technology don’t have the capability of integrating with modern business software. The design of VoIP systems makes it quick and easy to integrate with cloud-based systems and other call center software applications to give you a flexible, yet comprehensive software platform.

Without the ease of a VoIP system, your customers may continue to experience long wait times for help, and you risk errors and missed calls because of note-taking and other as-of-now manual processes. From a practical sense, your employees will continue putting customers on hold while they look up information in separate systems or even dig into paper files when using traditional phone systems.

10 Benefits of VoIP Integrations

You, your employees, and your customers will appreciate these 10 benefits of using VoIP integrations:

1. 1. Combine your VoIP phone system with your CRM system for automatic data syncing.

2. 2. Make calls directly through any internet device without using a handset.

3. 3. Set up a sales contact center that’s dedicated to increasing profits.

4. 4. Set up a customer support contact center to enhance the customer experience.

5. 5. Having a centralized hub for all software business tools.

6. 6. Reduced overall costs and simpler budget planning for office operations.

7. 7. Improves efficiency and productivity for salespeople and customer service workers.

8. 8. Positions your company to begin using remote or distributed teams and have mobile access to your systems.

9. 9. Allows you to set up national and global numbers so you can take your company global.

10. 10. Make it possible to connect and collaborate with other peers and supervisors for coaching and support.

Understanding the Benefits of VoIP Integrations

Over time, businesses have added various software tools as they’ve become available, all for the sake of increasing productivity. The downside is that each application had its own login and was siloed from all the other applications. Some of the time that you gained in using new applications was lost with each log-in and log-out.

VoIP integrations are a game-changer because they seamlessly connect your telephony system to other business platforms and that makes things significantly easier for you and your team.

That’s where the beauty of VoIP integrations really shines. They offer you the chance to turn your digital-office into a smart and innovative portal that drives business results proactively.

To set up the most versatile system, you need a business phone system that has a robust set of features and lets you use it with VoIP integrations, like your CRM, that break down the walls of your applications that were formerly separated.

What Is Driving the Popularity of VoIP Integrations?

You might be surprised to learn that there were almost 1 billion VoIP users by 2017. Researchers believe that number will reach around 3 billion by 2021. Those numbers are significant enough to ask: What’s driving the popularity of VoIP integrations?

Advanced technology brought voice systems to the internet, but the enhancements didn’t stop there. It wasn’t long before new systems came to other markets that allowed businesses to use multiple communication channels like text, email, and chat to their voice systems. To simplify things even more, “as a service” solutions like UCaaS, CCaaS, and SaaS became readily available and they make things pretty effortless for users.

(Related content: Understand the differences between UCaaS vs CCaaS)

VoIP integrations are the wave of the future and much of that has to do with the concept of the internet of things (IoT). We may have only reached the tip of the iceberg of how technology will influence business operations in the future. Software manufacturers view VoIP endpoints as dynamic gateways that share vast amounts of information and serve a host of different purposes.

Evolution of VoIP Technology

To that end, VoIP technology will continue to evolve and innovate so it continues to enhance current systems.

The concept of IoT is to connect billions of devices that have internet capabilities to access and transfer data over a network without involving a human being. VoIP technology is in stride with the concept of IoT and the future of VoIP may very well be strongly connected to IoT.

Since companies have greater access to the latest trends and innovations, expectations for how business systems should perform are far greater than in the past. VoIP systems offer the capability of serving multiple purposes beyond simply sending data packets for communication. With VoIP technology, it is possible to team communication channels up with multiple devices and services.

VoIP Integration Best Practices

To be able to take full advantage of the cloud, companies need to incorporate new features and integrate their communication processes with existing business solutions, as well as leave open the possibility of integrating with new software.

Best practices for VoIP integration also refer to meeting the needs of businesses of all sizes and within all industries.

Best practices for VoIP integration should focus on the following:

• Aim to improve the customer experience and satisfaction.

• Design applications that increase employee productivity.

• Decrease the time it takes to integrate communication channels into existing workflows.

• Maximize the value of cloud communications by using a platform that’s based on open standards and APIs where developers can build their own applications.

• Design applications to work with the APIs of cloud-based phone systems.

• Educate developers on how to use APIs to create customized solutions.

Best practices for VoIP integration are generally straightforward today, but developers should be able to improve on ease-of-construction in the coming years.

How VoIP Integrations Give Employees Greater Flexibility

Your company’s mission and strategic goals drive the integrations that will best serve your company. Is this the year to drive your sales past your competition? Have you set goals to get more 5-star reviews and followers on social media? Maybe you need to focus on both issues?

Here are just some of the ways VoIP integrations give you greater flexibility:

• Combine your cloud-based phone system with your CRM or any of your other existing software solutions.

• Set up a call center that focuses solely on sales.

• Set up a call center that focuses solely on customer support.

• Automate eCommerce customer support functions.

• Allow your employees to work remotely-a big plus considering the pandemic!

• Set up remote teams to work all year round.

• Set up distributed teams to tap the talent of employees that are geographically distant.

• Use data and programs to assess productivity.

• Collect payments automatically.

• Trigger surveys automatically after customer contacts.

Check out the Aircall’s amazing App Marketplace to view all the possibilities of how you can use VoIP integrations to expand your office or call center capabilities.

VoIP Integrations & the Future of Your Call Center

Now that you have the lowdown on VoIP integrations, what does that mean for the future of your call center? If you’ve been thinking about setting up a call center, you’ll want to check out the wide variety of cloud-based phone features that you get with Aircall.

Just to name a few:

• Toll-free and international phone numbers.

• Setting phones to ring according to certain business hours.

• Ringing rules for departments or extensions.

• Set up an Interactive Voice Response (IVR).

• Establish a virtual call center.

• Share contacts and an inbox.

• Get KPIs on call center activity.

• Queue calls.

• Click-to-dial calls.

• Use a power dialer to increase efficiency.

When you combine all these features with VoIP integrations, you get the maximum functionality from your business software. Every call grants access to caller contact information, call history, previous help or sales tickets, sales history, and much more through your CRM and other apps, all in real-time. VoIP integrations eliminate the problems that used to drive you crazy because of delayed updates.

If your workers can’t make it into the office for some reason, you have the option to let them work from another location. As long as they have an internet connection, you won’t have access to supplying or setting up equipment.

Overall, VoIP integrations give you almost endless capabilities, and that makes it worth your while to consider how they can work for your business.

Published on October 5, 2020.