Skip to content

Question:

Can contact center infrastructure solutions integrate with home-grown servicing systems or only commercially available CRMs?

Answer:

Although many contact center infrastructure vendors offer pre-built, out-of-the-box integrations with leading customer relationship management (CRM) solutions like Salesforce, Zendesk, Microsoft Dynamics, etc., they generally support custom integrations for proprietary applications as well.

To integrate with a customer data repository, whether a CRM or internal servicing system, contact center infrastructure providers use computer telephony integration (CTI) technology. CTI enriches interactions by bringing in relevant customer information that can be used in many ways. Two common uses include support for enhanced interaction routing, or the best-known CTI capability: providing screen-pops of customer information to agent desktops when a caller transfers from an interactive voice response (IVR) application.

Custom integrations to home-grown servicing solutions can typically be built one of two ways: by the enterprise, using open application programming interfaces (APIs) provided by the contact center infrastructure vendor; or by contracting the vendor’s professional services resources. While vendor-built custom integrations may run $10k or more, prospects should assess the potential benefits against the cost. Some benefits to consider include reduced average handle time (AHT) when accounts can be popped automatically to agent desktops, eliminating manual retrieval; and an enhanced customer experience when interactions can be delivered to the best available resource – among many others.