Is Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) a Life Raft For Call Centers?

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CTI integration is a must-have solution, but not every call center owner knows what is it. Nonetheless, without CTI solutions modern call centers just can't exist, and that's why you should learn more about them.

What is CTI?

The CTI refers to the computer integration with the telephony system that allows you to conduct outbound and inbound phone calls without the prepared telephony infrastructure as it was before in the call center with the physical infrastructure. Take a look at the cloud-based call center solution that uses CTI computers.

Further, for using these kinds of telephone systems, all you need is a laptop or desktop, headphones with a microphone, and a wired internet connection. That’s it computer telephony integration is established!

And what is the call center software solution in the CTI phone system? The cloud call center software serves as the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) connector for your computer for integration with the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) telephony infrastructure without any preparations whatsoever. Having an opportunity to communicate with people via voice is only part of the story.

Additional advantages of the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

The other part of computer telephony integration products include chat, SMS, social media, and email options to communicate. The reason why these days Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) becoming very popular around the world is very simple.

Talking about computer telephony integration, we need to mention the low cost of starting, maintaining, updating, and working at any place in the world remotely. And 24 hours a day functionality. Below you'll find more impressive Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) facts.

Take a look at the main advantages of the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) over other solutions on the market

The headline of this issue says that the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is a “life raft” for the owners of small and mid-sized call centers. Now, we going to put the proof on the table and we'll tell you what is a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) in essence!

The scheduling and conducting of the calling campaigns have never been easier.

The excellent customer experience and 5-star performance of your call center agents come with precision in monitoring that’s one of the most respectful features of the CTI technology. The manager and authorized supervisors have complete control over the CTI technology using, calling, chatting, and contacting callers. It also enables you to track the customer relationship management progress in the relevant period of time for agents.

What is a Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) for your call center? Or what exactly do you need to look for when choosing the Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) vendors? The CTI technology provides the manager with an all-in-one dashboard where everything is highlighted at hand. Using the contact center CTI software, call center managers are in control:

  • Agent groups;
  • Outbound and inbound calling lines;
  • Assigning call center agents to particular calling lines;
  • Agent’s ability to use the contact center CTI technology (logging in to the system and conducting any other actions);
  • Reduction of average handling time and overall handle times in a given period;
  • Timings for the conversation of agents with each customer is known up to the minutes and seconds;
  • The control over the attendance employee’s attendance, up to the minutes and seconds;
  • Simplifying calling activities equals better agent experience;
  • Results contact center CTI technology recording for comprehensive reporting;
  • The clear dashboard represents the results of the outbound and inbound calling campaigns, including the number of calls, average talking time, the number of successful calls, etc.

How exactly the productivity of agents is increasing by using the CTI call center technology?

Here’s how. Agents are unable to make the mistake while using the CTI call center phone number because the process is controlled by the contact center software. At the moment, the manager uploads the telemarketing list, the system will automatically guarantee the precise dialing of the phone numbers. What’s on the list that’s where the computer telephony integration system (CTI software) takes over the control for your calling efficiency.

All agents know what to do, thanks to the assignment to the concrete calling lines. They also know their schedule of work by viewing their calling activity during the shift.

Computer telephony integration dramatically increases agents' productivity. For instance, only after the simple manager’s decisions, sales reps or customer service agents are able to quickly switch from inbound to outbound calling activity and vice versa. But that's not all advantages.

For sales reps working with the contact center CTI meaning expresses in conducting outbound calls and closing the sales without bothering with manual dialing efforts, seeking the phone number of the warm leads, and digging into the notebooks for information. Only talking throughout the working shift using computer telephony integration.

Customer service agents reap the productivity benefits from the CTI software tech by achieving inquiries from consumers and observing their previous history of conversations in a client’s card. With the computer telephony integration call center tech, the callback option allows reaching every caller that failed to reach customer support.

The effect on customers using computer integration telephony

In today’s extremely active market, computer telephony integration frees you and your happy customers to enjoy the speed and accuracy of professional agents that are capable of quickly hitting the ground running with the ready-to-go solution on their request.

The CTI call center technology is designed to make the contact with consumers as fast and as smoothly as possible. Additionally, both consumers and agents, pick the necessary channel of communication, whether the phone or message. And make the reaching of the goal for both parties using computer telephony integration extremely fast. That's how your actions toward customer satisfaction come to fruition.

Here are features that come with the CTI integrations

The Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) tech for small and mid-sized call centers has numerous advantages in comparison with other telephony technologies. Let’s highlight them.

The computer telephony integration screen pops

Agents at the monitor are easier to move the conversation toward personalized service. The CTI technology integration provides an agent with pop-ups to appear the moment a client calling to a call center and enables agents to conduct instantaneous caller authentication:

  • first and second name;
  • phone number;
  • address;
  • info in a database;
  • purchase history;

But there are more. Read on.

CTI Dialing Modes that make your agents signs

There are 3 dialing modes you are capable to apply for conducting outbound calls.

The power dialing mode in the computer telephony integration. The power dialing is starting to work as follows. The manager of a call center uploads the telemarketing list into the system. Then assign the call center team for outbound calling campaigns.

What’s more, the manager is capable to set the custom settings for calling campaigns to increase the effectiveness of agents. The power dialer allows to an agent have a conversation with clients as long as necessary.

A predictive dialer is a useful tool for calling mostly to the cold client base for the shortest time possible. The manager customizes the settings for the predictive dialer such as limited time for conversation with each customer. The main purpose of this dialing mode is to call the cold base fast.

According to the manager’s settings for their computer telephony integration system, agents talk to customers in a given time frame. Once the preset by managers time is coming to an end, the system guides agents to firmly end the conversation and instantly proceed to the next call in the list.

The preview dialer mode delegates to you the option to choose the relevant phone number, observe the information on the client’s card and make the decision of whether to call a particular number or choose another phone number in the list. The conversation in this mode takes as long as an agent decides.

One of the most useful features is the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system

This is the agentless feature of the computer telephony integration system, which gives the callers to achieve the solutions without connecting to any live agent in your call center. The whole process is controlled by the preset press-key mechanism, which gives users to choose the necessary service by pressing the number from 0 to 9 on their phone.

Then, with the computer telephony integration, the IVR decides what to do with callers' requests. Unless live agent assistance is necessary, all customers accomplish simple tasks without live agents.

There are a plethora of ways to customize the IVR using computer telephony integration to meet the necessary goals. Once certain features need to be included, the IVR CTI construct allows to adjust the system to the business needs.

Calling routing makes the difference between success and failure in computer telephony integration

Automatic call distributor is essential for call centers these days. And those who are lacking routing features - are blocked to achieve intelligent behavioral routing in their call center and are suffering from continuous customer complaints. The thing is that intelligent routing is designed to connect consumers according to their needs.

Usually, call centers have a different project line, and each one accomplishes a certain goal. For instance, one telephony line serves customer support, the second is the sales department, the third is the legal department, and so forth.

It’s easy to customize and adjust the routing rules according to the customers’ and your’ needs. There are two types of routing skills-based routing and mixed.

The skill-based routing means you assign a certain telephony line to agents that have the competence in solving caller’s inquiries. For example, if you are on the internet provide an inbound call coming to the customer service departments. Then according to this type of routing, the caller will reach the competent technical support operator. Or they are waiting for the free operator in the queue line.

The mixed call routing allows the distribution of calls according to the settings such as follows. In times when the customer service or sales reps are overwhelmed by the inbound calls then it’s possible to merge their calling line with other calling lines in a call center. Thus chosen telephony lines from other projects would receive inbound calls.

The manager of the call center has broad options for customizations according to business purposes. There are such settings as call distribution and queue time, with sort of waiting times, the number of waiting clients in the queue, available operators for a certain project, and many more.

Finally, at any moment manager is free to change the features of the routing to change the routing settings.

This feature allows you to watch agents in real-time

These days, computer telephony integration (CTI) is impossible without real-time monitoring. Managers while using CTI integration are in full control over the call center activity. Most importantly, everything regarding inbound and outbound contact is in front of the manager’s eyes.

Once the manager or person, is authorized with access to the holistic call center software and wishes to watch the agent’s activity all the information is demonstrated at hand. Interestingly, the information about outbound and inbound contacting are accessible 24 hours a day and precise up to minutes and seconds. In other words, you wish to define how much your agents spend time talking with customers. You just select the relevant group of agents and watch agent performance.

Or perhaps you wish to watch the results of the telemarketing campaign. You choose the necessary page in the software and look for your campaign to watch the results.

Who is calling is not the problem now, thanks to computer telephony integration

All inbound contacts, especially via phone, allow your agents to quickly identify who is calling. Employees are seeing the name and address, location, client’s card, and other pieces of information accessible in the company’s database.

That’s making the work of your agent with computer telephony integration and your call center, much easier. And most importantly effective. Because once agents are capable of quickly identifying callers, they have fewer headaches in figuring out what they should do next.

Making the calls more personal is much easier when you know who exactly is calling. And agents achieve an extra option to treat customers personally, having their information in front of their eyes.

Do you know how much broadness and flexibility Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) gives to call center owners?

The computer telephony integration allows you to exclude unnecessary routines from an agent’s work. Everything you need is to have a business goal for the coming schedule. Make the simple 1-2-3 call center operations and the software will automate these processes for you. Here’s how it looks in the reality.

Have an outbound campaign in your mind? Just create the group of agents, schedule the time and date for the campaign, set the calling settings, and let it go.

Maybe you have some plan in your mind for pivoting calling campaigns and you need to do it now, right in the middle of the day. No problem, make these changes at any moment by pausing the calling campaign. Everything is set? Then using computer telephony integration, you are starting to call with the best options to reach callers!

CTI teamwork functions for better performance

The CTI phone functions put you and your employees together because at every moment you have the full picture with the call center CTI. And capable to pivot or change settings or groups, if necessary. For instance, you have such functions as putting all agents into one group, separating them, schedule calling activity during the shift or beyond.

What’s more, the manager with the call center CTI and using computer telephony integration is capable to authorize and cancel access to the software at any time. Delegate the functions to supervisors or agents. There are virtually no limits to how agents can work in your call center 10 or 100 and more.

CTI SMS services for customers and your benefit

While SMS continues to be an important source of information for your customers, they are also accessible in the CTI system. You just need to have the list of numbers, dates, and times. Everything else will be conducted by the computer telephony integration system without any delays and miscalculations whatsoever.

Just imagine thousands of customers can achieve the SMS. They are sent in seconds, because of the SMS functions of the CTI. How does it work? Write the text, choose the list, and send it. All phone numbers achieve the SMS in seconds. Some people say that SMS is ineffective today.

But the top researchers don’t confirm these claims. On the contrary, what they are saying is that SMS messages are still read by nearly every person, especially when they are unable to talk via phone. Want to conclude massive SMS messaging? Computer telephony integration is the fastest way on this path!

CTI is economical for managers of call centers, see the details

The economical solution for small and mid-sized call centers has paramount importance for call centers in today’s jittery market. That’s how the CTI will help. Take a look at the list of economic features:

To use the CTI tech you don’t have to create, maintain, and upgrade the physical infrastructure of the telephony lines. Experience shows that these moments could bring customer frustration to your business. Then what is the situation now?

A few decades ago, the necessity to perform an enormous amount of actions for running a call center was the case. But not today anymore. What is the case today?

The start and running with the call center CTI integration within 2 business days is real. While physical-like infrastructure requires preparation for creating and sustaining stable work thanks to the call center CTI integration, and as a result increasing their cost the CTI integration has the better solution.

Because all the infrastructure is prepared for you and already exists, all that’s necessary is to fulfill the requested requirements regarding the number of seats - (CTI phones downloaded for free), outbound, inbound, or blended call center CTI integration.

Once your requirements are met there are just moments before your call center CTI integration will be able to conduct outgoing and incoming calls for exceptional customer experiences. The whole process is taking 48 hours. What kind of technology is capable to launch call center CTI with the same speed? The answer is clear only CTI integration VoIP (voice-over internet protocol) is capable of this.

Everyone can start the call center CTI integration today

To start the call center CTI integration, all your agents need to have is a laptop, desktop, headphones with micro, and wired internet connection. Another necessary thing is the call center software that is installed faster than you are reading this issue. That’s it. Everyone can meet these center CTI integration requirements. And that’s what makes the using of this technology so easy and effective. What about the information on customers in one solution?

In case all the information is presented to agents on one screen makes their work much easier. The paperless work without the necessity to switch between the business applications for information. As a result, everything is located in one, unified solution, and agents have to use only one tool to perform.

How does this CTI call center software affect the overall call center performance? That perfects agents because of furnishing them with the information from within this unified solution.

Conducting or receiving calls with the CTI integration or maybe everything together in one solution?

Conducting and receiving calls instantaneously, with the speed of the internet, has never been easy. Thus whenever you or your employees are it’s easy to contact clients.

The ease of contacting people is achieved because the CTI call center software accurately dials phone numbers without any mistakes or miscalculations whatsoever. The best description of the process would be like this click-to-call.

To launch the telemarketing campaign, you just need to perform a few actions regarding creating the agent’s group, scheduling the campaign, adjusting the calling settings to business needs, etc.

And remember that voice call is only one part of the CTI software. At your disposal are SMSs chats, social media, and emails. In other words, you are establishing a presence across all relevant digital channels.

Skyrocket the productivity because of the routines simplifying?

You have to know that possessing CTI integration applications guarantees better productivity for your employees. Agents see, perform, and anticipate their working routines because they have a schedule and tasks created by managers for the schedule.

Even if the manager wishes to pivot the agent’s activity from outbound to inbound calls and vice versa, that instantly notifies agents about changes and they are always aware of what’s happening at the present.

CTI integration is an economical and effective solution for small and mid-sized businesses. The most respectful asset of the CTI integration is the fast deployment in any location of the world, just by having a laptop or desktop, headphones with a micro, internet connection, and wired internet. Everything will be prepared by our IT staff, including such features as a contact center telephony switch.



Eugene Siuch

Content Manager and Copywriter

Focused on customer service measurement and improvement, SaaS marketing and industry insights, and researching different methods of staff motivation and performance management in the field of customer service providing.

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