From phone call to action: 8 workflows worth connecting

Imagine this: it’s a cold January morning and a customer calls into your HVAC company. Their furnace stopped working overnight. The call itself takes you three minutes. But what happens after the call is where the real time goes.

You hang up, and the customer is happy to have an appointment scheduled and help on the way. You now have work to do. You need to update the customer’s record, create a job order with notes on what the customer reported, notify the technician, generate and send an estimate, follow up and document customer feedback. You have apps for all this, and going back and forth between them can be a pain. Worse, your apps don’t talk to each other so it’s up to you to make sure things are synced up.

Now imagine your phone system and apps are connected. That one call can eliminate some of that work and save you time. The call is logged automatically. You can take notes and save them directly to the customer’s record, and your whole team can see them without you having to retype them in all the different places. That’s the beauty of integration.

Why disconnected tools slow business down

Most businesses use many apps that help with daily tasks. However, most don’t integrate. According to Salesforce, enterprises have access to up to 957 apps, but on average, only 27% are integrated.

When apps don’t work with your phone system, you end up making the links between them manually, and that takes time. The employee who took the initial call often pulls the customer data from the CRM directly and cobbles it together with scheduling and job order apps to take the next steps. All this shuffling between the call and apps leaves space for human error and overwhelm.

Benefits of connecting your phone system

When you use VoIP integrations to connect your phone system and applications, it turns a customer interaction into information that can populate and transfer to your other systems. Available integrations help your business in many ways, such as:

• Opening the customer’s profile with your business during the call.
• Logging the call time and length for you.
• Taking and recording notes from the call so your whole team can reference them.
• Turning the call into the next step, like a task, support ticket, or billable time.
• Starting an automated chain of action from the call.
• Allowing you to place a call with one click.
• Responding to a missed call or voicemail with a text message (in some cases).

8 industries where phone system integration pays off

Many businesses and industries can benefit from connecting their phone systems to the apps they already use. The following are examples of how that integration works through industry-specific applications.

Contractors and home services

In the furnace example, integrations with tools like Jobber and QuickBooks Online can really make a difference. When the customer calls about their broken furnace, Jobber gets the customer’s details in front of your employee. Their profile populates automatically, so the representative who answers the call can already see their last service date. They can then add their own notes, which makes scheduling easier. QuickBooks Online works in a similar way when a customer calls in about their bill.

Sales

Marketing, real estate and any company that is in sales can benefit from connecting tools like their CRM to their phone system. In fact, according to Salesforce’s State of Sales, 42 percent of sales reps are overwhelmed by too many tools in their tech stack. But that can be solved by CRM integration hacks such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics 365, or SugarCRM.

Integration here keeps your leads moving. For example, integrating your calls with HubSpot means the contact appears on your screen when they call in, and you can click to view their full record. Calls are logged, and your staff can enter notes and outcomes. It all syncs in one place for the whole sales team to access.

Customer support

Support your customers and your support staff with integrations through Zendesk and Freshdesk. With Zendesk, your phone system actually runs inside the application so there’s no switching screens. Caller ID identifies the caller, shows their past and missed calls, and adds the call details to their support ticket. When a customer emails and calls about an issue, any customer service representative who answers the call has all the information they need instantly.

Retail, restaurants and salons

When caller history and scheduling make a difference, you can connect your phone system to an application like Square. Square integration means that on incoming and outgoing calls, a pop-up shows the customer’s name and details, upcoming and past appointments and past purchase history. When a salon customer wants the same shampoo used in her upcoming appointment that was used in her last appointment, you can easily see that detail and set it up without digging for the information.

Insurance agencies

Insurance agencies can streamline the process from when a potential or current customer calls in. AgencyZoom and Agency MVP both connect workflows for property and casualty (P&C) insurance agencies. Maybe a caller calls in and matches to your CRM. They just bought a new car and need to update their insurance. AgencyZoom provides a pop-up that shows either their lead status or their current policy details. Calls and text messages are also logged.

Dental offices

Dental offices need a quick way to see and schedule appointments. Instead of taking a call, looking up the caller and then adding them to scheduling software, a program like NexHealth automatically connects to your system, loading the caller, their upcoming appointments, their last appointment and their family members. It can also sync with scheduling software, meaning your phones and your scheduling system share the same patient information.

Financial practices

Financial advisors often have customers with big life events like retirement. These calls can trigger a process that involves things like a review of their plan, a meeting and a possible new opportunity. This can be a streamlined process between your phone system and Wealthbox. When connected, it gives you a preview of the caller, links opportunities, lets you add notes and keeps a record of calls and texts.

Law firms

If you’re a law firm, your big business focus is billable hours. An integration between your phone system and Clio helps you capture every billable minute. When a client calls, you see their name and case information, the call is logged automatically and you can document the call conversation and billable hours in Clio.

Workflow automation and other tools that work in any industry

If your software or industry isn’t covered on this list, there are a few options that work for most industries:

• Zapier: Lets you set up workflow automation. An incoming, outgoing or missed call can trigger an action in any of the over 8,000 apps, even sending a customized “Sorry we missed you” text. It can also start an action when a new call recording is saved and add a task from a call to your to-do list app.
• OpenAI: While not available where HIPAA compliance is required, it works in most other industries. It can transcribe a call to provide you with a summary and full transcript.
• Chrome Extension: Working right in your browser, it can click-to-call from any website and keep call logs in your browser.

Connecting it all

In the end, when a customer calls in for their broken furnace, it sets off a chain reaction of tasks that extend well past the three-minute phone call. How you handle those tasks is up to you. For a streamlined approach, integrations across your tech stack, plus workflow automation where it fits, will save time, prevent details from getting lost and keep customers from repeating information you should already know. Whether you already use Ooma Office or are considering it, knowing which integrations it supports will help with business process automation. To learn more, check out the available integrations through Ooma.