Phone systems are essential tools in the modern business environment. However, there are several crucial factors to make when deciding on the best phone system for your business. The phone system technology, such as analog, VoIP, or virtual; the hosting environment, and functionality are all important considerations.

Whether you want to implement a new phone system or scale up your contact center,  accessing a wide range of valuable features such as calling, collaboration, engagement, and mobility tools isn’t limited to big businesses only. All companies have different tools and software at their disposal to adapt to agility, scalability, and an efficient business environment. This includes CRM applications such as Salesforce to track customer activities, market products and services, and many other services. 

This article will discuss the best criteria for selecting a Salesforce phone system narrowed down to VoIP systems provided as Cloud-based solutions. Gone are the days of analog PBX systems, for which new options and features are no longer being built. This means no new technology is being developed for analog systems, hindering the business from leveraging the value of a full-fledged phone system.

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Business Phone System: From Salesforce Context

Selecting a suitable telephone system while running Salesforce CRM requires some critical decisions. Key stakeholders in tech and business need to work together to choose what phone system that works well with Salesforce they should use. In the AppExchange, there are a plethora of options to select from. The call center head might be interested in a solution that offers some easy-to-use calling features with monitoring and coaching to help his team achieve their call center objectives and goals. On the other hand, tech people will consider things like a smooth integration with Salesforce, automation capabilities, and the right Salesforce CTI Solution for the business. 

Criteria for Selecting a Business Phone System for Salesforce

• Now let us dive into the best criteria for selecting the right Phone System for Salesforce.
• Cost and usability 
• Integration and collaboration with Salesforce 
• Advanced call center features
• Support for multi-channel Salesforce CTI
• Reporting and analytics capability
• Ability to support Salesforce automation
  

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Cost and usability of phone systems 

No business would want to spend more than what the technology investment can return, and that involves considering current and future needs. Questions to address could include: How does our team currently communicate with each other and with customers? Where and how frequently will our team communicate with customers in the mid to long term? Do we need a basic call center system or a full-fledged unified communications system? Should we have all features accessible within the Salesforce app to avoid switching back and forth to the phone system? What are the initial investment costs and recurring expenses? It is imperative to look at the pricing plans including oftentimes hidden costs like support, upgrades, and training. 

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Integration and collaboration with Salesforce

An important question to ask your phone system provider is their collaboration tools with Salesforce. You can use a trustworthy software review tool such as Sourceforge, G2, or Gartner to explore and compare the top cloud PBX providers that integrate with  Salesforce. The comparison will give you an idea of integration capability and collaboration features are looking for in a phone system.

Smooth integration of the phone system with Salesforce provides one easy interface to access your CRM data alongside your digital telephone. This means the team will have the ability to make and receive calls directly from within Salesforce. Some of the basic collaboration options that integrate with Salesforce should include automatic contact & data sync, voice calls, texting, video conferencing, and conference calling.

The selection drills down to the collaboration features perfectly blended for your business goals and the benefits of integrating the phone system with Salesforce. 

Advanced call center features

Well, you will notice this has been the center of our discussion almost at every selection criteria discussed thus far. Advanced call center features and product updates are important selection criteria of a Salesforce phone system for your business. 

The advanced features shown in the image above are a good example of  will be considered for any business looking for a progressive call center technology for modern teams. For companies focused on international interactions, we recommend you take a look at 5 Must-Have Features in a Salesforce CTI for International Calling.

Support for multi-channel Salesforce CTI

A Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is an important element of an organization's multichannel customer service and sales strategy, as it connects phone systems to computer applications such as Salesforce. Combining multichannel communications with a CRM means every single interaction - be it via text, call, voicemail, etc.- will be logged and enrich the current database. Features to maximize this integration include screen pop with customer information, automated call, text or voicemail logs, automated call routing, click-to-dial interfaces and dashboards and reporting.

The phone system that supports a multi-channel Salesforce CTI should be on top of your selection list as it will drive time efficiency, improve team productivity and ultimately help make better decisions. These solutions integrate voice, video, phone, and messaging across any device. And can be a great way to boost your customer experience. A typical business scenario would be setting up a call group for premium customers to be routed to special call center agents with high priority. The phone system with this feature along with an ability to read contact information on a pop-up screen within Salesforce should be part of the selection criteria as you seek to improve agents' efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Reporting and analytics capability

Telephone calls are important in business if they can be transcribed into useful conversational insights in CRM applications such as Salesforce. Data exchange between the telephony system and Salesforce CRM can be monitored in real-time and reported to track the overall performance of a call center operation. The phone system with this functionality is worth considering when selecting the right fit Salesforce phone system. 

Ability to support Salesforce automation

Just recently, I received an email of new product features from one of the top telephone systems. Among the list of the released features was a default automation setting that, if enabled on your account, calls and SMS will automatically be logged in to Salesforce. The phone system that supports automated workflows to streamline sales and services within Salesforce like call logging, case, and task management will save time, money, and effort. Any business leader will opt for a phone system that increases call center productivity and generate leads that convert into sales while saving time and manpower effort.

All in all…

If you’re using Salesforce as a CRM and looking to select the right phone system for your business, this article will help you narrow down your options. On top of the criteria I’ve discussed above, there are other points to consider when selecting a Salesforce Phone System for your business. You might also want to look for a solution that provides end-to-end encryption with multi-factor authentication, is releasing new features every month at no extra cost and that’s built from the ground up to work as an all-in-one unified communication system in Salesforce.

To just sum up, each business should have its own unique way of making better decisions and finding a solution that’s best suited and matches their specific business requirements.