Integrations seem to be the new buzzword in the business world. Everywhere you turn, there’s someone talking about third-party apps and CRM (customer relationship management) systems that you can use with your cloud telephony solution to take your processes and workflows a notch higher. 

While a telephony solution provider like Acefone will allow you to connect with leads and customers, a CRM system will help you build long-lasting relationships with them. What’s even better is that you can do all this without burning a hole in your pocket. 

But with so many fish in the sea, how do you decide which one is the one for your business?

Let’s first take a brief look at what a CRM system is.

A CRM or customer relationship management software helps you nurture relationships. It records business-client interactions; allows agents to keep track of follow-up actions and note preferences and dislikes; and provides actionable data for performance improvement. And all of this is possible not just for existing customers but for leads too. 

Now that you know why CRM systems are fast gaining popularity, here are nine CRM integrations (in no particular order) you can get with your Acefone solution.

1. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is one name that you will often hear when you start looking at CRM solutions for your company. It lets you convert more leads, engage with customers better, and grow your revenue multifold.

Along with the basic features and the capability to use it on multiple devices, Zoho CRM comes with its own AI assistant, Zia which helps you identify and resolve issues proactively. This way, you’re able to mitigate minor concerns before they snowball into serious problems. 

Zia also helps you identify potential conversions, updates you with smart alerts and reminders, and provides suggestions that improve agent-customer conversations. 

2. Salesforce

Salesforce is arguably the most popular CRM provider out there in the market. It offers you a wide range of CRM categories and systems to choose from. Whether you’re looking for an integration for your sales department, marketing team, or any other vertical, Salesforce has you covered. 

Its CRM systems offer deep data insights and smart automation that augment a business’ customer retention. They also automate email reports, predict conversions, and anticipate customer interactions, thus, empowering your agents with all the information they can get.  

You can constantly keep track of your business on any device of your preference.

3. Hubspot CRM

Hubspot is another popular name when it comes to business solutions providers. 

Hubspot CRM is one of the few free solutions that provide your business with all the essential tools needed for superlative customer service. You can also opt for paid versions dedicated to your marketing, sales, operations, and customer support teams to enhance the experience even further.

When you integrate Hubspot CRM with Acefone, you will be able to place calls with just a single click on any device, improve your teams’ collaboration, and keep track of campaign and agent performance.

You will also get access to some of the best performing email templates, CTI pop-ups that display detailed customer information, reminders and follow-up notes during live calls, and much more. 

The system also lets you sync all your customer interaction data on both platforms and stay updated with scheduled reports. This gives you complete visibility of your sales pipeline in real-time.

4. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is one of the most popular sales CRM software. It visualises your sales pipelines, organises your leads in a better fashion and eases agent workload by simplifying even the most complex of tasks.

By integrating Pipedrive and Acefone together, you get access to quick dialling, easy call handling, real time reports, and a visually streamlined workflow. 

Automate your processes, such as tracking customer interactions or sending follow-up emails, with an AI-powered assistant while getting a bird’s eye view of every activity. 

Work on any device any time with a robust, user-friendly interface that keeps you up to date.

5. Freshdesk

Freshdesk CRM can extend the capabilities of your support team in providing hassle-free customer service. 

The CRM system automates all mundane and repetitive tasks and streamlines your workflow so you enjoy enhanced productivity.

Integrated with Acefone, the Freshdesk CRM offers a ticketing system that improves collaboration by letting your agents automatically tag, categorise, and assign tickets on any device of their preference. These tickets are not limited to just calls but can even be created for email interactions. 

The integration provides regular data visualisations and scheduled email reports that let you optimise your processes. You can also deploy Freddy AI, which can deliver accurate answers for quick query resolutions. The AI assistant also gives your agents suggestions for better handling of customer queries and helps distribute workload evenly.

6. Zendesk

The Zendesk CRM provides your customers with a self-help portal that lets them solve their own issues. Essentially, it enables quick query resolution while cutting down your agents’ workload. 

The user-friendly CRM comes loaded with valuable features such as call records, intuitive and actionable insights, contact management, multi-device access, and automated calls among others. It also gives you suggestions to augment lead generation.

Not just that, you can send emails to your clients with customised templates and get notified each time they open that email. 

With the integration, you’re truly able to track and manage all your interactions from end to end.

7. Microsoft Dynamics 365

Another big name to join the list of integrations is Microsoft Dynamics 365 is innovatively designed to make sure your team delivers exceptional customer service every time. It combines a CRM and an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). 

An ERP is an application that receives data from separate departments of a business and simplifies work processes in real-time. It can track anything—cash, raw materials, orders, production capacity, and payroll. The combination helps businesses better manage customer databases, engagement, new leads, and customer query resolution.

With a unified portal that tracks all contact center operations on every device and AI-backed insights, you’re able to optimise all your resources and capitalise on each customer interaction. You also get access to custom templates that help you widen your social media reach and improve your email campaigns.

The integration’s intelligent technology will also keep you up-to-date with the latest trends and empower you to make better business decisions.

8. Bitrix24

The Bitrix CRM solution is also one that’s meant to fit all budgets—you can get the free version or op for the paid plan, depending on the size of your team and business needs.

In addition to being a cloud-based CRM, Bitrix24 can also be self-hosted on your private server with an open-source code, giving you the power of customisation.

The Acefone-Bitrix24 CRM integration lets you automate tasks, run and track multiple campaigns, use your preferred device, get deep data insights, place calls with a single click and so much more. You’re also able to build customisable invoices not just once but as many times as you want to add that personalised touch.

Bitrix24 offers a user-friendly platform that you can use to add contacts or notes even during live calls, add follow-up activities, and generate leads. 

Create your own web pages without any coding, connect with as many social media channels as you like, access popular form templates (or build your own)—do whatever it takes to kick up your customer service a notch higher.  

9. Sugar CRM

SugarCRM automates all your marketing, sales, customer service teams’ tasks to help you get a better analysis of each customer interaction. Sugar’s AI analyses historical data to help your agents provide optimal customer experiences. The tool also helps you create a behaviour model for each client. 

After integrating SugarCRM with Acefone, your teams can build seamless communication channels. When they get instant access to all customer data, they provide smooth customer service and boost productivity significantly.

Your agents will have access to complete interaction history, including the most recent ones, to be able to provide contextual solutions. They will also be able to access their portal from any device that they like. This will also help you gain better customer insights and build more robust strategies. 

To sum up

For a business, connecting with customers and providing exceptional customer service is the only way to remain in the game. Acefone, with its cloud-powered features and integration capabilities, makes doing both easy.

All you have to do is assess your team’s needs and your budget, and then pick a CRM system that fits these bills. Let us know and we will be more than happy to integrate your Acefone telephony system with the CRM of your choice. 

If you still haven’t picked out a cloud communication provider for your business, you can get in touch with one of our experts at 1888-859-0450 or just drop us an email at [email protected]. Our customisable plans will surely fulfil all your communication needs.

An accountant’s life is busy from dealing with clients’ finances to onboarding new clients. Accountants rarely have a quiet day, and then, particularly during key financial periods in the year, they might need some extra support.

Accountancy firms can always increase their spend on staffing and equipment. Alternatively, they could also invest in a hosted phone system and enjoy the benefits of hiring remote workers to support them through busy hours.

This is where a digital assistant comes into consideration. Digital assistants can work remotely from any location and connect to your phone system seamlessly. They can do anything an assistant, in person, can do but are much more cost-effective than hiring someone to work on-premise.

This article will explore how a digital assistant can make accountants’ lives easier and ensure that they have the support they need in busy times without the overheads.

What is a digital assistant?

A digital assistant is a professional assistant who works remotely. They will connect remotely to your phone system and access all the information like your in-house team, but they will do so from their own compatible device.

Digital assistants can take care of administrative tasks and update customer records right from their phone system. This data is linked to your CRM so all updates are made in real-time, and customer enquiries are logged safely on your online portal.

With access to this information from their own devices, there is no need to purchase new equipment for remote digital assistants; you can simply set them up on their own devices. If you’d like to give them equipment you can, but they would only need a mobile phone connected to the internet, and they are good to go!

Digital assistants can provide customer service too, answering and transferring calls to the correct department. They can give your accountants more time to focus on their roles by answering simple customer questions and delivering fantastic customer service from the moment customers call. 

A digital assistant can do as much or as little as you need, you decide!

Digital assistants provide flexibility in your business

As an accountant, you might find that particular times of the year are busier than others—such as the end of the tax year when tasks like explaining how to fill out a W9 are more common. If this is the case, you might not need a digital assistant at all times of the year.

Cloud phone system give you the flexibility to add and remove phone lines when you need to, so you can hire as many digital assistants as you need to support your business at any point. 

With digital assistants working remotely, you are more likely to find suitable people for any temporary roles. You can hire from a talent pool potentially worldwide, with no geographical restrictions. There are always people looking for temporary roles worldwide, and you are sure to never be short of experienced applicants.

You can also increase your customer service hours to whatever you need and create a rota for digital assistants. This means that someone can be online at all times to make any enquiries and answer any queries. Without the need for extending your physical opening times, you can provide exemplary service without spending your profits to keep your office open.

Digital assistants are cost-effective

Digital assistants are a highly cost-effective solution to accountant’s problems. Suppose your employees are busy constantly answering emails and calls without getting time to deal with their day-to-day responsibilities. In that case, you could lose business from customers dissatisfied with your service.

Losing customers is, of course, costly to businesses and should be avoided wherever possible. But, you also need to think about your profitability and keeping your business’s cash flow running smoothly. A digital assistant can help with both of these issues.

Digital assistants are just paid for their time and don’t need any further investment or cause any further costs to your business. It’s free to add to your phone system, and you don’t need to account for any additional fees involved with giving them space in your office. This means that you can potentially onboard digital assistants for just the cost of their hourly rate.

As they are not generally salaried employees, you can be more selective about their working times. If you find you get many out-of-hours queries, for example, you can ensure they log on from 5 pm onwards to catch these enquiries, or early in the morning to see customers before work. 

How you use digital assistants in your business is up to you, but you can be assured that your overheads will remain unaffected by their presence. They may even increase your profits with the support of your assistant!

Digital assistants can bring in warm leads to your business

Everyone needs support with their accounts, and with more people setting up their own companies, there are plenty of potential customers out there waiting to find the right accountant.

With the help of digital assistants, you can reach out to customers without taking valuable time away from your accountant’s daily tasks. By giving your digital assistants a list of potential customers to contact, they can make the initial calls for you and add updates on customers who’d like more information. 

Having this information available to all your staff means sharing leads and following the progress from the first call to securing them as a client. With the time-consuming work taken care of by a professional digital assistant representing your business, your team can focus on converting these leads and getting more clients for the business.

Digital assistants can leave detailed notes in customer accounts so you know exactly what has been covered in each call. They can also follow up with emails for more details, all from their phone system. These notes mean that any accountant following up can see exactly what the customer is interested in and pick up where the digital assistant left off.

Digital assistants give your accountants more freedom

Due to the nature of the businesses, your accountants may need to leave the office to meet with customers. Particularly with smaller companies, leaving the office may mean missed calls and potentially missed customer conversions.

Leaving the office does not need to mean missed connections with customers with a digital assistant. Staff are free to go wherever they need to, safe in knowing that your digital assistant is there to take any messages, answer customer queries and more. 

With the freedom to leave the office without a worry, accountants can potentially secure more clients and deliver a better, more personalised service to customers. This can only mean good things for your business, and of course, more satisfied customers! 

Make accountants lives easier with a digital assistant

Overall, having a digital assistant working for your business is a fantastic way to make accountants’ lives easier. With a professional answering calls and queries on your behalf, you can ensure that customers get the information they need and that accountants can focus on their daily roles without distraction.

If you’d like to learn more about digital assistants for your accountancy business, call us today at 1888-859-0450 or email us at [email protected].

Businesses today have complex IT needs. Need such as high uptime, various computing services, disaster recovery plans, ensuring regulatory compliance and so much more. While great features facilitate better efficiency and productivity, they also need a robust and reliable system to be able to manage evolving needs and ensure business continuity.

This is possible only when such businesses opt for more than one data center. Doing so gives their system the stability it needs to facilitate seamless and effective operations.

This article will explore what a data center does and how having distributed data centers can help your business make a more informed decision when choosing a VoIP provider. 

What is a data center and what does it do?

According to Paloalto, a data center is a facility that centralises an organisation’s shared IT operations and equipment to store, process and share data. Data centers can be off-premise and located anywhere globally, without the need to exist on-premise. 

These centers can house all of your centralised IT operations safely in the cloud with no need for costly maintenance of on-site hardware. Data centers serve as a backup too. Should anything happen to your phone system or in case of an outage, having data stored in multiple centers decreases your chances of losing all your information. 

Several different factors can affect the reliability and quality of your phone service. However, none more so than the location and number of data centers your VoIP provider has available. So, customers should think carefully about the provider they choose and enquire about the number of data centers they can access with them.  

Put simply, the more data centers your hosted phone provider provides, the more reliable your service will be, and the higher quality your service will be too. 

Backup your data

We all get a sinking feeling when our system crashes and we lose valuable work. It is frustrating and inconvenient to be slowed down by such IT issues, to say the least. This is something that data centers aim to prevent from occurring.

When choosing a VoIP provider, be sure to check how frequently you back up your data. With so much information stored within your phone systems, such as customer history, preferences and more, you will want to protect it as much as you possibly can. 

If you lose this data, you may miss out on orders or even lose customers. As a business owner, you need to do all that you can to prevent this from happening.

Providers who backup data at frequent intervals are much more likely to be able to help you in your time of need. They can ensure that your business is up and running without any major delays.

But why stop there?

You can also consider looking for providers with data centers in multiple locations. If a natural disaster were to hit a particular area, providers with multiple data centers in just one location would lose all their data stored there. The end result? You would be left without a vital part of your business information corpus.

On the other hand, if the provider were to have data centers in multiple locations, destroying one of them would still not result in any data loss. Such providers will be able to restore backups quicker, keep their customers online, and help them communicate with minimal downtime. 

Having a presence in different geographical locations also means that the provider can better serve the needs of global clients. Thus, as a business owner, you should look for a provider who gives you numerous options and shouldn’t go for someone only on the basis of their prices or location.

Faster speeds and connectivity

Business moves fast, and if you wanna get ahead of the competition, you need to look for a provider who has distributed data centers. Providers with only one data center may struggle to give you the speed and connectivity you need. This owes to the fact that the bandwidth reduces when one data center is shared between your business and countless other businesses worldwide.

Having multiple data centers fixes this issue. Instead of businesses having to rely on bandwidth from one center, they’ll be able to enjoy equal speeds by utilising bandwidth from different centers. 

Moreover, if that a business with only one data center is down for some reason, organisations will have to halt their processes and may incur losses in the process. A multi-data center strategy ensures that businesses are online 24x7x365 and have easy access to their phone system or important data. 

They’re also able to benefit from edge computing, which essentially refers to pushing data computation and storage closer to the edge of the network and away from a centralised server. Doing so improves server response time and consequently, saves bandwidth.

Remember, connectivity is key to keeping your business running and competitive, and any downtime could be a chance for customers to move onto your competitors. Ensure this doesn’t happen by opting for a provider with multiple data centers to keep you going at all times.

Grow your business with nothing holding you back

Your VoIP provider should want your business to grow as much as you do. Multi-data center providers have the space and bandwidth that you need to be able to scale exponentially as and when you want to. 

They can simply add lines to your phone system with no issues and accommodate growing information as your business expands. Those with only single data centers may struggle to achieve the same, and you could experience outages or downtime as the server struggles to deal with the amount of demand being placed on it.

Whether you see your business growing now or years later, opting for a provider with multiple data centers will ultimately save you time and money. You can then invest these resources directly in supporting your business’ growth. 

Bottom line

While they may not be the most glamorous feature offered by a cloud phone system provider, data centers are the backbone of the system itself. Having multiple centers can provide an amazing array of benefits to your business, all of which contribute to consistent performance and long-term growth.

If you want peace of mind and a future-ready hosted telephony system, contact us today at 1888-859-0450 or send an email to [email protected] to discuss this with our expert team.