2016-08-22

Wouldn’t it be nice to make phone calls directly from your customer relationship manager (CRM) with just one click?  Customer relationship managers contain a wealth of useful information for a company, but sometimes it can take a while to get in sync with the customer.  Phone integration with your customer relationship manager helps to resolve this challenge.

Here is one example of a successful CRM with PBX integration.

Asterisk CRM Integration

Asterisk turns an ordinary computer into a communications server and powers IP PBX systems, VoIP gateways, conference servers and is in use today by small businesses, large businesses, call centers, carriers and governments worldwide.

A big plus with Asterisk is that it’s free and open source framework for building communications applications.  Combined with Cent OS, or other Linux operating system, it keeps the software price for your PBX system at free.  Here’s an example of an Asterisk installation in Linux Cent OS.

Introductory video on Asterisk

There are more than a million Asterisk systems in use today in over 170 countries which makes it a popular solution for PBX systems and CRM integration.  That shows that it’s stable and reliable.  It’s been around since 1999, so it’s no fly by night operation.  Because it’s open source, you can have complete customization that truly fits your company’s requirements.

If you are not a developer or tech saavy, there are pre-packaged solutions built on Asterisk available on the market.

CRM and PBX Integration

In a sales or customer service setting, information related to a customer can be fetched directly from the CRM and displayed on the screen of the agent even before he/she picks up the phone, making company and customer relationships as smooth and personable than ever.

Compatibility with CRMs

Asterisk is compatible with various CRMs.  Since Asterisk is open-source, it creates a market for various 3rd party developers to provide plugins that integrate it with other CRMs.  One seamless integration for example, is with SugarCRM; combined with a communications application like Asterisk through SuiteCRM Asterisk Integration, can help streamline and automate your customer calling.

Features and Benefits of this integration

Click to call allows you to dial directly from the CRM

Call logs – Every incoming and outgoing call is logged and recorded into Sugar CRM

Save Notes – Save notes on every call

Call Analytics – Get reporting when this feature is enabled

Popups – Caller info pop up windows generated for every call, enables pick up/hang up/call transfer

Extra Features – include create tasks, schedule calls, create contacts, accounts, leads, cases and more

Here is an example of how it works:

While we found this integration to be pretty seamless, there are a number of CRM products available for integration with Asterisk.

Here are some more products and solutions available for such integration:

Aptus FonB

Agile CRM – VoIP integration

asterCC

EspoCRM

Indosoft

Callinize for SugarCRM

SugarForge

SugarCRM

Thirdlane integrates with Salesforce, Sugar, vTiger, Zoho and other CRMs

vTiger

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