Apart from its low upfront investment, overall operating costs, scalability, and wider reach, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solutions are highly preferred by businesses today because of their rich set of phone features. And in fact, most VoIP service providers include features with their service! One of the most popular and advanced features that companies find highly useful is the ability to integrate with other business applications and software. This feature cannot be found in traditional phone systems, and has helped many businesses and companies easily merge and organize their information across different applications.

Integrating VoIP with other business tools allows VoIP to go beyond just inbound and outbound calls. Integration lets organizations do more without the need for additional infrastructure. This reduces the costs even further and leads to quicker customer service and better return on investment.

Do you want to add more value to your VoIP deployment? Then make sure your business phone system offers integration with the following types of business software and applications:

CRM software is designed to help businesses collect and organize customer data and interaction, as well as automate sales and manage employee, vendor, and customer relations. Syncing your phone system with your CRM software brings plenty of benefits to your business. For one, it will help you deliver better customer service, as your staff can quickly pull up customer records during calls. It also lets you measure your staff’s performance by identifying their strengths and weaknesses through call analytics. Some examples of popular CRM solutions that integrate with leading business VoIP services today include Salesforce, Zendesk, and SugarCRM.

While many business VoIP service providers have reliable infrastructure and measures in place to avoid the risk of losing customer data, it’s also prudent for organizations to take steps towards guarding their own data. One solution is to use cloud storage or a backup service. Most VoIP solutions can easily be connected with cloud services such as Dropbox, Box, and Google Drive. This allows users to automatically copy their VoIP information (including customer contact records, recorded calls, messages, and other important information) to the cloud in a secure way. These cloud storage services also let users transfer and share files with robust security and simplicity.

Accounting software like Quickbooks helps small businesses keep track of their expenses, send invoices, manage taxes, and more. Linking your accounting software with your VoIP phone system will help you manage your financial transactions efficiently, especially when it comes to billing customers. For instance, the QuickBooks plugin offered by Vonage enables users to view customer or vendor financial information for every inbound or outbound call. This means that whenever a customer calls to inquire about their billing, you no longer have to put them on hold to dig up their records. The information shows on your screen as soon as they call.
 

Integrating your VoIP phone system with these critical applications definitely delivers greater business benefits. Applications like the ones mentioned above help companies expand the capability of their phone solution, increase staff efficiency, and provide better service to customers.