How Salesforce integration with Samespace at Simplilearn helped our business grow?
Simplilearn is the world’s #1 online bootcamp for digital economy skills training focused on helping people acquire the skills they need to thrive in the digital economy. Our aim isn’t just to impart training, we ensure that the training adds value to our learners. We focus on overall customer satisfaction by proactively engaging with our learners, answering their queries and providing instant support in case of any issues. The dedication to our learners is fulfilled not just by our team working 24*7 to resolve the issues, but also through the latest technologies that we have in place to expedite the process. One such technology that’s critical to run our business is Computer Telephony Integration (CTI). We at Simplilearn have adopted one such CTI tool called “Samespace” and we’ll describe the integration in this post.
Challenges faced by the Customer Support Team before adopting CTI?
Computer telephony integration (CTI) is a term used to describe any technology that enables computers to interact with telephones. To handle our business including Sales, Service and Support, we use world’s leading CRM “Salesforce”. Salesforce has the capability to integrate with a number of CTI tools, Samespace being one of them. There were a number of challenges that we were looking to address when we decided to adapt to Samespace. Some of which are:
- Limited Agents’ productivity: Our business largely depends on the productivity of our Sales and Support team. They work round the clock to fix queries or issues that our learners face. Earlier, resolution of a case entailed a lot of manual work, which was time consuming and prone to errors. This is where an automated solution greatly helps.
- Low Visibility to Client’s details during an Inbound call: To provide a quick resolution to the learners who call us for support, it’s important to have visibility to the client details and their history. Earlier, when an inbound call would come, the ISMs would have to manually look up for the client details based on the number they’re calling from. This added to the increase in the response time.
- High call routing time for callers: At Simplilearn, we have different teams that handle different requests. So, a call mapped to a team that doesn’t know the resolution to the problem adds delay in fixing the issues.
- Manual closure of tickets based on the cases raised: The agent manually creates and tracks the closure of a ticket for an inbound call. The automation of the process could greatly reduce the support time.
- Inability to capture key reporting metrics: In a large organization like Simplilearn, it’s important to have an efficient reporting process for metrics like average call time, abandoned calls, analytics of the user group, etc.
To solve the problems above, we evaluated a few solutions and decided to integrate Samespace with our existing system.
What is Samespace?
Samespace is a platform that simplifies communication for sales, support & other customer-facing teams. Businesses can seamlessly engage with customers using voice or chat, monitor conversations as they happen and manage teams at scale. They can reach more leads with lesser effort, match the right support and quickly resolve customer issues, resulting in better brand loyalty.
How does Samespace integrate with Salesforce?
Samespace comes as an AppExchange Managed Package on Salesforce. One can download the product from the AppExchange. The managed package comes with pre-installed Configuration and customization components like the Samespace Dock, Samespace Layout configuration, Call center configuration, etc. Apart from the Salesforce features, Samespace offers a Web portal with various configuration options which will be discussed in the upcoming sections.
End to End Flow
The below steps outlines the end to end sequence of steps starting from the learner dialing in with their issues until the resolution of their queries by the respective team.
- Learner dials into the Simplilearn toll free number
- Using Viva as the service provider, the trunk call is routed to 3CX** where it’s forwarded to the Call Flow Apps.
** 3CX is a software-based private branch exchange (PBX) based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard. It enables extensions to make calls via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. We’ll discuss this in more detail in our upcoming posts. - In 3CX Call Flow designer, which configures the call flow apps, the call is directed to the IVR
- The IVR presents the users with the options to either connect to the Sales / Support / other queries.
- Based on the user selection, the call is routed to the extension configured in 3CX
- There’s an extension configured for each region. Based on the mobile number of the caller, the call is forwarded to the Samespace number using the trunk configured in 3CX. For each number, an outbound rule is configured to direct the call to Samespace.
- The call goes to the IVR Flow at Samespace and is assigned to the respective team/queue. The IVR configuration provides learners with various options to choose from. They can get their information either from the IVR itself or their calls are directed to the agent to speak to.
- The ISMs receive inbound call on their Salesforce Samespace Docker.
- If the call is for Support, the Contact number/email of the caller is matched with existing user details. If a match is found, the case details are displayed to the agent where he/she can update the record details based on the learner’s input. This has been achieved using a custom Salesforce Lightning Component.
The tool does come with some limitations as well.
When integrated with Salesforce, Samespace works flawlessly with the Lightning version. But, it leads to some issues with the Classic version. The auto popup of case details during an Inbound call needs installation of Samespace Chrome Extension in Classic.
What features does Samespace portal provide?
Let’s take a look at some of the features that the Samespace Web Portal provides.
- Analytics: This provides a real time analysis and statistics for the Inflow and Outflow calls.
2. Pulse (Live): This displays the count of agents that are Online and the calls that are active.
3. Teams: Within each company, there are multiple support teams that are responsible for handling issues related to different areas. This section gives an overview of the various teams available and the users within each. Using this, the agents can also transfer calls between the teams.
4. Studio: It allows call routing through the creation of IVRs for the inbound calls.
5. Autodialler: The support team can use the Autodialler functionality to make calls to the campaigns. The lead details can either be loaded from a CSV or through the records from Salesforce.
6. Salesforce CTI: Once Samespace is connected with Salesforce, it provides a UI Interface where the agents can either make calls from the record level or receive inbound calls from the learners.
Benefits of the Salesforce Integration with Samespace at Simplilearn
With the Samespace integration, we were able to fix our customers’ problems and improve our process substantially on the Support side.
- Faster Customer Support: With Samespace and Salesforce, the inbound calls are now accurately routed to the right teams. When the call is received, the caller details along with their history is automatically displayed to the agent. Based on the history, the existing case is opened or a new case is created along with the details provided by the learner. This helps in better case tracking and closure and hence faster delivery rate.
- Better Reporting: Samespace provides extensive reports about average call time, abandoned calls, availability of the agent, etc. This gives a bigger picture on areas that have been going well and the processes that may need improvement. For example : If many calls are being routed to a team which handles queries around a specific course, it may mean that more agents need to be assigned to that team.
- Improved process for call routing: Samespace offers an easily configurable process for IVR Call routing. It saves the agent from writing lines of code to configure the process and could be done with ease.
To summarize, CTI tools are very important in a model where customer interaction and quick resolution is the key to business growth. Choosing the right tool is even more important to handle maintenance and future scalability. That was our story of Samespace Integration with the Salesforce ecosystem. We will be happy to know your story. Have you implemented a CTI Tool in your organization? Which tool worked for you and how did it help your business grow?
