What Is Contact Center CTI (Computer Telephony Integration)?

Computer telephony integration, or CTI, is the technology that allows phones and computers to interact in call centers. Using features like screen pops, automatic dialing, routing, and call monitoring, CTI systems can increase efficiency and provide a better customer experience. Seamless CTI integration allows teams juggling more calls than they can manage to overcome long wait times and employee burnout.

Though the technology has been around since 1992, newer CTI integrations for chat, SMS, video, and social media have evolved the “call centers” of years past into modern-day contact centers. Deepening integrations between CTI platforms and customer relationship management (CRM) companies facilitate robust information sharing and bring people together like never before.

How does CTI technology work?

CTI is part of a larger technology stack used by call center agents—often including CRM, internal communication tools, data storage systems, and more. All this information must be accessible to agents fielding calls to help them engage in productive conversations and quickly work toward solutions.

First, the contact center telephony switch captures incoming calls. Next, the CTI platform stores data from the call and prompts a ticket in the CRM system. Then, the agent receives data from the call in a screen pop and answers, already knowing the customer’s name, reason for calling, and service history.

Key CTI technology features include:

• Advanced phone controls: Centralized computer dashboards allow agents to put callers on hold, mute themselves, and transfer calls to other agents. By using one integrated channel, agents avoid unnecessary distractions caused by switching from phone to computer.
• Automated dialing: Automated outgoing calls enable sales teams to reach more prospects, increase business, and send out bulk announcements whenever needed.
• Automated screen pops: Screen pops show agents the name, contact information, and call history they need to quickly and effectively respond to incoming calls.
• Caller authentication: Incoming call numbers automatically log into the company’s database. Screening incoming calls reduces the amount of information callers must give—minimizing hassle for customers and call time for agents.
• Call monitoring: Monitoring live calls can help resolve disputes, evaluate agent performance, and train new contact center staff. Managers and coaches can listen in real time to lend a hand as needed.
• Data recording: Touch-tone phone entries or voice recordings can extract caller information and integrate it into the system to inform agents and save detailed records of calls.
• Intelligent call routing: Automatic call distributor (ACD) and interactive voice response (IVR) route calls to available agents in departments best equipped to handle the issue. Identifying callers by need and CTI routing reduce wait time and accelerate resolutions.

Benefits of contact center CTI

Typically, contact centers or customer service departments with high call volumes use CTI, but the technology can also accommodate business scaling when implemented from the ground up. The features and functionality are the primary CTI benefits, but the business case for CTI extends much further. CTI also:

1. Empowers agents

Employees appreciate access to resources and tools to be more productive. When their jobs are easier, they’re able to better serve customers, improving their performance scores. In an industry with a notoriously high turnover rate, implementing solutions that reduce manual labor and frustration can validate employees’ feelings.

2. Enhances customer experiences

One negative customer service experience can cause someone to defect to a competitor. Providing agents with more information and greater capabilities puts the customer first. Rather than sitting on hold for an hour or answering the same questions repeatedly, customers enjoy a frictionless, expedited path to satisfaction. Customers can take confidence knowing that the agents handling their calls have had proper training by listening to recordings and receiving live coaching experiences proven to elevate efficiency.

3. Increases revenue

Operating on a lean budget is the goal of nearly every for-profit enterprise. Long hold times mean more call lines and more agents to handle the call volume, which leads to abandoned callers and potential loss of business. Companies that use CTI technology can better resolve customer complaints in a timely manner to increase referrals and 5-star reviews and generate additional business.

Learn more about Twilio CTI capabilities

Call center operators will stumble across numerous advantages to investing in CTI in the future. Contact centers can get a CTI phone number and access CTI telephony through a contact center as a service (CCaaS) provider or by building a custom platform. Increasingly, companies are choosing the latter option, as using programmable APIs to build a contact center creates a flexible and superior customer experience at scale.

Twilio Flex is a world-class custom contact center platform. With our programmable APIs, businesses can deploy a cloud contact center with all the bells and whistles in a matter of days rather than months. Designing the ideal agent experience results in 38% lower handling times due to improved access to back-end information.

Businesses will also find that Twilio Flex provides seamless operation by integrating with all the systems already used—most notably Salesforce. Supercharging omnichannel customer communications with the Flex Salesforce CTI is now available at no extra cost with a Flex license. With single sign-on and a single interface, Twilio customers enjoy the combined power of Flex and Salesforce working as one.