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One of the most outstanding features of inConcert is that it provides powerful contact center integration capabilities with ERPs to optimize business processes. In this interview, Rodrigo de Andrés, InConcert Regional Manager explains the advantages of this type of integration and some use cases in marketing and customer service.
What are the main advantages of integrating a contact center platform with the company's ERP?
In the contact center industry, agents or advisors are often forced to: use multiple management applications. They usually have 5 to 10 applications open at the same time to carry out their tasks (email, Excel, telephony solutions, ERP system, CRM), all in a disaggregated way. This involves an overload of work because you have to be interacting with multiple systems or copying information from one to the other at a time, and it's not the most efficient thing to do.
The main advantage of integrating the contact center is that, in the case of inConcert, it allows connecting to multiple sources of information, to obtain or deposit system data. Instead of communicating with different contact solutions, the agent centralizes omnichannel interactions in a single interface, and in addition, all the information is presented to you in a single view. Thus, the agent will be more efficient in responding, identifying the information as soon as he receives the communication; without the need to ask him questions to identify who he is or what his account number is, for example.
In addition to this simplicity from the point of view of efficiency, there are important safety advantages. If a company outsources the contact center service to a provider (such as a BPO), it is often not convenient to give users direct access to the ERP. What InConcert solves is that you get a single data entry point -the core contact center solution-, directly against the ERP. Thus, users - many of them working from home - are not accessing an entire ERP system in a different way. Access is limited to what the user requires at that time. This is important for both data protection and connectivity, in addition to saving ERP licensing costs.
👉 Read more: Keys to integrating CRM with contact center
What integration facilities does InConcert offer?
InConcert has always had middleware in its core, and graphic tools to interact with it and configure it. By means of a drag-and-drop design tool it is possible to configure the integration with those systems, in a simple and user-friendly way, shortening integration times.
Could you tell us about some application cases?
We have developed several projects. For example, for international fast food chains, a CRM interface for taking orders. This interacts directly with the kitchen of each of the restaurants of these companies. Orders are shipped directly, integrated into the order management and billing system. This has two advantages: first of all The CRM interface is usually more user-friendly than that of an ERP for the daily use of an agent; and second, access is centralized in a single tool, preventing the agent from moving from one application to another.
We also develop important projects for bottlers. We create WhatsApp Bot and voice bot with artificial intelligence, automating the taking of orders. This is directly integrated with the ERP and generates the order registration, which triggers the logistics of dispatching the order to each store or warehouse.
Can the integration take place in other solutions besides the Omnichannel Contact Center?
Indeed, the inConcert's portfolio of solutions It has a module of Help Desk What is the sum of the platform the possibility of have BPM (Business Process Management) type processes within a company. We have several cases of companies in the retail and food sector that, although they interact at the contact center level to receive the customer's request, complaint or query, this triggers actions that do not necessarily remain in the orbit of the contact center.
For example, in a multi-brand appliance store, a customer complains by email about the failure of a refrigerator, the contact center takes the complaint but is not the unit responsible for solving the problem. InConcert Help Desk It is the solution that integrates with all logistics system processes, ERP and technical support from the different brands of that company. Instead of accessing an ERP, taking all the information from the case and analyzing it; the company's employee gets a summarized and specific way what he has to do, on the shortest path.
We have cases of customers with 40 contact center positions, but 400 Help Desk licenses, because there are complaints that come directly into the store. The agent only has to document the case; who automatically scales to the corresponding area using workflows integrated with the ERP.
Does this type of integration also apply to marketing and sales?
Yes, we work several cases with the inConcert Marketing solution, which optimizes investment in digital media that require contact center assistance to close the sale (such as the sale of cars, insurance, telecommunications, banking and financial products, which are not yet specified in an e-commerce).
This process requires integration with an ERP to register the user and initiate credit authorization, for example. All of this integration is done at the InConcert level. The investment comes as a lead to the marketing platform, which generates automations to define the most optimal “journey” that lead should follow. You are then referred to the contact center for immediate contact. This is the one who integrates the information collected in that first contact with the processes that follow later in the backoffice or the ERP.
