Implementation of SMART Connector for Binotel at SOFTICO

SOFTICO is one of the leaders in the Ukrainian software solutions market and has an extensive partner network. Working with more than 1,500 partners throughout Ukraine, the company provides a wide selection of products, qualified consultations, technical support and efficient logistics.

Did you know that Hamburg ranks first in Europe in terms of the number of bridges with more than 2,500 of them in the city? But today we’ll talk about other bridges, invisible unlike the Hamburg ones, but playing an equally important role in the modern world. You will agree that scaling a business is akin to building bridges that allow you to lay out new routes to achieve strategic goals. SOFTICO, which is one of the ambassadors of IT distribution in Ukraine, has already built many such bridges to expand the range of opportunities for its customers. The main material that ensures the reliability and durability of these bridges is strong and effective communication with partners and customers. Therefore, SOFTICO makes a lot of efforts to improve and develop customer service, strengthening it with innovative solutions.

One of the latest such improvements is the integration of the IP telephony connector with the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales platform. To achieve this goal, the SMART business team offered their expert assistance and the SMART Connector for Binotel solution itself. The connector allows you to automate the processes of receiving and making calls, and most importantly, synchronizes the history of these interactions with the CRM system. For SOFTICO, this important implementation was another newly built bridge, strengthening the connection between the company and its customers and partners. Today we want to talk about this in more detail.

How does SOFTICO provide businesses with access to the best innovative solutions and software from world leaders?

For more than ten years, SOFTICO has been providing both Ukrainian and other regional markets with IT solutions that occupy leading positions in the most authoritative international ratings. The company’s product portfolio includes more than 400 vendors, including Microsoft, Bitdefender, ESET, Tableau, TeamViewer, Brandefence, BotGuard, IRIS, ABBYY, Adobe, Corel, Dassault Systemes, Holm Security. Thus, the SOFTICO team reduces the distance between business and innovation thanks to powerful trendsetters on the world stage:

We can say with confidence that today SOFTICO covers all areas where modern technologies are used: cybersecurity, infrastructure solutions, CAD and graphics, analytics, technical support, training and in general everything related to software integration. Our team can select the optimal turnkey solution for each customer, which will automate business processes and help achieve strategic goals more effectively. This is our mission and the goal that drives us. Therefore, we are continually improving our professional skills and services. We are constantly developing the SOFTICO family ecosystem, where each of our customers and partners is a faithful companion with whom we together make this world more convenient, progressive and better.

Sergey Kovrizhnih

Head of Marketing

SOFTICO’s high-quality customer service is based on well-functioning communication processes down to the smallest detail. It is for them that the SMART business team also clearly calibrated the proposed SMART Connector for Binotel solution so that the mechanism works perfectly.

SOFTICO is a group of companies working on tasks in different areas. The integration of SMART Connector for Binotel was focused primarily on the department working with end customers and the department working with partners. Everything is arranged in such a way that each manager is assigned a separate customer or partner. This factor played an important role in finding the necessary solution. The connector had to provide flexible distribution of calls between specialists so that they do not overlap with each other. Therefore, the company paid great attention to routing capabilities.

SMART Connector for Binotel has many advantages in this regard compared to other competitive solutions. The connector provides the ability to use Binotel’s smart forwarding in full functionality, which makes it possible to quickly and easily set up call routing rules. For example, forward calls based on which manager is assigned to a specific customer or partner.

The SOFTICO team always works for results and tries to resolve issues of customers and partners within one call to minimize the waiting time of people who have trusted them. After all, time is of the essence when it comes to providing quality customer support. The company has a department of engineers who have more in-depth technical knowledge of the products. SMART Connector for Binotel enables users to forward calls to other specialists during a conversation. It is also convenient that the entire history of such switchings and the duration of each call phase is saved in the company’s CRM system.

This approach makes it possible to increase the efficiency of service, since partners and customers are guaranteed to get to the managers who are the most knowledgeable and competent in their issues. The routing, thought out to the smallest detail, increases the level of callers’ satisfaction and significantly reduces the Average Handling Time indicator. Therefore, the new solution had to be fully consistent with the developed business processes and strengthen them.

Prerequisites for integrating SMART Connector for Binotel from SMART business

From the very beginning of its operation, SOFTICO has been a provider of quality standards determined by current global trends and tendencies. The company shows by its own example that modern business should not be afraid of change, and the introduction of innovation is an inseparable component of scaling. So, SOFTICO abandoned the previous version of the CRM system, which it had been using for many years. The team migrated its business processes to a comprehensive solution, Dynamics 365 Sales, which is more oriented to international standards. This platform was developed by Microsoft and is one of the best on the market, integrating advanced tools for customer relationship management, sales work and data analysis. With Dynamics 365 Sales, companies can more effectively build strong relationships with customers and partners, monitor service processes, operate strategic forecasts, automate routine tasks for managers, and most importantly, increase their sales. Therefore, SOFTICO had a request for high-quality integration of Binotel IP telephony with the new system.

Significant emphasis was placed on creating calls from the CRM field in one click. The SOFTICO team reached out to several integrators regarding the availability of this feature. Unfortunately, they all offered solutions that required many more steps to initiate calls, which was not what was expected. The company wanted managers to be as productive as possible and not waste time surfing between different tabs and unnecessary actions. The company wanted a specialist to simply go into the entity they needed, click on the phone number and make a call. SMART Connector for Binotel provides this capability of calling in one click. This convenient feature makes it easier and faster for users to create calls. Now the manager can quickly find the necessary contact without the need to manually enter a phone number and make a call in one click.

Another important requirement was the ability to view a recording of the call and listen to it or forward it to another specialist within one working page. Of course, handling conversation recording was also offered by other integrators, but only the solution from SMART business allowed this to be done within one working window, without switching to others.

SOFTICO cares about reducing the routine actions of managers so that they have more time for live communication with customers and partners. Taking this into account, another need arose that a new solution was supposed to provide, namely the creation of tickets while dealing with lost calls:

Now we have everything set up in such a way that every call automatically generates a ticket. This approach allows us to maximize our communication with customers and partners and consult everyone. That is, if there is a lost call, then the automation process is set up for it. In this case, the manager receives a notification by email. If the notification is not processed, the manager soon receives reminders in Teams. Next, if after half an hour the lost call is not picked up, a notification is sent to the supervisor. Thus, the integration of SMART Connector for Binotel helps us minimize unanswered calls.

Daryna Prokopova

Quality Assurance Manager

Thus, the SMART business team took into account all the customer needs and carried out high-quality integration of the solution, which increased the level of SOFTICO customer service. In addition to the above advantages, the integration of SMART Connector for Binotel with Dynamics 365 Sales provided the following:

• Automatic identification of customers based on various scenarios:
  – a customer with this phone number has not been found,
  – more than one customer with this phone number has been found,
  – the customer has been identified.
• Automatic creation of new customer cards: the connector can automatically create a new record in the CRM system about a contact or lead when a customer calls for the first time. This allows specialists to quickly create records of new leads and store all important information about interaction with them in one centralized system,
• Ability to view complete information about a found customer by quickly navigating from the phone call card,
• Web Push notification of an incoming call: the browser shows the manager a pop-up notification even if the window is inactive or minimized. Such a notification may contain the caller’s number, name, e-mail, company name, etc. The notification makes it possible to quickly respond to incoming calls and identify callers,
• Collection and analysis of call results: the solution can collect and analyze call data. It is possible to analyze them by day, that is, when exactly the calls were made, to group them for further analysis. The system can also determine which managers made or handled specific calls, for example to evaluate the performance of each specialist. The solution can determine which user groups the calls belong to, dividing them into different departments or teams. Information can also be distributed taking into account different call directions: outgoing, incoming, domestic or international,
• Listening to call history on a timeline: the connector makes it possible to view in chronological order all the calls that a customer made or received during a certain period. This way, managers can track all interactions with a specific customer via telephony. Users can view the details of each conversation, such as date, time, duration, incoming or outgoing call, and participants in the conversation. Visualizing this information on a timeline allows you to conveniently identify trends, changes, and other important aspects of customer interaction via telephony. Convenient visualization contributes to a better understanding of individual cases.

Get even more capabilities with SMART Connectors – an add-on solution for integrating your CRM system with modern applications, services and channels for effective interaction with customers throughout the entire lifecycle:

How did the integration of SMART Connector for Binotel go and what tangible changes have occurred in customer service?

The connection of SMART Connector for Binotel occurred just during the migration of business processes of the SOFTICO team from the old CRM system to Dynamics 365 Sales. Of course, it always takes time to adapt and get used to something new. At the first stages, managers had many questions about working with the new system. But this was not the first migration of SOFTICO in the direction of improvement and innovation, so the team already had an adaptation plan in place. Additionally, on its side, the company drafted internal user guides for the new CRM system and SMART Connector for Binotel to make the transition process easy. It should be noted that when developing the connector for Binotel IP telephony, the SMART business team made sure that the integration process was as comfortable and friendly as possible. This manifests itself in the fact that the solution has:

1. Clear supporting documentation that helps specialists on the customer’s side deal with the main issues of integrating the solution with the CRM system,
2. Quick deployment of the connector: the SMART business team will help you quickly plan and implement SMART Connector for Binotel without harming existing business processes. After all, this is a ready-made solution that allows you to independently connect and configure the integration of Dynamics 365 and virtual telephony in just 4 hours, without involving developers,
3. Simple initial setup: the process of setting up the connector is simple and intuitive. This factor allows users to quickly start using the solution without significant effort or deep specific knowledge,
4. Possibility of expanding the functionality of the connector: SMART business is constantly working to expand the functionality of its own solutions, which allows customers to access new tools in future releases.

Considering the above factors, the integration of SMART Connector for Binotel with the SOFTICO CRM system was successful and within the specified deadlines, and the first results were not long in coming:

SOFTICO always pays great attention to communication with customers and partners, setting a high bar for service quality. We have never had periods with many lost calls or long processing times. Of course, the full-scale war made its adjustments and forced us to make even more efforts to keep the indicators not just at the proper level, but also to improve them. If we talk about numbers, then in 2022 there were 232 lost calls. The average response time was 1 minute 32 seconds. For comparison, since the introduction of the new CRM system and the connection of SMART Connector for Binotel – for 2023 and the beginning of 2024 – the number of lost calls has decreased to 64. The average response time is 25 seconds. This is while the number of leads has almost tripled. We consider this a very good trend.

Daryna Prokopova

Quality Assurance Manager

Currently, SOFTICO managers handle an average of 90 calls per day. The workload can grow almost three times depending on the company’s webinars or other marketing activities. At the same time, the solution from SMART business fully copes with all volumes and is ready for any challenges associated with the relentless scaling of SOFTICO.

As we can see, the integration of SMART Connector for Binotel with Dynamics 365 Sales provides significant benefits for customer service, where companies strive to optimize business processes and improve the quality of communication with partners and customers. To dispel the last doubts, here are a few more compelling arguments why integrating the connector from SMART business is beneficial:

1. Improving communication with customers and partners: thanks to extensive functionality, for example, identification, call recording, routing, automatic ticket creation, employees receive a comprehensive tool for more personalized and efficient service,
2. Increased productivity of managers: thanks to the automation of routine tasks, such as creating customer cards, making calls, recording calls, uploading audio files and much more, the workload on specialists is reduced. With SMART Connector for Binotel, managers can focus on resolving customer issues and requests without unnecessary distractions,
3. Convenient access to analytics: integration allows you to collect, store and analyze call data. Clear analytics provide valuable insights for managing sales and customer service,
4. Effective integration with other tools: the connector is tolerant of integration with business applications and Microsoft services. This friendliness of the solution allows it to be integrated with the company’s established ecosystem.

Together, all these factors help improve the efficiency of interaction with customers and partners. Ultimately, this contributes to business growth and strengthening market positions.

The implementation of SMART Connector for Binotel in collaboration between SOFTICO and SMART business is an ideal example of how synergy between two IT companies can create a successful solution that improves business efficiency and helps provide better service, ensuring reliability in every customer interaction.

Lidiia Kronikovska

Senior CRM Consultant, Business Architect

Some tips to businesses from SOFTICO on what to look for when implementing new solutions and choosing an innovation provider

Now that the integration of SMART Connector for Binotel is over, the SOFTICO team shared valuable tips from their own implementation retrospective:

Based on our experience, when choosing a new CRM system or IP telephony connector, we would advise you to quickly move on to testing the product. At each stage, collect feedback from company employees who will directly work with the implementation: what is not so convenient and what is absolutely not satisfactory. Comprehensive feedback will be the most valuable information for both you and your integration partner. This is exactly how we built our process with the SMART business team, which always provided high-quality and timely technical support, was open to suggestions and helped us make all the necessary adjustments.

Sergey Kovrizhnih

Senior Head of Marketing

Indeed, it is extremely important for businesses to pay attention specifically to the support component of the company, which will be involved in implementing new solutions or integrating individual tools. After all, how quickly the adaptation of employees will take place and the implementation will start working for your benefit depends on the efficiency and quality of the partner’s support. Because today time is too valuable a resource in the volatile modern market, where every minute matters.

The SMART business team focuses primarily on the success of its customers. The company provides not only technical support, but also strategic consultations that allow businesses to achieve the desired results as quickly as possible. And the successful case of integration of SMART Connector for Binotel for SOFTICO is a clear confirmation of this!

Don’t hesitate and start building strong business connections using SMART Connectors tools now.