Working with Built-in Telephony

Working with Built-in Telephony

In most businesses, a large volume of calls are made and received each day. These calls often contain information like customer pain points, expectations, or feedback that helps the organization perform better, so they are vitally important. To ensure that these conversations are kept secure and remove third-party dependencies, Zoho CRM allows you to build a telephony framework autonomously in your organization.
 
The built-in telephony feature synchronizes with other CRM functions to provide exceptional user experience and increase user productivity. You can make calls, manage call queuing using interactive prompts, record calls, monitor call history, evaluate user performance using call reports, and manage payments and subscriptions all by yourself. You can also configure automations based on the calls and feed call data into overall CRM reports. 

Availability
Permission required
Users with Administrator permission can set up this feature.

Pricing Overview for Built-in Telephony

  1. An organization can have multiple phone numbers which are cumulatively managed using credits.
  1. 1 Credit equals $1 US . The cost of the credits will be converted into your local currency for the transaction.
  2. Credits will be spent on:
    1. Number maintenance:  The organization will be charged in credits each month based on the number type and country.
    2. Recording storage : Zoho provides 1000 minutes of free recording storage for each organization. If the limit is exceeded, new recordings will not be saved. To extend the recording storage, you can upgrade the telephony plan.
Upgrade plans:
25,000 minutes: 100 credits/month
50,000 minutes: 175 credits/month
100,000 minutes: 300 credits/month
  1. Call activity : Credits will be debited from the wallet for both incoming and outgoing call activities.Click  here  to view the call rates for built-in telephony.
This charge for call activity is not debited monthly, it is based on the call usage. You will need to recharge the numberwhen the credits are low or choose to auto recharge whenever the available credits fall below a set amount.

Managing Built-in Telephony

Manage Numbers

Built-in telephony is designed to host multiple numbers at the same time. There are three types of phone numbers you can buy:  Local, Mobile, and Toll-free, which you can mix and match to meet all your business requirements. For example, you can designate a number to make outgoing calls, one number to handle incoming queries regarding a product and another for a service, one number as a customer support hotline, the possibilities are endless. 
To manage numbers and buy additional numbers
  1. Go to  Setup  >  Channels  >  Telephony > Installed > Built-in- Details .
  2. In the Zoho Telephony home page, click on Manage > Manage Numbers. 

    View the details of existing numbers on the      Manage Numbers page, or, click  Buy a Number.  
  3. Choose the Country, Number Type, and Region and choose a number from the list of available phone numbers.
  4. Click  Next. 
  5. Verify the purchase summary and click  Buy phone number.
Note: There is no limit on the number of phone numbers an organization can have.

Auto-Recharge Credits

When you use multiple phone numbers, enabling the auto-recharge option will help you maintain an optimal credit balance. As soon as the minimum balance limit is reached, the wallet will be automatically recharged with the predefined amount of credits.
To enable auto-recharging credits
  1. Click Auto Recharge on the Zoho in-built telephony home page.
  2. Toggle Would you like to enable Auto Recharge? on.
  3. Enter the number of credits to add in the  Credits To Be Added When Balance Goes Below Minimum Balance field.
  4. Enter the minimum number of credits for your account in the Minimum Balance Limit field.
  5. Click Save.

 Manage Call Queuing 

Call queuing allows you to manage incoming calls efficiently by automatically assigning the callers to the next available users. During the waiting period, you can either play music or play prerecorded announcements.  
  1. Play music: You can choose to play the system-defined music or upload your own music files to play while callers are waiting. If you choose to play custom music, you can add it as either an audio file or an audio URL.
  2. Make an announcement while waiting: If you would like to make announcements about your product or the status of the call as the callers are waiting, you can either select the system-defined message or you can add your own announcement as a text script, an audio file, or an audio URL.
To manage call queuing
  1. Go to  Setup > Channels > Telephony > Installed > Built-in - Details.
  2. Select  Call Queue on the  Incoming Call Routing page.
  3. Select the maximum number of callers you want to allow in the queue in the Maximum Caller in the Queue field.
  4. Select the maximum amount of time a caller can be in the queue for in the Maximum waiting time in the queue field.
  5. Select either Default Music or Customize Music in the Music while waiting field.
  6. If Customize Music is selected, choose  Audio file or  Audio URL. 
  7. Choose an announcement from the  Announcement While Waiting dropdown or click  Customize Announcement. 

Note: 
You can queue up to  25 callers at a time and for each caller, you can set a waiting time for up to 25 minutes.

Manage Call Recording

Listening to recordings of your calls helps you understand customers' pain points and also allows managers to check and manage call quality. The recordings can be used to evaluate employees' performance, evaluate customer expectations, and ensure that the company guidelines are adhered to. 
You can record both incoming and outgoing calls and they will be stored in the Zoho File System. Zoho provides 1000 minutes of free storage space for each organization. If you exceed this limit, admins will be notified and new recordings will not be stored.
The recording storage usage will be displayed as a chart so that the admins can monitor the organization's storage usage. Admins can manage recording storage in two ways:
  1. Delete recordings automatically 3 months or 6 months after the date of recording.
  2. Upgrade the recording storage plan: 
  1. 25,000 minutes: 100 credits/month 
  2. 50,000 minutes: 175 credits/month
  3. 100,000 minutes: 300 credits/month
To manage recording storage 
  1. On the Zoho Telephony page. go to  Manage> Manage Recording Storage.
  2. On the recording storage page: 
    1. Select  Delete Recordings after 3 or 6 months to delete old recordings automatically.
    2. Click  Change Storage Plan to upgrade your recording storage.
  1. Select the required plan on the  Change Storage Plan page and click Next. 
  2. Validate the purchase summary and click  Buy Storage. 

View Call History

You can view and download the call report to help you oversee your operations and manage your telephony subscriptions. The report displays information like the call owner, call type, call from, call to, date and time, duration, recording duration, the credits charged for each activity, and includes an option to play the call recording. You can also filter the report based on the call type, call owner, or the month of the call activity.
To view and download the call report
  1. On the Zoho Telephony page, click  View Call History.
  2. On the  Call Report  page: 
    1. Click the funnel icon to filter the call report based on Call Type, Call Owner, or Time of Call.
    2. Click  Download to download the call history to your device.
  3. Click  Done.

    • Related Articles

    • Using Built-In Telephony

      Once built-in telephony is set up, users can personalize their phone preferences, manage user availability, make outgoing calls, receive calls, view calls in conversation and calls in queue, and add follow-up activities in CRM. Set User Availability  ...

    • Configuring built-in telephony in Zoho CRM

      Configuring a telephony system in your organization ensures the security of your daily business correspondence. In addition to building and personalizing the telephony system, you can also manage subscriptions, payments, and recordings without any ...

    • Telephony

      Make and manage calls with your customers from CRM using Telephony Help guide Telephony - An Introduction Working with Telephony

    • Why can't I see the telephony feature under Channels?

      Only users with the Administrator profile can access this feature. To access telephony, contact your Admin and ask them to change your profile to Administrator.

    • Telephony - An Introduction

      The time and effort that you put into choosing and setting up a phone system for your business is always worth it. The goal is to give your customers an easy way to get in touch with you and provide the best services to answer their questions and ...