Integrating telephone and IT systems

Computer telephony integration (CTI) links IT and phone systems so that numbers can be dialled automatically from your computer, and customer records can be automatically presented to staff members taking calls.Equipment requiredThe equipment required to introduce CTI varies according to the size of your system.

Single PC and telephone all you need is a special modem and software to retrieve database records. For CTI systems with more than one user, you will need a network server. This can either be an existing server or a separate one dedicated to managing your telephony.

Other uses of CTI include:sending and receiving voicemails as emails so they appear in your email inbox ,using the internet to make outward calls,consolidating all messages (including email, voice mail, fax, phone messages) into one inbox using unified messaging technology


Benefits and costsBusinesses in which employees spend a lot of their time on the phone may be able to considerably increase their efficiency by automating these routine tasks. Busy sales and customer-service departments in consumer-facing businesses are the most likely to benefit from CTI productivity gains.However for many small businesses the cost of implementing CTI isn't justified by the benefits it offers - call volumes or manually retrieving customer records is not found to be a significant drag on resources