A long, long time ago, we had a request to integrate with a third party lead system. There were a couple of moving parts that made it not 100% easy to do:
- The third party was providing pre-screened calls to subscribers. They had to make sure that they sent the right number – no more, no less.
- The subscribers had to be licensed in the area the number belonged to. This meant that the calls had to be transferred to one of a set of numbers, keeping in mind constraint 1.
Ultimately, we wound up implementing callability rules that would be checked every few minutes, and the third party was responsible for routing calls through the transfers to the right clients. It worked, but it made it difficult to deliver the precise number of calls without going over.
Today, the way to do it would be a combination of callability rules (to limit the number of calls queueing in a geographical area), but precision would be easier to achieve using a web service to deliver the transfer number and other information on the fly.
We’ve talked about web services before as one of a number of ways to drive information to the agent or the call center ACD. Plenty of providers offer web-based APIs to help integrate with third party software.
Custom development of anything may seem difficult. Still, if you’re envisioning a system like that described in the first paragraph, providing a web service is going to be at least as easy as other methods of integrating. There is a huge number of systems, frameworks and development tools to allow developers to quickly get something up and accessible on the web.
Once you’ve decided on a little short term pain, you can have a lot of long-term gain. Using a web service, you could deliver the transfer number (as well as a name, office address etc.) right before the agent is ready to transfer the call. This live update capability lets you address the third party by name, and allows the agent to provide as much information as possible to give the contact a more secure feeling. This can work both ways: you could also have a web service that sends lead data back to the web service, allowing the updated information to be sent along with the call. This is the real advantage of warm leads, and helps improve close rates.