Talking to customers on the phone is easy with Aircall and Front

Emily Hackeling

Emily Hackeling,

Content Marketing at Front

17 April 20200 min read

Today, customers can use email, live chat, social media, and more to communicate with you. But sometimes nothing can replace a phone conversation.

Hearing a real, human voice can make a big difference to your customers.

Whether it’s email, live chat, social media, or carrier pigeon, your customers have more choices than ever when they’re trying to communicate with your team. Although every channel has its perks, sometimes nothing can replace the value of a phone conversation.

That’s why teams like HomeClub and HostnFly love using Front with Aircall, a phone system that connects directly to your Front inbox.

Why integrate Aircall and Front?

With Aircall and Front, you can manage all your customer conversations in one place, allowing your team to:

  • Cut the busy work:All phone conversations are automatically logged to the correct contact in Front along with links to call recordings and voicemails. Data like waiting time, duration, and answering/calling agent are also easily accessible directly in your inbox.

  • Easily access customer history and context:You don’t have to switch apps to make or receive calls. The Aircall interface is directly embedded in Front, so you can navigate through previous client interactions, and add notes, assignments, and tags in Front while on a call.

With Front and the Aircall integration, you can dial customers and access their conversation history across every channel, all from your inbox.

How it works: Using Front and Aircall

Here’s what happens when you get a phone call...
  • 1. The Aircall widget in Front will notify you and display the contact details. If the contact is not in Aircall, it will display the caller phone number.

  • 2. Once you pick up, Aircall will automatically create a new conversation attached to the right contact in Front — or create a new contact if the number hasn’t already been documented.

  • 3. Aircall will display this contact’s call history. During the call, you can update the contact information, take notes, add tags, assign the call in Front, and navigate through the caller history.

Here’s what happens when you make a call...
  • 1. If you’re using Front with Aircall’s Google Chrome extension, you’ll have click-to-dial capabilities. If you’re using the Front app, clicking on a particular conversation will automatically populate that contact’s number into the Aircall dialer.

  • 2. Once a contact picks up, it will attach a new message to your current phone conversation in Front. Aircall will automatically upload a link to the call recording and will record the call duration when you hang up.

Pro tip: Aircall only displays a contact’s phone history. If you want to quickly access a contact’s omni-channel history, click on the name of your contact in Front, choose “View Contact History,” and in the conversation filter, select “All Folders”.

Automating your work with rules

You can easily assign, archive, or tag Aircall conversations using rules in Front (Front > Settings > Rules). Here are a few examples:

Tag missed calls and voicemails

Each time Front detects the word “Missed” or “Voicemail” in the body of a new message, it will add the tag “Missed Call” (see picture below). You can create another rule based on the word “Voicemail” to tag voicemails.

Assign specific team members to specific phone lines

The subject of a conversation always contains the name of the Aircall line contacted. As a result, you can assign lines to specific team members using the condition, “Subject contains name of the line”.

Assign phone lines to a group of team members

You can select “Assign in Group” as the action for your rule. This will assign new conversations in a random or round-robin fashion to your teammates. (Make sure to add new teammates to your rule!)

Be available for your customers, on any channel

The phone has been a popular customer service tool for a long time, and it’s for a reason:

  • It’s instantaneous. When customers make the effort to call, it means they want a fast solution. Phone calls allow you to get all the information you need quickly, so you can reach resolutions faster.

  • It’s personal. No channel creates opportunities to show empathy and make connections quite like a phone conversation.

  • It’s a trusted form of communication. Phone conversations have an 87 percent response and resolution rate, compared to 70 percent for chat, and just 59 percent for self-service tools. And, 83 percent of customers insist that voice communication will always be important to their customer experience.

Ready to start having phone conversations with your customers? Sign up for a free trial of Front and Aircall.

This article is a guest post by Thibaud Humbert, Partner Business Developer at Aircall.

Written by Emily Hackeling

Originally Published: 17 April 2020

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