How Do Reps Make and Take Calls Inside Salesforce?
Reps make and take calls inside Salesforce through a CTI (computer telephony integration). A CTI puts a softphone in Salesforce that dials numbers with one click, opens the caller's record when a call arrives and logs every call against the right Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity or Case automatically.
How it works in Salesforce
A CTI connector sits between your telephony provider and Salesforce. It listens for call events, such as ringing, answered and ended, and turns them into actions in Salesforce: searching for the caller, opening a record, starting a timer or saving a call log.
Salesforce offers more than one way to connect. Older setups use Open CTI, a browser-based API. Others use Service Cloud Voice or a managed package from the AppExchange. What they have in common is the agent experience: calls are handled in the same screen as the customer's data, instead of a separate phone or app.
The value of CTI comes from the data. When every call is linked to a Lead, Contact, Account, Opportunity or Case, managers can report on call volume, outcomes and response times without asking reps to type anything.
Example
A sales rep opens a list of new Leads and clicks the first phone number. The call starts in the softphone, the rep picks a disposition when it ends, and Salesforce saves the call on the Lead with its duration and outcome.
How 360 CTI handles it
360 CTI is an AI-powered CTI and dialer built natively for Salesforce. It covers click to call, power dialing, AI call routing, call monitoring, transcription and automatic call logging. See the Salesforce Calling Solution.
Related questions
Follow-up questions
What does CTI stand for?
CTI stands for computer telephony integration: connecting a phone system to software such as a CRM.
Is CTI the same as a softphone?
No. A softphone is the calling panel agents use. CTI is the wider integration that connects that softphone, and your telephony, to Salesforce data.
Do I need CTI if my team makes only a few calls a day?
It still helps. Even low call volumes benefit from automatic logging, because calls that aren't logged don't show up in your Salesforce reports.
See how 360 CTI handles this in your Salesforce org.