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Many Indian businesses receive a majority of their leads & support requests through phone calls rather than email. So, Wouldn’t it be cool if exotel can also double up as a CRM?
Use Exotel as a Cheap CRM Alternative?
Actually – No. There are a number of excellent CRM options available out there, so it does not make sense to try to force a CRM into exotel. Also, We continue to provide a number of ways to integrate exotel into your CRM. But, what if you don’t need, not interested in or do not want to pay additionally for a CRM?
Many CRMs are built with western (American & European) businesses in mind. Here is an example: The unique identifier in most CRMs is an email address. The last time I checked, less than 10% of the people in the country have an email address. And you probably have also heard, that there are more mobile phones in India than toilets. So, doesn’t it make sense to keep phone number unique rather than email? Another one – Wouldn’t it be better if you can send an SMS to your customer with an update on the information he asked for rather than email? While most CRMs come with easy one click install for setting up email, why should sending an SMS be so hard?
While Exotel was never intended to be a CRM, I realised that the orientation towards phone calls & SMS makes it an excellent candidate for CRM even though it does not have most of the industry standard features of a CRM. This is much like how I used Gmail as a ticketing software.
So, here is a quick list of exotel features that are relevant as a CRM:
- Lists in Address book (Allows you to upload an excel sheet with names, phonenumbers, emails etc).
- Popup Notifications (If you are on Chrome, this notification can show up across tabs too).
- Group inbox
I wrote a support article that gives a cheat sheet of the search options that you can use to effectively use your exotel account as an exotel CRM.
Does this work for you? Leave us a line in comment.
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