Eliminating the 'toggle tax': how CRM integration changes customer experience - Martie de Beer — The author, Telviva’s Martie de Beer

Many businesses adopt multiple communication channels but fail to integrate them properly. This leaves information siloed, providing an incomplete understanding of the customer’s view of the business. And as competitors also adopt an omnichannel approach, how can they differentiate? Telviva solves this challenge by acting as the glue between communication channels and customer experience through CRM integration, which enables deep personalisation.

When systems fail to integrate, contact centre agents are left managing numerous systems, screens and tabs – a burden now known as the “toggle tax”. This is inefficient for both the employee and the business. Without centralised data, agents must constantly toggle screens instead of focusing on having a proper conversation. The impact on the customer is immediate and frustrating, as they are often forced to repeat themselves or wait while agents access the requested information from a system they don’t have open at the time.

This challenge has arisen because of the changing demands of modern customers. Today, customers expect businesses to respond to their queries as soon as possible. If you are not serving customers on their channel of choice, someone else will. Customer communication now happens everywhere, but traditional systems did not allow communication history to be brought together with customer data to provide a centralised view.

With customers spoilt for choice of communication channels, integration is crucial if brands are to deliver a consistently good customer experience. Watch this video with Martie de Beer and Kelvin Brown to learn more:

It’s not about the channels – it’s what you do with them

Providing more communication channels is no longer enough; many organisations are doing the same, and the omnichannel world has reached a “so what” era. It is not the number of channels, but what you do in those channels and how they are integrated, that makes the difference. Businesses must design their channel communications with intent, understanding exactly what type of service they want to deliver rather than treating it as a technology project that forgets the customer is a real person.

Failing to integrate properly leads to disconnected communications that can damage trust. Even with good intentions, a lack of integration and personalisation means businesses risk spamming their customers on their own time with messages they aren’t interested in, causing frustration. Slow replies caused by inefficient systems further damage customer relationships.

There is also a significant business risk when employees use personal instant messaging accounts for conversations and documents, pushing interactions outside the view of executive and management teams. Bringing these channels into a centralised platform mitigates this risk and allows customer conversations to be monitored to identify where service journeys are breaking down.

Are you looking to give your customers choice, convenience and a consistent experience across all touchpoints? Contact Telviva today.

Business benefits of CRM integration

Properly integrating your CRM with your communication platforms brings several business benefits:

Faster resolution: Agents have full context before the conversation starts, which helps reduce average handling time by 20–35% in many deployments.
Higher conversion rates: Sales teams using click-to-dial with live CRM data close deals faster because they approach every call informed and prepared.
Reduced customer effort: Customers don’t have to repeat themselves, as their engagement history travels with them across channels and agents.
Better data quality: Call outcomes, notes and follow-up actions are logged automatically, reducing the burden on agents and removing the reliance on manual CRM updates that often don’t happen.
Management visibility: Business leaders get accurate, real-time reporting on customer interactions tied to pipeline and account data, not just call volumes.
Cost reduction: Fewer escalations, lower repeat contact rates and more efficient agent workflows directly reduce operational costs.

Not every business operates the same way, and some rely on legacy or custom-built CRM systems that cannot offer a unified view. Telviva offers a software development kit (SDK) to integrate communications with these systems, allowing businesses to keep using what works for them while adding new functionality. Telviva starts with your specific needs rather than forcing a product on you, and scales according to what works best for your business.

Ultimately, the aim of integration is to help the business resolve a customer’s query the first time they make contact. This integrated view is crucial not just for contact centres but for anyone who deals with customers – from sales to collections to back-office employees. Having everything centralised means knowing exactly who your customer is, understanding their history and empowering your team to have better-quality conversations that are swift, informed and personalised.

Improve both agent and customer experiences across all interaction channels with Telviva’s Omnichannel CRM Integration. Contact Telviva today.

About Telviva
Telviva, formerly Connection Telecom, is a market leader in cloud-based communications for business. Integrating voice, video and chat in one intelligent platform, Telviva enables you to have better-quality conversations with customers, suppliers and staff.

Telviva helps businesses eliminate the complexity of managing disconnected communication systems. We bring your voice, WhatsApp, web chat and AI into one intelligent Experience Hub that integrates directly with your existing CRM. By blending communications with practical automation, we empower your teams to work smarter while providing a smooth customer journey that is digital when you want it, human when you need it. Backed by local expertise and end-to-end service management, we ensure you have the exact context needed for every conversation. For more, visit telviva.co.za.