Boosting Enterprise ROI: How to Increase CRM and Chat Utilization Across the Desktop

Powerful workplace technology is at the core of the daily operations and long-term growth strategies of modern-day businesses, with specialized tools aiding employees in accessing critical information and completing complex tasks. Across industries and job functions, the average desktop user must leverage many different third-party applications that come from disparate providers to carry out key functions – but despite efforts to arm their people with all the advanced tools they need to do their jobs, the vast majority of enterprises are not maximizing their ROI in this area.

Why? It boils down to the fact that despite the apps themselves being highly advanced, they in many cases are not built to enable the data sharing and workflow efficiencies required to increase productivity and get the most out of the desktop. This results in organizations spending millions of dollars on mission-critical apps meant to streamline processes, yet struggling with utilization and adoption across the enterprise.

This workflow fragmentation affects every part of the desktop. From salespeople to operations staff and everyone in between, challenges around navigating workflows with limited screen real estate, toggling between a multitude of tools when attempting to solve client issues, and even streamlining communication via chat apps are near universal.

For instance, salespeople rely on their CRM systems for client intelligence, navigating to them multiple times a day to view contact information, account details, summaries of recent interactions and other insights. These systems are meant to make client interactions and other sales tactics more efficient and profitable, but if they do not function as part of a larger desktop ecosystem, it can lead to inefficiencies and frustrations for the end user. Integration with other apps, such as to pre-populate client-specific information in other tools or automatically surface data on key interactions and events directly within the CRM, is a key to success.

Meanwhile, as business communication increasingly takes place via chat apps, users are facing similar challenges with these tools – the need to track down insights from lengthy conversations, respond to numerous pings throughout the day and more. For both CRM and chat, users are struggling with frequent context switching, excessive clicks and a constant need to re-key information. Multiply these inefficiencies by the vast amount of data and crucial customer intelligence that exists on the modern desktop and the scale of these challenges becomes massive.

At OpenFin, we believe that this desktop status quo is vastly outdated – and that enterprises ought to have unified workflows across disparate applications for all their key business processes. By focusing on application interoperability and desktop experiences that intentionally enhance productivity, we are minimizing workflow disruption and driving digital transformation for all kinds of enterprises.

That shows up in a few different ways. Through APIs that enable them to speak the same language, our award-winning OS enables third-party apps to share information and fuel a seamless flow of data across the desktop, streamlining user journeys. In addition, our Workspace solution, an extensive set of interactive desktop tools, can effectively sense user workflows and priorities and guide them toward their next step, whether that means automatically launching the next app or surfacing relevant information, such as a customer contact or account number, at the most critical points.

Our Notification Center – a main component of Workspace – is a perfect illustration of these benefits. It comes with prioritization capabilities and even delivers customizable, actionable prompts that empower end users to complete tasks within the notification itself – without opening corresponding third-party apps. By providing a streamlined and personalized user experience, Notification Center enables knowledge workers in fast-paced environments to swiftly act on the most important alerts first. That includes critical data points surfaced from chats, CRMs or any other location on the desktop, ensuring that the full value of these systems is fully realized.

When workflow tools aren’t enough, having the right integrations is crucial. OpenFin’s recent integration and partnership with Introhive, an AI-powered software company that fills CRMs with sales-focused knowledge and insights, is a great example. Through this partnership, end users can retrieve nuanced client intelligence from complex datasets, maximizing the value of their existing CRM. OpenFin’s elevated Workspace acts in tandem with Introhive’s customer intelligence insights to enable clients to gain valuable and actionable information on particular clients or prospects.

“CRMs often contain a lot of static data and backward-looking reports,” said Jeffery Parrish, Global Head of Industry Strategy at Introhive, at FinJS NY 2022. “Our relationship mapping makes it easy for salespeople to access up-to-date information and strategize on how to grow that relationship.”

Whether it’s by providing straightforward access to customer information via search and notifications, integrations that surface data automatically or other contextual links, we at OpenFin are laser-focused on delivering smooth, unified workflows that supercharge enterprise productivity and enhance the employee experience. With workflow optimization tools incorporated into CRMs and chat apps, users can powerfully reduce time spent scrambling between windows and focus more on completing tasks, accessing complex insights, reaching objectives and, ultimately, propelling enterprise growth.

Interested in learning more about how OpenFin can transform your approach to CRM, chat tools and other key desktop applications? Reach out to us today.