The first CRM integrated with Telegram

Instant messaging is currently one of the preferred ways for users to communicate with businesses. The ease and familiarity of these applications allow the customer to feel safer and more comfortable, as well as giving a clear sense of immediacy. So, in addition to chatbots on web pages and the email’s usage during customer-company communication, it is also necessary to open an instant messaging channel, and this includes Telegram.

Telegram is WhatsApp and Facebook’s biggest competitor when it comes to instant messaging. Its advantages are obvious, including the ability to create groups of up to 200,000 members, channels, send files up to 1.5 GB, always be sure of the platform, save whatever you want in the cloud and the ability to use the application through multiple devices. And, of course, the bots.

Telegram bots are programs that can be created by communities, users and businesses. They are easy to set up and add endless features to a chat, including those related to conversational marketing.

You can create a CRM on Telegram by setting up a bot from scratch. However, in addition to being complicated, it is also useless. There are external programs that can be integrated into Telegram, with all the features of a built-in CRM, as well as being managed together with other messaging applications. And this is where we will focus on using Telegram’s first CRM.

How Callbell integrates on Telegram

Callbell is a CRM that can be integrated with Telegram, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. It allows the entire team of agents to communicate with customers in a unified way. It also automates much of the conversation by simplifying all interactions. The team will be able to access all chats from a single dashboard, so no channels will be overlooked.

Callbell’s integration on Telegram is the first step in its implementation. In other messaging applications it is sufficient to connect the social network account to the Callbell platform, but it works a little differently with Telegram. In this case you will have to create a bot, but do not worry because the steps to follow are quite simple:

1) Start a new conversation with @BotFather, either by searching for the username @BotFather or by entering the link https://t.me/botfather in your browser.

2) Create your bot by typing the command/newbot, or click directly on the list of commands that the bot will show you.

3) Choose a name for the bot you just created, which is then visible to your customers. It is preferable to put the name of your company.

4) Choose the bot’s Telegram username, which must end in bot. It is recommended that you enter the name of your company_bot, or similar variations, to be @yourcompany_bot. This is how users will search for you on Telegram to start the chat.

5) Copy the token that Telegram will give you, after confirming the creation of the bot. It is a character string starting with numbers and then random letters. It will appear in blue and if you click on it, it will be copied automatically.

6) Go to the dashboard of your Callbell account, select Telegram and in the token, field put the one you just copied; and in the username enter the name chosen in step 4.

Once all the integration is finished, the functions you have programmed on Callbell will be available for use. You can also configure the bot on Telegram if you wish, but it is not recommended because the user experience of the agents could be confusing, especially if it is very different between the different platforms used. Do not forget that the biggest advantage of a CRM is the ability to simplify communication between the customer and the company.

How can I get my customers to contact me via Telegram?

After finishing the integration, all that remains is to wait for your customers to contact you via Telegram. They will have to follow these steps:

a) By accessing the link: t.me/yourcompany_bot;

b) By scanning the bot’s QR code;

c) By clicking on the widget that you will have to insert on your web page, which you can configure in Callbell.

You will be in charge of disseminating these channels, in order to make visible to your potential customers that you are using Telegram and put access to the chats within their reach, with the channels you have already created in your marketing strategy.

What key features should you set up on Callbell to provide a good CRM experience with Telegram?

First of all, it is necessary to clarify that the functions you have previously programmed on Callbell will be immediately available for use with Telegram, once the integration is done. You do not need to configure anything else. So, you should have at least the following features active on the Callbell platform to have a good experience with this CRM.

Settings and team integration

A CRM allows multiple sales agents to communicate with customers, regardless of whether a specific agent is served by one agent or another. Obviously, they have to work as a team, with the same guidelines and functions. Configuring all this is possible on Callbell, in order to have an organized and unified service.

Automatic assignment to an agent

Once your teams are set up, you can make one chat assignment per member. If you decide to configure it like this, Callbell will take care of making an automatic assignment with the round robin strategy. You can also choose how to respond when one or more agents are not available.

A tip is to determine the schedule where there are usually more customers, in order to assign a larger number of agents. This way you will have more efficient attention with less workload for team members.

Automatic routing

Automatic routing refers to the creation of established conversation paths based on customer interaction. This allows you, for example, to distinguish those users who are looking to buy something from those who want to speak to technical support. The route configuration must be intuitive and clear, covering the greatest number of possibilities; this will then be perfected over time.

It works because the system identifies a customer response, which will be guided by a necessarily clear and concise question, so as to avoid the user being misled. A numeric menu with several options can be a very accurate indicator; or closed-ended questions, such as the language you wish to be assisted in.

It should be clarified that the text that will be shown to the customer does not necessarily have to contain the answer to be given for the path to follow. For example, in the case of a closed question, it could be:

Callbell:

What language do you speak?

Customer:

English.

Routing can redirect to an Italian menu from this option, for example, or to an agent who speaks this language. Here we see that Callbell’s text does not necessarily have to contain the customer’s response, but it does so under the journey’s conditions.

Another example can be with numbered menus:

Callbell:

1 Catalogue.

2 General information.

3 Technical support.

Customer:

I need help setting up my PC.

Callbell:

In a moment, you can speak to one of our support agents.

The word <<help>> is set up so that its direct path is technical support. The same path would have appeared if the customer had typed <<3>> or <<3 Technical Support>>, plus any words approved by Callbell for this selection.

You can also set an error message if the customer does not write any valid selection set in the path, so the bot cannot assign paths. In order to avoid frustration, it is essential that the options are intuitive, clear, and that they have a fusion of different synonyms or options so that the customer refers to one choice or the other, as in the previous technical support example.

After an agent has been assigned, the customer will see the welcome message previously configured in Callbell. This is what customers will see once the conversation starts.

Custom fields

These fields refer to those present in the contacts. You can add some extras to help you gather customer information. There are different types, such as: plain text, text area, single selection, multiple selection, URL, date, etc. Be careful, if you delete a field, all data will also be deleted.

Tag

They will allow you to categorize chats with your customers so that you can give them an appropriate order. You can do this depending on the product they buy, the language they speak, etc.

Internal notes

You can enter notes in the chat that only other team members will see; they are useful for leaving important information about a particular customer. Just click on the note icon and the field will turn yellow. Be careful when you decide to confirm as you will be sending a note to the team and not a message to the customer; make sure the field is yellow.

Quick responses

These are messages that you can create in advance and that will be accessible in the chat with the customer; they will appear listed when you type “/” in the chat. You can simply configure them in Callbell’s options.

Welcome and closing messages

The welcome message will be sent as soon as an agent is assigned to a chat with a customer and the closure will appear when the agent ends the conversation. It is essential that once the conversation is finished, it is closed. In this way the customer will receive the message and will feel fully assisted.

You can also set up an automatic message to appear only when the customer writes outside the company’s business hours. The schedule can always be configured on Callbell.

Analysis of statistics and metrics

Callbell will update the daily statistics of all the applications you have integrated into the platform. You will be able to see the overall customer service performance on a single screen through the CRM that the company has.

Based on the results of the metrics, you can re-evaluate your current strategy and make the necessary changes. This will be very useful in the beginning, especially when routing chats.

The results obtained by each agent are also displayed and are marked each with a different colour. Performance monitoring will help you deal with possible malfunctions or detect the hours when more customers write, in order to better distribute the workload.

Telegram as a business tool

By itself, Telegram is an application that has a large number of features. Instant messaging is just one of them; that’s why most users do not take full advantage of this app’s capabilities. Significantly improving the performance of your business, starting with its accessibility and saving multimedia files in the cloud, greatly facilitating communication is absolutely elementary and within everyone’s reach.

On the other hand, bots have almost an infinity of options, so you can use them for your business as well. However, having a CRM that unifies other instant messaging applications and programs features with more accessible options makes its integration a better choice.

Finally, the costs of Telegram are practically zero, so the company will only have to pay for the CRM. This is a very powerful combination for a low price, in exchange for an effective and easy-to-implement user experience. If you want to try Callbell and exploit the full potential of Telegram, click here.