The Aircall platform is a phone system specifically built to integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) platforms and other workflow systems that business are accustomed to working with. This cloud based platform enables customer service and sales agents to operate remotely while still having easy access to collaborate mid-call with co-workers.
The company Aircall itself is a global team with offices in New York and France, and it uses its own platform to scale globally and manage remote teams. To discover more about the challenges of managing remote working and how cloud based technology can help, Digital Journal spoke with Olivier Pailhes, CEO of Aircall.
Digital Journal: How is technology in general disrupting sales?
Olivier Pailhes: Technology is enabling better decisions. There’s three key areas. The first is in productivity. Teams want to use technology to 10x their productivity, and they need applications, like Aircall, that are 10x better to do this. The second is in collaboration. This is about being able to gain key insights on customers or prospects when they call you, or to share information to key members of the team that maybe in different functions.
In our case, this is about a phone system that is integrated with all your other business tools. This enables teams to have full transparency and information. The third part is about data. You want to be able to use the information captured to drive better insights, and this is why we’re working on the impact artificial intelligence can have for phone systems.
DJ: What advantages does Aircall bring?
Pailhes: Aircall enables teams to be more productive, collaborative, and make better decisions.
We look at Aircall as three stages: Build a 10x better phone system. This will capture market share and allow teams to be more productive than ever; Integrate that tool with every other key business application. This allows your phone to speak to your other systems and your reps and agents using the phone to have vital information in the moment they need it; Provide new insights to drive better decisions.
DJ: Why did you opt for a cloud-based platform?
Pailhes: Cloud-based systems are critical for iterating at the high pace required to give customers an innovative solution. Additionally, a cloud-based system allows our customers to work from anywhere, versus being tied to a desk phone.
DJ: How well suited is the technology for international use?
Pailhes: We provide phone numbers in over 50 countries and focus on teams with multiple offices. For us, this is a key use case. Additionally, our team has offices in multiple countries, which allows us to more easily support our customers locally.
DJ: What has been the response from businesses and sales executives?
Pailhes: They love that with Aircall, they can make calls and be productive from anywhere. They aren’t tied to a desk phone. Additionally, managers and executives love the data they get receive from our interface, as well as how easy it is to scale up their teams. Last, we’ve eliminated data entry problems and misaligned information by creating world-class integrations into key CRM systems, and executives love the transparency.
DJ: What other innovations do you see coming in the next five years?
Pailhes: We see artificial intelligence as being a real driver of where the phone system markets go, and we are working hard in this area.
