By Susan Saldibar

Back in my software sales and marketing days, we’d often get asked, “Can you integrate with our [fill in the blank]?” 

Sometimes we could, sometimes we couldn’t. Mostly it was a box to check on an RFP.

Now it’s a big deal. Especially for CRMs. 

Since we track more data today, integration between key systems in your organization is a big deal. And I learned just how big a deal it is listening to Chris Mohrman and Neehar Garg with WelcomeHome (a Foresight partner) chat with Leigh Ann Hubbard in a recent Marketing Monday livestream. 

Just for the record, WelcomeHome integrates with a ton of suppliers. So they know a lot about integration and its potential to contribute to just about every goal in every corner of your organization.

So, yay, you find out a supplier you’re looking at integrates with your [fill in the blank] system. Easy peasy, right? 

Not so fast. There’s more to it, as Neehar explains. 

When a vendor says, “Yes, we can integrate with that,” it’s a good starting point. But it’s far from an endpoint. Now it’s time to dig in and say to them, yourself, and your team, “What does that mean?” 

Breaking that down …

  • What is your user’s day-to-day experience? 
  • What does their workflow look like? 
  • Where is workflow super awkward? 
  • When does it become really annoying? (Double, triple entry to get around something.) 

That’s what WelcomeHome looks at when they decide whether to integrate with another platform. It’s about the users. The users’ input is their development roadmap. 

To integrate or not to integrate? 

As Neehar points out, if it’s just another natural step inside their software to solve a problem for users or enhance something, they’ll do it. If connecting to another piece of software does it even better, they’ll integrate. Makes sense.

A few cool examples:

  • Improved workflow with fewer steps. That’s why they integrated with Google and Microsoft for calendars and task lists. So it saves your team from moving back and forth. Or, say you’re using WelcomeHome CRM for your sales and marketing tasks and using PointClickCare for operations. You want the handover to be smooth and the integration to be seamless.
  • Training. I love how they built a transcription piece into recorded phone calls (if only I had this back in the day) and then archived each conversation so that you can pull up actual recordings by keywords and phrases. So if you’re training and you want to make sure your sales counselors are using certain words, you can pull up the call or Zoom session by those words!  
  • Reporting automation. This is where integrating with other apps can really make an impact. You can set it to do scheduled tasks on your behalf and automatically link to your email to send a report at the end of day. Done. 

Why do some suppliers decide not to integrate? 

Here’s why. According to Neehar, many companies live in fear of competition. So they take a defensive posture. It’s not about you, it’s about them. So they’re okay with sacrificing customer satisfaction to hang on to their “secrets.”

Neehar and Chris hate that mentality. It shows a lack of confidence. That’s a red flag in my book. The guys at WelcomeHome have a confidence level that makes it a no-brainer for them to integrate their CRM solution to other applications. 

More in the Marketing Monday video …

You can hear where WelcomeHome is going with their reporting (more graphics that are super easy to drop into CEO reports, etc.). And there’s a really cool story Neehar tells about his experience working in development at Uber that you won’t want to miss. So check out the Marketing Monday video. 

Now that you know just enough about integration be dangerous … 

Take a look at all the integrations WelcomeHome has. 

See something they should be integrating with? Let them know. I bet they’ll do it.