Getting a Salesforce phone integration live is one thing. Getting it to work the way your team actually needs it to work is another.
Most organizations that implement a Salesforce CTI solution run into at least one significant problem within the first few months sometimes right out of the gate. Calls aren’t logging. Screen pops are pulling up the wrong record. Reports don’t match what agents say happened on the call. Agents quietly stop using the Salesforce phone integration and go back to manual entry.
None of these are signs that CTI doesn’t work. They’re signs that something in the setup, configuration, or adoption process needs attention.
Common problems teams face with Salesforce phone integration
Below are the most common problems teams face with Salesforce phone integration and what actually fixes them, not just in theory but in practice.
1. Calls Not Logging Automatically
The problem: Agents complete calls, but activity records aren’t appearing in Salesforce or they’re appearing inconsistently. Some calls log, others don’t. The manual logging burden that your Salesforce phone integration was supposed to eliminate hasn’t gone away.
Why it happens: Automatic call logging depends on the CTI softphone matching the caller’s number to an existing Salesforce record. If the number format in your phone system doesn’t match the format stored in Salesforce — for example, one uses +1-555-123-4567 and the other stores 5551234567 — the match fails and no activity is created. It also happens when agents close the softphone window before the call officially ends, cutting off the logging event.
How to fix it:
Train agents not to close the softphone until the post-call wrap-up is complete. The logging trigger fires at call end, not during the call.
Check your activity logging settings in the Open CTI configuration there may be conditions that need to be adjusted for your specific workflow.
2. Screen Pops Pulling Up the Wrong Record
The problem: When a call comes in, the screen pop opens but it’s showing the wrong Contact, a duplicate record, or a blank search result instead of the customer’s record.
Why it happens: Screen pop logic in a Salesforce phone integration is only as good as your data. If a phone number is attached to multiple records, the integration doesn’t know which one to surface. Duplicate contacts are the most common culprit. Less often, the screen pop is configured to search only one object type say, Contacts when the number might be stored on a Lead or an Account.
How to fix it:
Run a duplicate check on your Salesforce database before go-live. Unresolved duplicates cause screen pop failures consistently.
Configure your screen pop logic to search across all relevant object types Contacts, Leads, and Accounts at minimum and define a clear priority order when multiple matches exist.
For numbers that genuinely belong to multiple records (shared business lines, for example), set up a disambiguation screen that lets the agent select the correct record rather than defaulting to one arbitrarily.
Establish a data hygiene process going forward, so duplicates don’t accumulate again.
3. Audio Quality Issues and Dropped Calls
The problem: Agents report choppy audio, echo, one-sided calls, or calls that drop mid-conversation. The issue affects the customer experience directly and erodes agent confidence in the system.
Why it happens: Audio quality in a Salesforce telephony integration is a network issue more often than it is a software issue. VoIP calls are sensitive to bandwidth, latency, and packet loss. When agents are on shared Wi-Fi, running multiple bandwidth-heavy applications, or connecting through a VPN not configured for voice traffic, quality degrades.
How to fix it:
Establish a minimum bandwidth requirement for agents using the CTI integration particularly for remote workers.
Check headset hardware. USB headsets with built-in noise cancellation perform significantly better than analog headsets through a converter.
Use your telephony provider’s network testing tool before flagging the issue as a CTI problem most providers offer a diagnostic test that identifies exactly where in the call path the quality issue is occurring.
4. The Integration Breaks After a Salesforce Update
The problem: Everything is working fine, then Salesforce releases an update and suddenly the CTI toolbar stops loading, screen pops stop firing, or the integration throws errors agents haven’t seen before.
Why it happens: Salesforce releases three major updates per year Spring, Summer, and Winter and each one has the potential to affect integrations that rely on specific APIs, browser behaviours, or page layouts. If your Salesforce CTI solution isn’t maintained and tested against Salesforce release schedules, you’ll be caught off guard regularly.
How to fix it:
Review Salesforce release notes before each major update. Your CTI vendor should also be doing this if they’re not proactively communicating about update compatibility, that’s worth paying attention to.
Use a Salesforce sandbox environment to test your integration before each major release goes to production. This gives you a window to catch issues before they affect your agents.
Keep your CTI managed package updated. Running an outdated package version after a Salesforce update is one of the most common causes of post-update breakage.
Conclusion
A Salesforce phone integration that’s working well is nearly invisible agents move through calls smoothly, data flows automatically, and managers have reporting they can trust. When it’s not working well, it becomes the friction everyone works around.
