ShoreTel Blog

Courage pays off

Posted by ShoreTel on Wednesday, August 20, 2008

I often refer to our customers as profiles in courage... and also raving fans. This video featured on NetworkWorld about our customer Bob Glaze at the City of Oakland, is a great example of both. Take a look and see why so many businesses are moving to Unified Communications...and specifically to ShoreTel.

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Saving Energy Strengthens ShoreTel's Lowest Total Cost of Ownership

Posted by ShoreTel on Monday, August 04, 2008

I've written before about ShoreTel's commitment to the environment and technology design that support social responsibility.

Our team's efforts are paying off! According to a new report from the Tolly Group, the ShoreTel UC system is significantly more energy efficient than the Cisco Unified Communication Manager. You can check out the details of the report, but in brief, ShoreTel:

  • Uses 37% less power in a large enterprise network scenario
  • Consumes 45% less power to support a medium enterprise scenario of an HQ and 19 branch office sites
  • Uses 44% less power in a small office scenario

In every enterprise setting, ShoreTel consumed less energy. This fact wouldn't mean too much if we delivered lower performance, less reliability, or fewer features, or in some other way increased the total cost of ownership. But we don't. In fact, we offer higher performance, greater reliability, more features, and great TCO, which is why we were recently named the Best Overall VOIP Provider by Nemertes Research. It's also why ShoreTel is the fastest growing IP PBX company in the world!

The tremendous focus on corporate environmental responsibility can lead to a lot of aspirational statements that aren't backed up by results (OK, a lot of hype), so having reliable numbers to back up our claims is critical to customers that have made energy efficiency an important part of their procurement evaluation.

John W. Combs

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Being the Best Isn't Easy But We've Done It Five Years in a Row

Posted by ShoreTel on Tuesday, July 29, 2008

At ShoreTel we're always eager to share the tremendous feedback we get from our customers in the form of press releases and case studies. But it's especially rewarding when a respected and independent third party details not only the high level of customer satisfaction but also names ShoreTel as the Best Overall VOIP Provider. Well, that's what Nemertes Research recently did for the fifth year in a row.

The award was based on responses from 426 customers of 24 VOIP providers, and in rating ShoreTel at the top overall, our customers focused on several aspects of our technology and features including our distributed architecture, built-in redundancy, and ability to scale by stacking additional switches; our handsets and switch capabilities; and our ease of deployment. We got raves for our ability to understand business requirements and craft solutions that meet customer needs, and for listening to suggestions for upgrades and improvements. Our customers also like that ShoreTel's capital, implementation, and operational costs are lower than for most competitors.

To say I'm proud of this achievement is an understatement. The determination to exceed customer expectations is at the very core of our business philosophy, company culture and business operations. Every member of the ShoreTel ecosystem - our employees and those of our distribution partners - understands this, and it impacts how we design and engineer our products, how we choose partners to work with, how we package and sell our products, and how we approach serving customers by focusing on supporting their business goals. In the end, it's immensely gratifying to have our hard work rewarded by customer praise.

While proud, I can't say that I am surprised. We measure customer satisfaction with the same level of intensity as we do revenue and profitability. Our customer satisfaction rating system is managed by an independent third-party organization, and the very rigorous system is the basis for financial incentives for the ShoreTel team and our partners. We receive responses from 55% of our new customers, and the results indicate we have been at world-class customer satisfaction levels for the past 11 quarters in a row!

Being named the Best Overall VOIP Provider by a respected independent research group indicates that a company has managed to put it all together: technology, features, quality, and customer service. To be the best five years in a row is a testament to the very DNA of our company and our unswerving commitment to staying focused on what matters most to our customers.

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Communication and Financial Services

Posted by ShoreTel on Wednesday, July 09, 2008

As a ShoreTel user, I think the best thing about our distributed Unified Communications (UC) solution is that it's fun to use. Whether I'm at my desk using my Personal Communications Manager to dial someone from my Outlook directory, or on the go and using Office Anywhere to make any phone in the world my office phone, I have extraordinary control over how I reach people and how they can reach me.

As a company relying on a ShoreTel UC system for its communications, we recognize how profoundly the system has transformed the way our customers do business. We have been able to easily integrate communications and business processes, which in turn has helped us be more productive and collaborate more effectively, offer better customer service, and reduce operational costs. With that in mind, we recently developed a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis tool that enables our resellers to help their customers quickly calculate the TCO of maintaining their current communications system, and to compare those costs of ShoreTel and other competitive offerings. I encourage you to check in with any of our resellers who can help prepare a customized TCO analysis for your organization.

In the current economic environment, one industry that is benefiting significantly from cost savings and improved customer service is the financial services industry - regional banks, credit unions, brokerages and insurance companies that are facing tough times. As credit becomes increasingly tight and customers find themselves financially strapped, these institutions are under tremendous pressure to cut costs while retaining existing customers and attracting new customers - all without the resources to launch expensive and uncertain initiatives. Clearly, improving operational efficiency to help lower costs, and delivering excellent customer service to help reduce customer churn are top priorities. ShoreTel's UC solution enables financial institutions to meet these challenges with a broad array of flexible communications options previously unavailable with traditional telephony systems. For example, regional banks of all sizes can cost-effectively centralize customer inquiries at a call center, or easily establish one if a call center doesn’t already exist. Alabama's CB&S Bank implemented a ShoreTel UC system to centralize communications for its 40 locations and more than 300 employees. With the new ShoreTel UC system, the bank now has an easy-to-manage, centralized call center that routes calls made to any branch to the next available call center staff member, eliminating the need for a receptionist at each location. Customers and prospective customers have just one number to dial to quickly get the help or answers they need--greatly improving customer service and satisfaction. The bank is also saving significant time and money through the simplified, browser-based management of the system, while lowest-cost routing enables the bank to avoid phone toll charges.

Georgia-based Darby Bank & Trust Company has also unified its 10 locations-seven branches along with mortgage, loan administration and operations offices-with a ShoreTel UC system. Today, the bank is saving close to $3,000 each month in long distance charges while eliminating expensive labor costs for moves, adds, and changes, which are easily done by a network administrator. The ability to easily connect callers with the right employee at any branch has significantly enhanced customer service and integration with Outlook helps employees work more efficiently.

Many banks are also taking advantage of the latest technologies to appeal to new audiences with services such as text messaging, account information alerts and self-service interactive voice response (IVR).

Financial institutions will likely feel economic pressure for some time to come, but the ShoreTel UC system offers a very practical and easy-to-implement solution to integrate communications and business processes in order to help reduce costs and improve customer service. By fundamentally enhancing the way banks communicate, both internally and with customers, ShoreTel is helping these financial institutions thrive despite their challenges.

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I Can See Clearly Now

Posted by ShoreTel on Thursday, May 22, 2008

With its negligible cost, Internet video has been a boon to families and friends who can enjoy each other across long distances, but despite our increasing comfort with personal video calls, poor image quality has kept it off the business desktop.

That's all about to change.

Corporate networks are increasingly robust and reliable, thanks to the shift to pure IP converged communications systems. In addition, the continued improvement in the H.264 video codec has enabled highly resilient, high-quality video with minimal delay – making it true business quality. Once businesses witness the level of image clarity and stability, they quickly recognize the many compelling reasons to use desktop video, including cost savings, greater collaboration and productivity, improved customer service and reduced impact on the environment.

Fortunately, deploying desktop video, which is particularly attractive given our soft economy and tighter travel budgets, is about to get a lot easier. ShoreTel will soon introduce the industry’s first product based on the H.264 enhancement, Scalable Video Coding, making it easy to provide high-quality video and network resiliency at an attractive cost to every desktop across the enterprise. We’re excited about this capability because it makes video calls as natural and simple as voice calls. One of the best parts of the new ShoreTel video service is better synchronization between video and voice. Even on the most recent and expensive telepresence systems, you can experience a video call with the lips constantly a half beat out of sync with the voice. Our engineering team has figured out how to produce a high-quality video experience with lips that match!

I believe the ease of use and increased quality of ShoreTel video will accelerate adoption and allow companies to immediately enhance business processes across the organization. Most industries can benefit by using video calls for travel reduction, training of distant employees, and enhanced collaboration by co-workers in separate offices across town, across the country, or across the world. An unlimited number of applications in specific verticals exist as well. Banks can use video kiosks to allow a single loan officer to serve customers at any branch. Desktop video also has the potential to dramatically expand the use of telemedicine, allowing, for example, specialists to have face-to-face consultations with patients at multiple facilities, reducing travel time for both patients and the specialists.

If you’d like more information on how desktop video calls can benefit your organization and industry, be sure to give us a call. In this case, seeing really is believing.

John W. Combs

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