ShoreTel Blog
Debunking Another UC Myth - Is UC Complexity Inhibiting User Adoption?
Posted by ShoreTel on Monday, December 29, 2008
Absolutely not! This myth should have disappeared a long time ago, but vendors with half-baked solutions taint the market for the rest of us, and vendors without a UC solution have an interest in keeping the myth alive.
In the early days of software development, enterprise solutions often required that we completely change the way we worked, and they presented us with confusing interfaces that required difficult to remember codes. Today, however, standard user interfaces with easy-to-access menus and wizards make it far easier to learn new software, and most developers (sadly not all) now understand that even as we work to make business processes more efficient, we have to create software that works for the user, not the other way round.
That's what good unified communications does. It takes tasks that users are already doing using separate tools and makes them easier and faster to perform from a preferred interface or device. Here are just a couple of examples:
- Unified inbox
Users today check their e-mail inboxes, dial in for voicemail, and walk over to check out the fax machine. With unified communications they simply check their e-mail inbox for all three. Nothing difficult to learn. Click on an item to read or listen. Save it in a folder to make it easy to find. Easily reply or call back. Easily forward to someone else.
- Unified call control
Today, users have to separate voice communications between their extensions and their cell phones, constantly managing the best way for callers to find them. Unified communications (at least ShoreTel's unified communications) enables users to easily set up different ways to route incoming calls and different voicemail greetings for different situations, such as "in" or "in a meeting" or "out of the office." Then, using the office extension or cell phone, it's easy to select the right answer mode, including call forwarding, and a "find me" option.
- Managing extensions
System administrators are users too, and unified communications should also make their lives easier. Take adding a new phone extension. With current PBXs, this requires a lengthy and expensive process involving requisitions, calls to a consultant, and scheduling issues. With a well-designed unified communications system, this can be done with a couple of mouse clicks by someone with no technical expertise. Anyone who can use Microsoft Word and Outlook, can also manage the daily operations of their unified communications system!
OK, so it's one thing to say that great new features are easy to use, but is that really true in practice? The proof is in the pudding. At ShoreTel, our customer satisfaction ratings are the highest in the industry for a good reason. We don’t tolerate user frustration. Every feature we add is carefully designed to ensure we are making busy users' lives easier, not adding to their troubles!
John W. Combs
Debunking Another UC Myth - Is It True the ROI of UC Systems Can't Be Measured?
Posted by ShoreTel on Tuesday, December 23, 2008
No! Early adopters of new technologies often base their decisions on anticipated benefits with few truly dependable metrics to guide them. However, the Unified Communications industry is now mature enough to offer sufficient data for a detailed total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis that can serve as a vital planning and decision-making tool for organizations seeking to lower their communications costs.
ShoreTel has developed its own TCO Tool, which combines comprehensive data fields, detailed algorithms and highly credible third-party data with specific customer configuration requirements to calculate 12 upfront and recurring telephony costs. The tool then combines these costs into a single TCO computation. The data and calculations are so clear and transparent that the TCO Tool has become an important and highly popular sales tool used by many of our partners.
What's important about the TCO Tool - about the ability to accurately measure upfront and long-term costs - is that it allows customers and prospects to build accurate ROI projections, which is critical in these uncertain economic times.
In addition, accurate TCO and ROI analyses enable customers to look past the upfront costs and focus on long-term value. While ShoreTel's upfront pricing is very competitive, the long-term telecommunications cost savings is an important benefit of our unified communications solution – not to mention that once the system is deployed, the ability to integrate voice and data applications, such as CRM, enables enterprises to extend the benefits of the system by dramatically streamlining business processes for greater productivity and easier collaboration. The last thing anyone contemplating a unified communications system should be asking is, "What's the upfront purchase price of my new phone system?"
The TCO Tool has validated key ShoreTel benefits we're extremely proud of:
- ShoreTel offers free software upgrades, saving customers significant costs over the long term.
- ShoreTel is so easy to manage that moves, adds and changes for an entire multisite deployment can be performed from one location by a non-technical user. This eliminates costly calls to the phone company or contractor call-outs, and even the time and cost of having a staff member drive from location to location to make the changes.
- ShoreTel's least-cost routing and support for primary rate interfaces (PRI) eliminate toll charges for calls between geographically diverse sites and reduce the number of leased lines that need to be deployed at each site.
- Our energy efficiency not only contributes significantly to our low TCO, but helps support our customers' green initiatives.
The ShoreTel TCO tool proves that the ROI of a UC system can be measured, and with ShoreTel, the numbers are very attractive. Want to see what happens when we run the TCO Tool for your company? Give us a call or find a partner.
Still think UC isn't right for you? Stay tuned, we'll be debunking more UC myths soon.
John W. Combs
UC Makes Green Monday Even More Efficient
Posted by ShoreTel on Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Yesterday was Green Monday - the busiest online shopping day of the year, surpassing Cyber Monday - and many retailers realized a boost in online traffic as shoppers scramble to get good deals and free shipping in time for Christmas. But even though online shopping is supposed to eliminate hassle, it can sometimes be as frustrating for customers as waiting in long lines at the mall. Companies need to prepare for the influx of online holiday shoppers and be sure they're ready to manage technical issues and provide the best possible customer experience.
That's why some businesses are turning to Unified Communications (UC) to help keep customers satisfied, not stressed. With UC, calls can be rerouted to protect against lost sales from a system outage, and customer service reps are able to answer more calls and shorten the length of time customers are on hold, as well as help customers via Live Chat. The popular modern design store Design Within Reach, for example, deployed a ShoreTel UC system that allows it to create unique greetings for each studio to inform customers about sales and promotions. Another customer, McKenzie Sports, is using unified communications to enhance its contact center operations and safeguard against lost phone orders.
It's challenging enough to get consumers to spend money during a recession, so the last thing a retailer wants is to have unhappy customers abandon their shopping carts or hang up the phone because of poor customer service. Unified communications is yet another tool reseller can use to enhance the customer experience.
Labels: Customer Experiences
How do Unified Communications help companies weather the economic storm?
Posted by ShoreTel on Wednesday, December 10, 2008
As businesses attempt to control capital spending, they are looking harder for enterprise communications solutions that give them more for less. That's why many of them are turning to ShoreTel to help them cut costs and better weather the economic crisis. I recently had the chance to discuss this topic with Gordon Matlock for KLIV's "The Economy & Silicon Valley" series. If you're interested in our conversation, click here [2min MP3] to listen.
John Combs
Labels: CEO
A CustomerSat ACE Award for the Second Year in a Row
Posted by ShoreTel on Thursday, December 04, 2008
Of all the industry accolades ShoreTel garners, none gives me more pleasure than those related to customer satisfaction. We recently received the CustomerSat ACE award for Overall Customer Satisfaction for the second year in a row, together with an ACE award for Technical Support Satisfaction.
The ACE awards are important because they are an objective measurement of success - truly satisfied customers. Let's face it, some companies manage to grow mainly through the power of their marketing and sales machines, or simply because they use the success of one product to validate the quality of another.
At ShoreTel we're very proud that our "raving fans" repeatedly testify that all of our solutions are reliable and scalable, that they are cost-effective and easy to deploy and use, that our customer service is consistently excellent, and that system dramatically improves their business processes, how they communicate internally and externally, and their bottom line.
John Chisholm, executive VP of MarketTools and general manager of the CustomerSat business, says it all in his quote about the award: "Receiving the CustomerSat ACE Award is a distinct honor, which demonstrates both rigorous application of customer feedback processes and outstanding performance as measured by those processes. ShoreTel's commitment to customer satisfaction excellence is certified with their 2008 ACE Awards in 'Overall Customer Satisfaction' and 'Technical Support Satisfaction.'"
Check out our customer success stories to discover how you might benefit from a ShoreTel UC system as well.
John W. Combs
ShoreTel Customers in the Spotlight
Posted by ShoreTel on Monday, December 01, 2008
We're always grateful that our "raving fan" customers love to sing our praises, so we were thrilled recently to be able to return the favor. Three ShoreTel customers - the City of Oakland, Safeway Insurance Group and Texas-based Big Brothers Big Sisters - were recently honored at the Nemertes Research 2008 VOIP and Unified Communications PilotHouse Awards Dinner for having effectively leveraged VoIP and unified communications (UC) to improve their operations. The awards were based on evaluating several criteria, such as how efficiently the organizations are implementing VoIP and how many UC applications they use.
These organizations and their management teams are truly heroes in my book. They didn’t take the well-worn route of sticking with a traditional PBX or defaulting to the largest vendor. They carefully assessed their needs, considered where they wanted to take communications within their organization, and took the time to carefully study and understand a new technology. It's organizations and people like these that pave the way for the future of business communications, and I commend Nemertes Research for honoring them.
I hope you'll take a look at the brief recaps below and download the case studies. Each contains great ideas about how a UC system can transform your organization, improve productivity and reduce costs.
When the City of Oakland needed to replace its aging PBX, it chose ShoreTel's UC system in part because the distributed architecture provided the city with a solid disaster recovery plan, enabling calls to get through even during natural disasters such as earthquakes and mudslides. The ability of the city to make its own changes and additions to the system, rather than outsourcing these activities, also saved taxpayer dollars.
Founded in 1962, Safeway Insurance Group operates seven insurance companies and offers coverage in nine states, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. The organization used its ShoreTel UC system to span its nine locations, boost employee productivity and increase customer satisfaction. The distributed architecture ensures the organization can always serve its customers, even during an emergency like Hurricane Katrina. Simple and straightforward management has also saved time and money.
Big Brothers Big Sisters is the oldest, largest and most effective youth mentoring organization in Texas. For more than 80 years, the organization has had a direct and lasting impact on the lives of children. The organization implemented a complete IP-based UC solution to tie all its remote locations together and present a unified front to the community. Streamlined business processes and new call management features helped the organization increase the number of mentoring relationships by more than 34 percent over a two-year period, while cutting the average wait time for clients to find a successful match almost in half. Meanwhile, least-cost routing saves the organization thousands of dollars a month in long distance charges.
John W. Combs
Labels: CEO