Business Communication Insight

CRI Receives ShoreTel Customer Satisfaction Award

ShoreTel Customer Satisfaction Award

At CRI, we don’t like to toot our own horn. We leave that up to our raving fans – our clients and customers who love telling others about how we’ve helped them with their business communications needs.

However, we can’t help but be honored when ShoreTel, our premier voice partner, takes notice of the positive work we do and how satisfied our customers are with our work.

We work extensively with ShoreTel to provide voice over IP (VoIP) solutions, including Unified Communications (UC), Call Center, Mobility and application integration, to our clients.

CRI recently received the ShoreTel Customer Satisfaction Award for delivering world-class professional service and customer care for the first half of the fiscal year.

This award was given to ShoreTel resellers who achieved customer experience scores above 55, as measured by an independent third party. Currently, CRI’s customer satisfaction score is 100 – meaning all our customers would enthusiastically refer us to others.

Receiving this award is quite humbling. But, it is also a big responsibility for our company. It means that our team members must live up to the excellence that our customers – and the people they tell about us – expect from our company.

Our passion is people. We care deeply about our customers and helping them succeed. It is truly an honor and privilege to work with them every day. And we can’t thank them enough for their ongoing support.

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4 Reasons Smart Business Leaders Invest in Their Phone System

Smart business leaders invest in phone systemsWhen you look back at how businesses have used telephones to communicate, not much changed from the 1950s through the end of the century.

But, then something happened. Use of the Internet became more widespread and disrupted our thinking how to run a business. Old assumptions about work were challenged and new tools for productivity and collaboration emerged. Internet enabled mobile devices added fuel to the fire and today’s mobile, flexible, social and super-connected company was born.

This new level of connectivity allows you to be anywhere in the world and use a desk phone, softphone or mobile phone to transfer a call to a co-worker. And now, smart businesses are using this technology to get the edge over their competitors by offering greater internal collaboration and world-class customer service.

Smart business leaders know your phone system is a source of revenue

The time when a business phone system simply was a necessary cost of doing business has passed. Like every other technology investment, a modern business phone system is strategic and helps contribute dollars to the bottom line. Integration, intelligence and enablement are the keys to making this happen.

1. Integration

Traditional phone systems are like islands of technology. They function completely outside of the key systems that run the business.

But that has changed with today’s VoIP phone systems, which can be configured to integrate with core applications like the CRM, ERP or ATS. When the systems are fused together, each becomes more powerful, employees become more productive and better business intelligence starts to emerge. In short, smart business leaders know that the best phone systems do not simply stand alone. They become an integral part of your company’s business technology ecosystem.

2. Intelligence

In today’s data driven world, savvy business leaders expect their phone systems to do more than just let them make phone calls. It must also provide valuable insight into the health of the business.

For instance, a hosted PBX phone system can play a role in optimizing staffing levels, evaluating employee performance, analyzing marketing spend and understanding customer behavior. Just like with mobile devices, it is not what your phone system does that makes it “smart,” it’s what it knows.

3. Sales and Service Enablement

These days, there are countless ways for sales and service representatives to engage with prospects and customers. Email, social media and in-person meetings all have their place, but for most organizations, the most important revenue driving interactions still occur over the telephone.

A top-notch business phone system must simplify the life of your representatives, making them more productive, while providing data and analytics that drive business decisions. The best virtual PBX solutions take this one step further by becoming a powerful tool for faster onboarding.

Training, coaching and best practices implementation are the keys to bringing a new representative onboard successfully and your phone system, if it is truly modern, will provide the tools and data to ensure new representative success.

4. Be Everywhere

Many of us are living in a post-cubicle world. We work from home, airplanes, hotels and coffee shops. Mobile technologies have untied us from our desks, but traditional office phone systems remain tethered.

Today’s VoIP phone systems enable work from anywhere and keep company unity intact. This one comes with an acid test. f you can’t use a desk phone, softphone or mobile phone to transfer a call to a co-worker, even if you aren’t in the office, you aren’t using a modern phone system.

Why do you think it’s worth investing in your phone system? What benefits do you see from this technology investment?

Image credit: K Latham

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How ShoreTel Mobility Can Help You Stay Connected with Customers

Use Your Smart Phone with ShoreTel MobilityDelivering superior customer service is paramount for businesses today. To deliver on that promise, companies need to be reachable – that means, customers want to quickly and easily contact you and your employees when they need you. And, it helps if customers don’t have to dial a long list of numbers to do it.

So, what’s the answer?

ShoreTel Mobility is the solution to this problem.

What is ShoreTel Mobility?

ShoreTel Mobility allows the user the freedom of walking in and out of the office without the fear of missing an important phone call. It allows customers and clients to call a single number and reach their desired party every time.

Mobility utilizes the Wi-Fi on a smartphone to ensure cost efficiency. By leveraging the Wi-Fi, the user may start off on their enterprise Wi-Fi, walk out of the building and out of the range of Wi-Fi, and the call will automatically process over to the Cellular Network. When the user returns to an accepted Wi-Fi network (home, office or even the local Starbucks) the call is automatically returned to Wi-Fi. This allows a user to provide superior customer service, all the while being unconsciously thrifty for the business.

This doesn’t eve require a ShoreTel IP-PBX to work. This agnostic convergence option, allows the use of many of your popular existing PBX systems – it simply requires adding the ShoreTel Mobility option.

It isn’t even dependent on your cellular provider as ShoreTel Mobility it is supported on most popular cellular devices, including iPhone, Droid, Nokia and Blackberry.

Why Mobility?

With a mobility solution, your customers will hear less voicemail and experience less “phone tag”. This means better customer service, without hiring more staff or spending a lot of money on a new phone solution.

And, not to mention, your company will be more cost efficient too, since you’re able to minimize cell phone minutes usage by relying on Wi-Fi networks, public and private .

There isn’t a business that cannot benefit from these types of results.

You can learn more with this excellent video from ShoreTel. If you don’t see the video below, click here.

Want more information on ShoreTel Mobility? Contact us for more information.

Image credit: Dru Bloomfield

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Is Legacy Phone Equipment Costing Your Business?

What is your legacy phone system costing you?

“My current system is paid for and does not cost me anything.”

Sound familiar?

The unfortunate fallacy of this statement is that many businesses believe this, and do not really understand the costs of maintaining the status quo with their legacy phone system. The result is that technology refreshes are often delayed because of perceived high capital costs, when in fact, the return on investment for new technology is so glaring that doing nothing is costing them dearly.

Autobody Shop Uncovers Savings by Switching to VoIP

That’s exactly what a small autobody shop discovered with their phone system. The shop was looking to replace an aging phone system with VoIP telephony technology, but felt that the capital costs were simply too high for the company to absorb.

They had not done a business cost analysis or feasibility study to see what their actual monthly outlays were, and whether a new system made financial sense. Upon further review, it was found that their current expenses were $965 per month just for telephone system maintenance and carrier costs for a small business of 15 employees.

RESULTS: Switching to a new phone system with VoIP-based technology actually saved them $165 per month! From a business perspective, they were also able to add wireless phones for their shop’s supervisors and managers, which meant improved customer service, no lost calls, and faster response to business opportunities. New revenues!

A small savings to be sure, but it has a direct hit on their bottom line financials. Extrapolate this to a larger firm, and the financial impact can be substantial.

What is your legacy phone system costing YOU?

How do you determine if upgrading your communication technology makes sense for your business? Here is a checklist to help you evaluate what your existing phone system is costing you:

  1. Analyze your current equipment costs. Your existing equipment might be costing you more than you realize. To find out, review your annual spending for the following:
    • Annual Maintenance Costs
    • Internal Technical Labor Costs
    • External Technical Labor Costs (vendor costs)
  2. What are my network costs? This includes carrier-associated costs for data and voice communications.
  3. Know your customers and your competition! Who are your customers, and what are your primary revenue sources? Are your competitors doing anything differently to increase their customer base and revenues?
  4. How do my customers interact with my company (telephone, email, website, social media, smartphones)? Understanding this can help you determine what priority needs to be placed on your communication systems.
  5. How easy is it for customers to do business with you? In other words, does your communications infrastructure make it easy for customers to contact you and your team? If you’re not sure, ask! Customer surveys are a great way to find out how you’re doing in this area and what you can do to improve.
  6. Where does new revenue come from? If you’re measuring your sales initiatives, you should know how and where your new customers are coming from. Understanding this can help you place the proper priority on the sales funnels and communications methods that your prospects prefer.

Evaluate your existing system

Once you’ve gathered the information in the checklist above, you can then evaluate how your phone system is measuring up and whether a new system is worth the cost. Here are some additional questions to ask:

  1. Will technology improvements have a direct impact upon revenues? For instance, you might consider the following:
    • Will a contact center improve sales and/or customer service?
    • Will a mobile application make it easier to reach my customers or potential new clients?
    • Do I use social media outlets such as blogs, Facebook, or LinkedIn to identify new clients?
  2. What are my anticipated future costs for these improvements? Once you determine which improvements might be justifiable from a revenue-generating standpoint, you should look into the costs of the upgrade.
  3. Do I have a diversified funding plan (leasing, local bank)?
  4. Take your existing costs and anticipated future costs and run a Return on Investment analysis.

Get a Free Feasibility Study

If the process of analyzing these costs seems overwhelming to you, CRI can help! We offer a free feasibility study to see if a communications upgrade makes sense for your business. And, even if you decide it’s not the right time to make some changes, at the very least you will understand your business costs, and where technology can grow your business.

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7 Important Questions to Help You Evaluate Voice Partners

Questions You Should Ask Voice Partners

Selecting a new voice system – and a partner to support it – can be a daunting process. There is a sea of companies that can support your voice system, so how do you know which is the right one?

Oftentimes, it boils down to asking the right questions.

Knowing the questions gets you the answers that help you get to the heart of a company’s offerings.  And, their answers can be very telling about what it would be like to work with them.

Here’s a rundown of seven important questions you should ask as you’re evaluating voice partners:

1. How long has the voice provider been in business?

This doesn’t mean if a voice partner has only been in business a few years that they cannot be good at what they do. However, longevity in the technology industry equals experience and stability. If a company has been around for a long time, their business will be likely to stick around and not fold up shop.

This has its truths and its falsehoods when it comes to any type of technology companies. Those with the years of experience keep the process grounded and controlled, while those with the new age ideas keep the process on the cutting edge.  With a team of seasoned veterans and new talent, this mix ensures that your voice partner will be able to help you through the whole process.

2. How does the voice partner define their relationship with the manufacturer?

The list of adjectives that could describe a vendor’s relationship with their manufacturer can be quite lengthy –  Partner, Champion Partner, Gold, Silver, Bronze level. Regardless of the term used, it is important to understand what that relationship means and how it will impact your relationship with the provider.

For instance, understanding this will help you determine — what kind of response time will they have should your product have an issue. This doesn’t seem like such an important question to ask in the beginning, but you will be thankful you did if you actually need the manufacturer’s support.

3. What percentage of the company is focused on customer support?

We have all experienced the type of company where they have plenty of people to sell to you a service, but no one to help you when something goes wrong. This is why it is important to know that there is customer support staff to back up the services the salesperson sold you on. Do your homework on the front end to save headache on the back end.

4. How many technicians and customer support staff are certified in the products you are looking to purchase?

Having a large number of technicians on staff does not mean that all those technicians are capable of working on your system. It is important to understand what percentage of that support staff has the appropriate certifications to troubleshoot and repair your system.

5. How many “raving fans” do they have? In other words, what do their customers have to say about them?

Sometimes the best way to decide on a company is to find out what their customers say about their service. How many customers does the company have that are willing to come to you as a potential customer and say “yes, this is the decision I made and I would do it all over again.”

Almost any voice partner can get a system installed and functional, but how was that experience? What happened the first time the system had an issue? This is something you can really only get an unbiased opinion from another customer. To get that information, read the testimonials on their website, Google the company name, or check social networks to get a true glimpse of the company.

6. Do they use the system or devices they are proposing you to buy?

This is another great question. If the voice provider uses the system they are trying to sell you, they have confidence in the product and understand how it works.

That also means they know all of the ways a system can go wrong and how to troubleshoot problems. They know what potentially an end user could have done to cause the problem. They know the behavior of the system when certain aspects fail. They know how to use the system inside and out.

7. What is their training process? How are they going to train the end users?

There are always options in how training can be completed. For instance, many companies opt for recorded videos or support materials. Although those can be useful, most users learn best by doing. That’s why live, interactive training will always be the best option. Find out if the voice provider has a professional trainer on staff to help ensure user satisfaction and adoption of the system.

What questions would you ask potential voice partners?

Armed with these questions, you will have a better understanding of your potential voice partner. Did these questions help you evaluate potential voice partners? What questions would you add to the list?

Image credit: Alexander Henning Drachmann

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4 Exciting New Features in ShoreTel 13

The recent release of the ShoreTel 13 operating software includes a number of enhancements that will make it easier for companies to communicate.

Here are the four best features improvements we’re seeing with the new software:

1. Usability Improvements with Communicator

One of the most significant improvements with the latest release is the upgrade to the ShoreTel Communicator software. ShoreTel is making some huge strides to make the software more user-friendly. The users will have the ability to make all the changes they have before, but this time, it’s is a much simpler process.

With ShoreTel, users have always had the ability to easily program their incoming calls. But now, version 13 gives users external routing features such as find me, a feature that finds you at other phones. It als gives you the ability to ring additional phones in one simple menu. This menu also lets users select which call handling modes these features should affect.

In addition, upgrades to the “find me” feature allows users the option to activate this feature without interaction from the caller. This is a great advancement to ensure callers get a seamless experience whether you are in or out of the office.

ShoreTel 13 Call Routing

You can choose many more phone numbers for the system to reach you at too. This saves all the numbers you many use.

ShoreTel 13 Select Phones

With previous releases, you had to pay extra for the Professional Communicator, an upgraded version of the software that comes with each extension programmed in the system. Now with the release of ShoreTel 13, all users will have access to the advanced features in their Communicator with no additional costs.

This includes the ability to use IM, if your company has that feature enabled. Users will have access to a screen in the program that will show you when your colleagues are on the phone or away from their desks. You’ll even be able to set your Communicator to let you know when people are available to take a call from you.

ShoreTel 13 Flag Contacts

2. Outlook Compatibility Upgrades

With the spotty relationship between Microsoft Outlook 2010 and ShoreTel 12 releases, Outlook 2010 users will be happy to hear these issues have been fully resolved in ShoreTel 13.

In addition, when importing contacts from Outlook, it will be much quicker. Your system administrator adds many of the contacts that are public to the whole office right to the system itself. This means no more waiting for all those folders to import. You will only have access to your personal folders in the future and it will be up to your system administrator to add the public folders.

Additionally, both personal and public contacts will be uploaded to the ShoreTel system rather than housed on the local machine. This means an end user with 2,000+ contacts, won’t see any performance issues from a lack of space on their local machine. This does not mean that your personal contacts are available for the entire company to see. They will still be private to your Communicator.

Why was ShoreTel able to make such an amazing upgrade with Outlook 2010? Because the communicator client no longer needs the MAPI client that was causing all the incompatibility! With the removal of the MAPI client, the ShoreTel Communicator software is now a cinch to install. With no need to reboot the system after install and no double checking Outlook to ensure it registered the MAPI, software installation should take half the time.

ShoreTel 13 Outlook Integration

Users still on Outlook 2003 will not have the interactions between Outlook and Communicator. This should not be too much of change for you as 2003 was officially an unsupported relationship as of release ShoreTel 12.

3. Simplified System Administration

System administrators will get a simplified management of the system with more control over the options of the server, without extra equipment. ShoreTel 13 will fully support SIP trunks, without an ancillary device, to support basic telephony functions. With more features at the end users fingertips, it means less specialized programming to make up for features the system does not have.

4. New Web Conferencing Features

If web conferencing is a feature used in your environment, ShoreTel has enabled web conferencing recordings to be used without the use of a service appliance. And with the direct integration with Lifesize video conferencing, it becomes a company resource, not just a conference room resource.

With all of the upgrades and improvements, it’s not hard to see why we at CRI are so excited. If you’d like more information about ShoreTel 13 or would like to schedule your upgrade, click here to contact us.

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How ShoreTel’s Communicator Integrates with Microsoft Outlook

Most businesses spend a ton of time using their phone and email to communicate with contacts. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could use both from the same program?

You can thanks to the ShoreTel Communicator, the tool for managing calls through your computer. It was built to integrate with Microsoft Outlook so you can see all of your information in one place. In fact, that’s one of the many reasons CRN Magazine named ShoreTel Sky Communicator as one of the most Innovative Products of 2012.

Let’s take a look at how it works.

Contact Integration

ShoreTel Integration Allows You to Make Calls from OutlookShoreTel gives you the ability to pull in your contacts from Outlook into the Communicator. That way, when you’re ready to place a call, you will be able to type in a person’s name and their contact info will appear. You will even be able to choose a phone number, if the contact has multiples.

But, you don’t have to have to place the call from the ShoreTel communicator. This integration allows you to place the call directly from Outlook.

Here’s how it works – When you access their contact card in Outlook, simply right click on a phone number and an option to call will appear. This means you can call contacts from two programs with just a click of the mouse.

For someone like me, that is amazing! I can quickly make calls and avoid dialing the wrong number.

Calendar Integration

With the Outlook Calendar integration, you can make calendar appointments inside of Outlook and set the call handling mode you want to display during that appointment time, all inside one program.

The system will automatically change your ShoreTel call-handling mode to whatever you set with your Outlook appointment during the appointment time. This means if you have utilized your call handling modes to the fullest extent (Click here to find out how to do that) you only have to set the appointment. Outlook and ShoreTel does the rest for you – letting both internal and external callers that you are not available, or how to reach you (or not).

Voicemail to Email

Another great feature allows you to have the ShoreTel system send your voicemails into your email. This can be completed with one of two types of emails. One as  email with a .wav file attachment. This attachment can be played on many different devices.

ShoreTel Sends Voicemails to Outlook

The other option is to have it send as special type of message that allows the user to play the message right in your outlook without any attached files. This one however, can only be played on your computer. This centralizes all the messages and communication you might be receiving in to one spot, which means managing one inbox instead of two.

With the simple integration with Outlook, you can begin take advantage of true Unified Communication.

If you’re a ShoreTel user, have you tried any of these feature yet? What questions do you have about using ShoreTel with Microsoft Outlook?

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7 Ways Your Business Can Benefit From Video Collaboration

How Businesses Can Benefit from Video CollaborationTraditional video conferencing was used as an extension of audio conferencing to provide a lower cost alternative to face-to-face business meetings.  As is true today, adapting to changing schedules is difficult at best, and trying to have the necessary participants available when you need them is a real challenge in today’s business environment.

The problem with legacy video conferencing systems is that they were proprietary, had low resolution video, had limited data sharing capabilities, and required dedicated network connections often making it an expensive asset to own.

Today, the video conferencing world has changed dramatically. Video conferencing in the traditional sense has given way to video collaboration. These new systems are high definition (HD), standards based (H.264), offer extensive data sharing capabilities, and can incorporate mobile participants through the cloud.

In other words, video collaboration participants can connect from anywhere such as; a conference room, desktop, or their mobile client such as an iPhone or iPad. As a result, these systems are more cost effective, use existing network connections, and encourage greater adoption from users, which produces a strong Return on investment (ROI). How your business interacts with your customers is the key in determining where and how this technology fits.

How can your company benefit from video collaboration?

Here are a few examples:

  1. Product Design & Development. On a single call, you can engage multiple suppliers from anywhere to discuss new product design, view components, and make design changes on the fly. Think of an iPad on the production floor accessing the call using a wireless connection and sharing a photo or video real time.
  2. Quality Control. Mount a camera on the production floor to monitor the production process, or identify a production flaw.  This can reduce production rejects improving output, quality and profits.
  3. Contact Center. Integrate video into the contact center for training agents, or delivering video content to the customer.
  4. Employee Training. Save costs from bringing employees to one location and instead hosting the training virtually.
  5. Corporate Announcements. Communicate face-to-face with employees across multiple locations and remotely via Smartphones without any travel expenses.
  6. Healthcare. specialists can review lab results with other doctors to determine a treatment regimen, or in behavioral health view body language as a technique in identifying symptoms for treatment.
  7. Security. View recorded or real time video of new construction site to assess progress, or identify problem areas of potential theft.

Certainly, there are dozens of other ways video collaboration could be used. But, this should give you plenty of ideas of how video collaboration help your company can go beyond the stereotypical conference call.

What are your options for video collaboration?

Here are the three most common systems:

  1. Room System. These are fixed units generally installed in a conference room consisting of a video codec, camera, and HD monitor. Some will contain a video bridge that provides multi-party conferencing.
  2. Desktop. This system requires a PC-mounted camera, and software. Bridging of multiple calls can be an internal bridge, or use the cloud (Software or Infrastructure as a Service).
  3. Smartphone or Tablet PC. If you want to use video collaboration on your mobile smartphone, software and a bridging cloud service such as Lifesize ClearSea is required.

Want to learn more?

If you think video collaboration could be beneficial to your business, CRI will be hosting a lunch and learn event on February 27th where we’ll demonstrate how these different capabilities will work. Lunch will be provided for free.

Here are the details:

Video Collaboration Lunch & Learn
February 27 at 11 a.m.
CRI – Knoxville Office
1460 Breda Drive – Knoxville, TN 37918

If you have an interest in attending, please contact Kurt Wiberley at 865-686-3042 or kwiberley@yourcri.com. We hope to see you there!

Image credit: Franky242

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What is BYOD and why all the Buzz?

Why BYOD matters to your businessWhen I first heard the word BYOD I thought I was reliving my Sigma Chi Fraternity days and had just been invited to our annual boxer bash.  Then I remembered that was BYOB and that I have been out of college for almost… well, we won’t go there.

If you are using a smartphone or tablet I will almost bet you have heard the acronym BYOD either at work or from someone else. In case you haven’t, BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device. It is by definition the consumerization of IT and a term that has been widely accepted to refer to employees who bring their own device such as smart phones and tablets to the workplace for use and connectivity on the corporate network. That’s it plain and simple. That seems easy enough, right?

So, why all of the buzz?

There are three major factors pushing companies to adopt this approach to business communication:

1. Massive Adoption of Smartphones and Tablets

In the past few years, there has been an explosion of tablets and smartphones in the market place. According to research firm In-Stat, about 65 percent of the U.S. population, or over 200 million people, will have a smartphone and or tablet in 2015.

2. Improvement of Mobile Devices

Many of the tablets and smartphones on the market today are as powerful as the PCs we use in our office. The feature-rich smart phones and tablets of today provide a useful array of embedded features that allow the user to be more productive, enabling a new class of uses with many of the already installed applications.

Almost 61 percent of smartphone users say mobile devices make them more productive, according to a survey conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project. And, as a result, employees are asking IT departments if they can have these features available at work.

3. A More Mobile Workforce

In today’s workplace, people are more mobile than ever. Thanks to smartphones and tablets, we can have access to any tool, any time, from anywhere. The seamless integration with existing video, phone and corporate network systems make the possibility limitless no matter if employees are at home in the office or across the globe in another country.

The only downside to this is that researchers say that smartphones and tablets cause people to work an extra two hours per week as we are always connected and in touch.

We are in the middle of a technology trend like we have never seen. In today’s world, the end user is driving the demand for these new BYOD services as employees no longer want to be stuck with a device that is forced upon them by the IT department. This is the complete reversal from the former approach where the IT departments made all of the decisions and you get what they give you.

While we are still in the early stages of BYOD adoption, companies must start working on a strategy now. Some of the Generation Y employees now filling the workforce even chose to go with other companies for a lesser amount of money simply based upon the technology it offers employees.

In the end, it is about end users being able to use the communications devices they choose to increase mobility and productivity.  Some company’s failure to adapt to the BYOD trend could find themselves losing a competitive edge in the market by losing their greatest asset.

What do you think? What questions do you have about BYOD?

Image credit: Adamr

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How ShoreTel Workgroups Can Power Your Contact Center

A work group is a group that works, right?

Thankfully, the ShoreTel system makes it easy to optimize how your group – whether it’s a customer service center, help line or billing department – communicates with callers.

The ShoreTel system, by default, has a basic version of an Automatic Call Distribution Group, or as we call it, Workgroup. A workgroup is small to medium group of individuals that can work a contact center or call center.

ShoreTel workgroups are composed of five parts: Workload Distribution, The Queue, Monitoring Software, Coaching Tools, and Reporting. We’ll go over each of these below.

Workload Distribution

This feature allows the caller to hear more than ringing in their ears. When a call comes in, it will automatically filter through a list of people we will now refer to as the Workgroup. When an agent of this group is busy, that agent can be skipped and the caller is filtered to the next agent. If all the agents are busy, the caller is then placed into a Queue.

Queue

The queue works just like a line at the amusement park, only a little less fun. When a call is in the queue, the caller is placed in a line for the next available agent. While the caller is waiting, they can be given on-hold messaging with as little or as much information as you choose. They can be given wait time, a specialized message, or a menu for them to escape the queue.

Monitoring Software

With the ShoreTel monitoring software, the agent is empowered to provide the best customer service to all customers. The agent is able to see each caller waiting in the queue and how long each caller has been waiting. The agent can select to answer the calls in any order – based on wait time, Caller ID or name. This same software is available to a supervisor, which not only allows them to monitor the queue, but the agents too. If more staffing is needed, with a simple click of the mouse, new agents can be added and logged in from anywhere.

Coaching Tools

The system has the capabilities to allow real-time coaching from the supervisor team. Whether it be barging into a call to protect an employee or silently coaching the employee with what to say, the supervisor can help. This prevents multiple transfers of an angry caller and also allows the agent the security that their supervisor is only a mouse click away, even if the supervisor is in another zip code.

Reporting

The built in reporting functionality allows the agent supervisor to see data on Call Handling. This can be a general report to see the calls and the way they were handled by the queue or as detailed as every call handled in or out by an agent. This allows the management team to evaluate staffing, and call volume.

In short, with five powerful tools from ShoreTel, even the smallest of call center can perform like the largest. And, the beauty is that you get all the same features, without much added cost.

What questions do you have about ShoreTel workgroups?

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