ShoreTel (News - Alert), a vendor of Pure IP Unified Communications (News - Alert) products, has announced its Microsoft Dynamics CRM Integration application. ShoreTel officials say it integrates ShoreTel's call management and control capabilities with access to customer data.
The application is intended to help provide increased effectiveness, shorter response times, and improved account management, company officials say.
Basically the product integrates the phone communications and customer tracking. It links an incoming call to either an existing customer record or one of several new record creation screens. Users can dial out directly from theMicrosoft ( News - Alert) Dynamic CRM application using the embedded ShoreWare Web Dialer app, or they can dial out using a call manager and have an associated CRM record open.
Users can customize search settings to enable lookup of both standard and custom CRM entities and attributes, and each user can control how the integration software responds to calls and lookup results. The application doesn't require any modifications to any Microsoft components -- you don't need to coordinate product updates.
Earlier this month ShoreTel detailed the benefits of a ShoreTel IP unified communications system deployed by Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas. The ShoreTel UC system has "transformed the agency's communications system" by connecting regional offices, presenting a unified face to the community, driving down communications costs and improving service delivery, ShoreTel officials say.
Streamlined business processes and new call management features have helped Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas increase the number of mentoring relationships by more than 34 percent over a two-year period, while cutting almost in half the average wait time to find a successful match, according to ShoreTel officials.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of North Texas is the largest U.S. mentoring organization that provides children with support, guidance, friendship and fun by matching them to adult role models.
The organization had delivered its services via a professional staff working out of regional offices that relied on an outdated phone system that was not integrated. There was no single number that callers could use to reach anyone in the agency, office lines were often busy, and the agency incurred long-distance charges when calling across area codes.
In addition, staff and consultants were reluctant to use home or personal cell phones to keep in touch with the families and volunteers they served because of privacy concerns, which limited their availability and increased response time.
