ShoreTel has integrated two of its unified communications platforms with Salesforce CRM so users of the cloud customer relationship management service can better leverage its sales, support and marketing functions.
The applications – ShoreTel for Salesforce and ShoreTel Sky for Salesforce – integrate the ShoreTel on-premises IP-PBX system, the Sky cloud-based phone system, ShoreTel Workgroups, and ShoreTel Sky Contact Center.
“Now users can handle all of their business communications within a single application while having the ability to collaborate in real-time,” the company said in a statement.
Automatic logging of all sales activity, regardless of a sales person’s location or device, together with prompts for agents to schedule follow-up actions can lead to closing deals faster and higher overall sales team productivity, said David Petts, ShorTel’s senior vice-president of worldwide sales. For example, a staffer on the road using a mobile phone with ShoreTel Mobility software will still have the activity logged.
With ShorTel Sky for Salesforce, all calls, voicemails and SMS messages can be logged.
The integration also means benefits to call centre customers because it shows a history of previous interactions across the company. As a result customers won’t have to retell their stories.
ShorTel said key features of the application integrations include:
–Support for next generation browser-based CTI on any device or OS; no desktop client software required;
–Click–to-Dial – start a call from within Salesforce anytime a phone number is available;
–Presence monitoring and collaboration features including transfer of workspace across devices;
–Enhanced reporting including off-line activities and ShoreTelMobility call tracking
–Single sign-on for call center agents;
–Packaged dashboards and metrics so businesses can immediately take advantage of highly integrated transactional data;
–Workspace transfer – service agents are able to transfer the entire user workspace along with the phone call for an optimized customer service experience.
ShorTel for Salesforce subscribers also get a fully customizable softphone layout. With Call Recorder, all call recordings are appended to call activity records allowing customers to conduct analytics and reporting on all their communication interactions. There’s also full support of multi-party voice conferences within the CRM softphone.
ShoreTel Sky for Salesforce subscribers get voicemail transcription, and point to point SMS messaging from the CTI (computer-telephony integration0 and Salesforce.