Integration of ShoreTel’s Productivity-Enhancing IP Telephony Applications with Salesforce Benefits Customers through Improved Workflow and Increased Productivity
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--ShoreTel™, Inc., a leading provider of IP telephony solutions worldwide, today announced certification of its Salesforce integration application and its availability on salesforce.com’s AppExchange. Now salesforce.com customers such as Millennium Partners Sports Management can leverage the award-winning features and functionality of ShoreTel phone systems integrated with salesforce.com’s suite of on-demand customer relationship management applications to improve workflows and increase productivity.
“The integration of ShoreTel and Salesforce gives us the best combination of leading technologies,” said Henry Svenblad, vice president of information technology, Millennium Partners Sports Club Management. “ShoreTel’s one-click dialing makes outbound marketing a snap. In fact, the integration is driving the team’s adoption of Salesforce. We’re seeing increases in call volume and reporting because the sales reps find it easier to log calls, which in turn increases the reporting – the sum of which results in increased productivity.”
ShoreTel’s channel partner Xtelesis agrees the integrated applications are generating important benefits for customers. “The integration of these two widely adopted technologies really helps us provide solutions to make our customers even more productive than with either tool by itself,” said Scott Strochak, president of Xtelesis. “Our sales reps can now offer their existing clients and prospective customers more efficient configurations and productivity solutions that ‘cut the fat’ to give them operational and financial advantages.”
The ShoreTel-Salesforce integration exploits ShoreTel’s open IP telephony platform to help customers embed voice communications into their core business applications. With this integration, Salesforce users can field calls more effectively and dial customers directly from their Web browsers by simply clicking a button. With the customers' records at their disposal, sales representatives can rapidly identify callers and anticipate their needs. This information can be used to close deals, cross-sell or up-sell as appropriate. Integration of the ShoreTel phone system and salesforce.com’s on-demand business applications also enables sales representatives to handle a higher volume of inbound and outbound calls.
“The incredible simplicity associated with ShoreTel for salesforce.com’s AppExchange benefits everyone,” said Steve Timmerman, vice president of marketing at ShoreTel. “Our customers, our resellers and installers – essentially everyone that touches our IP communications systems – agree that ShoreTel is very easy to install, manage and use. We anticipate that salesforce.com customers will enjoy the same efficiencies.”
“In a year’s time, more than 230 partners have made solutions available on the AppExchange, demonstrating the incredible growth of salesforce.com’s on-demand community,” said Matt Holleran, vice president, AppExchange partners. “With the addition of leading IP PBX provider ShoreTel to the Telephony Integration category on the AppExchange, salesforce.com customers can add sophisticated voice and phone services to their Salesforce SFA and Salesforce Service & Support implementations.”
Built using Apex, the world’s first on-demand platform, ShoreTel for AppExchange is one of more than 500 applications that are now available on salesforce.com’s AppExchange, the world’s first on-demand application directory, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.
Apex and the AppExchange
Apex, the world’s first on-demand platform, provides unprecedented ease of customization and integration enabling a whole new generation of on-demand applications that go beyond CRM. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, enabling all the innovation that Apex unleashes to benefit the entire on-demand community.
The Apex on-demand platform is generally available today. The Apex programming language is available today for developer preview, and is currently scheduled to be generally available in the first half of 2007.
About ShoreTel, Inc.
ShoreTel is a leading provider of IP telephony solutions worldwide since 1998 and well known for exceptional customer satisfaction. ShoreTel voice systems are designed to make businesses smarter, setting new standards for usability and manageability while reducing telecommunications costs. ShoreTel’s distributed architecture extends enterprise-class voice services to every office and outpost, keeping employees fully connected wherever they go. A select, worldwide group of channel partners provide service and support. ShoreTel is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and has regional offices in the United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit http://www.shoretel.com/ or call 1-877-80SHORE.
