Vertex Financial Group is a team of residential mortgage specialists. Headquartered in Denver, they have advisers serving clients across the country. Most of its sales and loan processing is conducted via the telephone.
Vertex’s Challenge:
The company had an aging PBX phone system that was no longer a viable tool for productivity, and was becoming expensive and troublesome to maintain. Vertex was looking for a system to connect its ten remote offices with one unified platform, thereby simplifying interoffice communications for clients and employees. In addition, both customer service and sales were being negatively affected by Vertex’s inefficient call flow and excessive system downtime.
Factors that needed to be addressed included:
- Reliability
- Growth potential
- Seamless connectivity with remote offices
- Productivity
- Maintenance costs
The Solution:
COACTVE stepped in to analyze how Vertex’s phones fit into the company’s business model, how best to improve on the current situation, and narrow the field of possible solutions. In the end, owners decided on ShoreTel for its quick return on investment (better employee productivity translates to more closed transactions,) ease of expansion as the company grows, and the total reliability of one of the industry’s best engineered systems.
COACTIVE showed managers how the productivity tools inherent in Voice over IP were enhanced with ShoreTel, including industry-standard call management from their desktops (contacts from Outlook are immediately pulled up and accessed by a mouse click, saving time and frustration,) receptionist visibility of the entire office (with drag and drop call handling,) and the ease of system management for their IT person through the ShoreWare Director. Employees were also encouraged to make use of ‘Office Anywhere’ functions, which made their home offices functional extensions of the corporate system, as well as ShoreTel’s powerful ‘FindMe’ feature, which allows callers to be quickly and automatically transferred to their broker when he or she is out of the office.
The Result:
COACTIVE’s expertise led to a smooth transition, as technicians installed the new ShoreTel alongside Vertex’s old system, giving employees a chance to ease into the new technology. With the ShoreTel system in place, all employees are now on a centralized phone and voicemail system, using 4-digit dialing to reach brokers or employees at any location. Due to multiple productivity increases, Vertex has simply sold more, in less time, with less hassle.
“COACTIVE has been great,” Mike Waitt, CEO Vertex Financial says. “As a result of the implementation, we were able to connect 10 remote offices and eliminate a ton of manual call flow problems. It’s decreased our overhead and increased revenue nearly 20%. Our return on investment was less than six months, much quicker than we originally anticipated”. The ShoreTel IP telephony system met all of Vertex’s requirements, plus many they hadn’t considered, and is now recognized as more than a replacement phone system – it’s a very tangible tool for growing the business.