Smiles on dials as UC solution answers call

Any changes needed to the system such as adding people, changing numbers or moving handsets around the offices, can be done in-house.

"There are no costs involved when we do this, apart from the costs of any additional handsets that we need," says Gorry.

The system can scale up to 10,000 users.

Gorry  has seen immediate benefits because of the system's ease of use.

"The features of ShoreTel Director are very intuitive and much easier to learn and use compared to the old system," he says.

"The easy-to-use features are particularly important for real estate people who are not traditionally tech savvy. Because of this ease-of-use, we noticed an immediate lift in administrator productivity.

"When you add the benefits of the productivity boost to the bottom line impact of the free inter-branch call costs, you quickly realise that you have a significant resource, and one that will promote your growth into the future.

"The deployment started to provide an investment return from day one," says Gorry.

Property consultants have full telephony resources in the office or on the road.

The remote mobile capabilities of the UC system have increased productivity of Harcourts' real estate consultants, who spend a large part of their day away from the office.

Physical location is no longer an issue.

"We have been able to implement a 1300 number that can easily be assigned to different answering points to reflect our business strategy," said Gorry.

"Call handling can now be managed by users with easy access to information to transfer and control each call. The ability to switch all calls to any nominated location provides us with better use of our administration resources.

"Staff can work from different locations and assign their phone to colleagues or sites in any of our offices.

"Looking ahead, the ShoreWare Mobile Call Manager enables users to access their UC features via major mobile handsets including Blackberry and Motorola. We see mobility being an exciting second phase in our plan for generating additional productivity from our communications," he adds.

Harcourts Blue Realty has now set up a telephone 'Hotline' service in each office to connect clients and potential tenants to its property management division.

Walk-in rental inquiries can be dealt with at any branch through the ''Hotline'' service.

By offering a single point of contact for clients, the estate agent has seen a reduction in response times for landlords and people in the rental market, leading to improved customer satisfaction.

"The UC system means that being on the road is now the same as being in the office," says Gorry.

The ShoreTel UC system provides visibility across all of Harcourts Blue Realty branches and operations.

Colleagues are able to see who is on the phone, who is in the office, and when the sales consultant can take the call. This way they don't waste time calling someone when they are not available.

By providing integrated contact management with Outlook, the ShoreTel UC system enables the estate agent to create and modify user groups for specific marketing campaigns.

This provides a resource for sales professionals who want to engage with potential customers and others who might refer business to the agency.

"The ShoreTel UC system has created an estimated 30 percent savings in call and system management costs, and all calls within our branches now are completely free," says Gorry.

"Cost savings like these make a real difference to the business bottomline."

Sales and administrative staff are able to nominate how, where and when they take calls. As an additional productivity resource, they can also use different ringtones to identify the type of incoming call and route messages to different locations as and when required.

The functionality of the UC system enables staff to automatically dial-out from their PC, instead of having to dial numbers manually.

This feature saves sales and administration staff dozens of man-hours annually, as they don't have to stop work to look up telephone numbers from their files and then dial the number.

"The ShoreTel UC system is a best of breed UC system," says Hamish Haggitt, managing director of ITT Communications.

 "Harcourts Blue Realty management has a significantly improved telephony system that provides measurable call cost savings, and a productivity boost for staff.

"It has a significant resource that will underpin its growth into the future," he says.