Cakewalk
Outstanding service, no matter what
Music software pioneer provides VIP level service
When music recording software company Cakewalk selected ShoreTel Sky’s phone system in April 2011, employees immediately saw an improvement in their efficiency, productivity, and level of customer service. We spoke to Willy Jones, Product Support Manager, and Dave Guerette, Tech Support Representative, to learn more about how ShoreTel Sky has made a positive impact on their business.
Since its inception almost 25 years ago, Cakewalk has been a leader in the music recording software industry. In fact, they were one of the pioneers for MIDI sequencing on computers, dating back to the days of MS DOS. Currently, they make recording software that powers music recording studios as well as software that can be used to record music at home.
Based in Boston, MA but serving customers all over the country, Cakewalk knew they needed a new phone system that would allow some sort of remote work possibility. As Jones described, “If we have a snowstorm, our users in Tennessee aren’t going to look out the window and necessarily understand the situation up here. So rain or shine, we had to be here, and there were a couple days this winter when we had a foot-and-a-half of snow, and we all had to make it in eventually. We don’t have a huge staff, so oftentimes if even two people can’t make it, it’s a pretty rough day.”
With ShoreTel Sky, customer support reps and technical support staff have the ability to use their phones from any location or have their calls routed to their home phone or personal cell phone. In addition to providing this flexibility, ShoreTel Sky also improves Cakewalk’s responsiveness to customers’ needs. With Phone Assistant, customer service reps have realtime data and background information on each customer that allows them to anticipate a customer’s questions and have solutions ready before picking up the call. Furthermore, Cakewalk has taken full advantage of other upgrades to their phone system, like time-of-day (TOD) controls and call forwarding, all of which have improved their efficiency and productivity. According to Guerette, “within half a week it was clear that the new system was already easier, and we were already more efficient at taking calls with it.”
One of the drawbacks of the old system was raw call capacity and callers getting busy signals. With the ShoreTel Sky system in place the customer service lines handled 176% more calls this June than last and the technical support department handled 154% more calls.
In addition to appreciating the features of the new phone system, Cakewalk’s employees were even more impressed with the level of customer service and training provided by ShoreTel. They were pleased with the responsiveness and resourcefulness of their ShoreTel Sky Support representative, who was consistently available and was able to tailor each solution to the company’s exact needs. Jones explained that he “answered almost every question our IT guys threw at him about implementation and setup and things like that. And he made us feel really comfortable about the whole process.”
Finally, Jones admitted that Cakewalk was particularly sold with using ShoreTel Sky when Korg, one of their competitors, gave ShoreTel Sky a ringing endorsement. “They are another company with the support needs similar to ours in the exact same industry, so it definitely helped out,” Jones said. “And would we recommend it again? I think absolutely. I think once you put the whole package together, and the time and money you save by not having to manage your own system I think it totally makes up for any extra costs.”