Eric Roberts Associates
ShoreTel Integrates with JobDiva to Give Eric Robert Associates Greater Efficiencies
“We can use the ShoreTel phone system from home by logging into the portal to conduct business as easily as if we were in the office.”
Eric Silverman, President and CEO, Eric Robert Associates
Challenge: Find a Phone System that Integrates with JobDiva
Eric Robert Associates is a staffing company with multiple offices in New York, New Jersey, North Carolina and Florida. Its mission is to identify for its clients the best possible talent as consultants, direct hires or on a contract-to-permanent basis. Their previous phone carrier offered VoIP with plenty of features, but the phones were unreliable. “They promised us features and a dependable phone, but what we got was far from it,” says Eric Silverman, president and chief executive officer of Eric Robert Associates. “It doesn’t matter how many features the phone has; if the phones don’t work, those features are useless.”
When Eric Robert Associates began using JobDiva as its applicant tracking system, it was critical that their phone system integrate with it in order to facilitate extension and point-and-click dialing, and track historical data and call metrics.
Solution: ShoreTel Offers Rich Features and Reliability
When Eric Robert Associates researched hosted VoIP solutions, ShoreTel was the only provider able to integrate with JobDiva. The ShoreTel Sky phone system gives Silverman the ability to log into an online portal to see call metrics and manage most day-to-day tasks without having to call a help desk or submit a request. The reports show him the number of inbound and outbound calls, the phone numbers called/received and call duration to measure employee productivity. “The reports are easy to pull and I can look at real-time or historical data,” he says. “I can choose to run it daily, monthly or arrange a specific date. These reports help me better manage my employees.”
The integration with JobDiva gives Eric Roberts Associates employees the ability to click on an icon in JobDiva to automatically dial that number, as well as 3-digit extension dialing for communicating with employees across the country. With clients scattered in multiple regions across the United States, Eric Robert Associates preferred to mask the location of its employees and appear local when calling prospects. The ShoreTel Sky phone system enables them to do just that, even setting multiple area codes to one phone. For example, they can program the New York area code on a phone in Florida so recipients see a local number is calling them, making them more likely to answer.
Silverman says the reliability of the phones has been a nice improvement over the previous phones. “We are completely phone driven and without dependable phones, we would be out of business,” he says. “Since switching to ShoreTel Sky, the voice quality has improved and downtime has been minimal. Even during Hurricane Sandy, our phones were down only briefly and ShoreTel was in constant contact with updates.”
Results: Increased Productivity through Greater Efficiencies
The ShoreTel Sky phone system has given Eric Robert Associates more independence without requiring them to hire specialized administrators or grant permissions to make simple changes. Silverman can track employee performance with accessible call metrics and believes everyone in the company is more productive with the ShoreTel phone system. “We can use the ShoreTel Sky system from home by logging into the portal to conduct business as easily as if we were in the office,” he says. “Internal communications have improved with extension dialing and external communications are more professional with better quality phones. We have a higher volume of return calls from clients because we appear local even when we are across the country.”
The support from ShoreTel has been something about which Silverman is quite passionate. If there is an issue he can’t address himself, he calls ShoreTel and it is resolved usually within minutes. “ShoreTel support is responsive located in the United States, rather than outsourced overseas,” he says. “I appreciate the fact that their staff is well-trained, knowledgeable about our account and can work quickly. Customer service is often the least recognized group but I believe they are the most important because they are the face of your company. ShoreTel understands that and it shows.”