ShoreTel wins Nemertes Pilot House Awards for the 8th Year in a Row!

ShoreTel, Inflow Communications flagship VOIP / Unified Communications Platform, continues to outpace the competition.  Nemertes, a 3^rd-party industry research firm conducts in-depth surveys with IT professionals whom recently installed various Unified Communication Platforms throughout the country.  Each manufacture is graded based on categories like value, customer service, Return of Investment, ease of use, ease of administration, etc.

For the 8^th year in a row, ShoreTel finished head-and shoulders above the competition in every category, making them the uncontested winner.

It’s important to note that Nemertes is not commissioned by any manufacture to conduct the research.  The customers and products speak for themselves!

See for yourself – download a PDF of the Nemertes Research PilotHouse Awards here: 2011 Nemertes

Inflow Wins ShoreTel’s “World-Class Customer Satisfaction” Award for 2011

Inflow Communications, a leading provider of ShoreTel VOIP Unified Communication technology in the Northwest, was awarded ShoreTel’s highest honor for 2011. Based on independent 3rd party customer satisfaction surveys, Inflow maintained a “World-Class” customer satisfaction rating by scoring an average of 98% with all customers whom installed ShoreTel in 2011. Inflow is rated in categories like response times, technical competency, training, and the sales process.

Inflow Communications, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, focuses strictly on Unified Communication technologies like VOIP phone systems and video conferencing. Additionally, Inflow has the training and expertise to design, deploy, and support Unified Communication-capable data networks (LAN, WAN, and wireless).

Inflow Communications deploys ShoreTel Unified Communications Internationally to Singapore

Inflow Communications recently deployed a ShoreTel VOIP Business phone system for Fluidigm Corporation, headquartered in South San Francisco, California.  The initial phase of the project involved installing a 170-phone ShoreTel Unified Communication system in California last winter.  In August, Inflow Communications extended the capabilities of the single-image ShoreTel system into Fluidigm’s manufacturing facility in Singapore.

The Need:

Fluidigm had an antiquated Nortel business phone system installed in California.  The system was not supported, inflexible, and failing.  In addition to the need to replace this failing phone system, Fluidigm’s business was changing drastically and they needed the appropriate Unified Communications technology to meet those needs.  Their workforce was becoming increasing mobile and the current system didn’t support seamless smart phone integration.  Additionally, Fluidigm recently rolled out Salesforece.com CRM.  Fluidigm desired the ability to leverage the investment in the CRM system by tracking inbound / outbound calls to their service center, “pop” client records when they call in, and give their sales force the ability to easily dial clients via the clients’ records.   Last, Fluidigm needed to extend all of this functionality to their International offices, starting with Singapore.

The Solution:

Working with Fluidigm’s IT vendor, Inflow assisted in the design and deployment of a new Adtran POE network architecture.  On that VOIP-capable architecture, Inflow added ShoreTel ShoreGear voice appliances, application servers (for desktop call control, voicemail, reporting, etc), and IP phones.  ShoreGearT1K appliances were installed to terminate two (2) PRI circuits from the Public Switched Telephone Network.  Furthermore, ShoreTel’s native Salesforece.com integration software was added to facilitate the CRM integration.   Last, a ShoreTel Converged Conference bridge was installed to accommodate audio conferencing, secure Instant Messaging, and desktop sharing.

A 45 MB MPLS connection to Singapore was provisioned with the appropriate Quality of Service (QOS) to support video and Voice-over-IP data transmissions between the offices.  The Inflow engineering and professional training team traveled to Singapore to install the appropriate ShoreGear switches to accommodate an additional 80 IP phones and an E1 ISDN circuit.  This provided station-to-station dialing, presence management, and intelligent call routing with their US facilities.

Fluidigm plans on working with Inflow Communications to deploy ShoreTel to their Paris office next.

Unified Communications and Application Integration

I’m always stressing to my customers that they need to leverage their business phone system as a business-productivity tool. As you begin your research to replace your phone system, don’t just see it as an office-commodity product (like a fax machine); try to understand how the technology can align itself with your business. Along with leveraging your new VOIP phone system for voice, video, presence management, Instant Messaging, etc, how can it possibly integrate to your business applications?

Can you recognize your callers by doing a database “dip” based on caller ID and bring up the client’s record to an agent before they even answer the phone? The answer is yes. Can you “time-stamp” call activity automatically in a customer’s CRM record? Yes. Can you provide by-the-second billing information to your billing software automatically regardless if your employees are servicing your clients from their desk phone or a mobile device? Yes you can. Can you automatically make outbound calls to patients to remind them of scheduled appointments by integrating to your scheduling software? Of course!

Inflow Communications is a Portland, Oregon-based company specializing in business communications technologies – including VOIP, Unified Communications, and Video Conferencing. We can also assist you in determining if your network is adequately prepared for real-time communications applications.

A Decentralized World and How Unified Communications Keeps Pace:

The traditional enterprise model focused primarily on a central headquarters; satellite branches were an afterthought. No more. Today’s enterprise footprints are distributed far beyond the corporate headquarters to nationally and globally distributed locations that encompass several branch locations, numerous remote offices, and even home workers. Unified Communications and VOIP empowers enterprises and all workers, wherever they are, to be more “fluid” than ever. An employee may be working at a main campus one day and from a remote location the next. All work centers become business-critical and require consistent, high-performance communications solutions. We at Inflow recognize this shift from the center and our technology solutions transcend boundaries and provide consistent business communication to anyone, anytime, anywhere, on any device.