Amazon Connect vs. MiCloud Connect / ShoreTel (discontinued) vs. Talkdesk

Our company is a startup that is just starting to get wholesale customers. When we realized our customers needed support using our products, we set up a Contact Center via Amazon Connect. It has been very useful in allowing us to scale up very quickly, and provide services to our company as if we were a large corporation.

Incentivized

If your company has relied only on an on-premises system in the past, Mitel is a fantastic alternative. Mitel provides an excellent hosted option for businesses looking for scalability as they expand as well as ease of deployment for use by branch offices and remote employees. However, I would recommend caution if the company plans to utilize Mitel as its only communications platform because its conferencing solutions are not ready for prime time.

Incentivized

Talkdesk does an excellent job with productivity reports. I can monitor my agent's lives during calls and their current status, allowing me to affect them productively at that moment. I can also download a productivity report on Talkdesk to analyze historical data and see patterns and problems.

Incentivized

• The training and orientation from Amazon Connect is excellent, as there are documentations and online live training.
• Further, Amazon Connect has a scalable call center, that supports voices, chats, and real time messaging.
• The customer service is also intuitive, with flexible call hours, as the team of helpers is readily available.
• Lastly, through Amazon Connect, there is a survey and feedback option.

Incentivized

• The system up-time has been 100% over 3 years.
• With separate systems and two locations we used to have to fake the system into 4 digit dialing by forwarding all remote extensions to DIDs. Now with Shortel extended to the remote location we have true 4 digit dialing.
• The Shortel desktop application makes managing calls and call routing a breeze for even our most novice users.

Incentivized

• We were able to replace on-premise solution with Talkdesk Cloud solution within project timelines
• We were able to migrate region by region while keeping our existing IVR numbers to minimize the impact on customer.
• We were able to integrate Talkdesk with our cloud CRM, AWS storage and reporting applications
• The IVR flow changes are easier to understand and manage and to onboard any new team members to support the agents

• Currently, they don't support reading SIP headers which is sent to aws from 3rd party after Self service/automation in a Agent transfer.
• Support for rich template(configured in Lex) in the Test flow of chat in Amazon Connect is missing.

Incentivized

• The Shoretel Mobility app for iPhone does not work very well and is not very intuitive in my experience.
• We have had many intermittent instances of employees reporting that call quality is bad, sounds like the caller is garbled and underwater.
• I deployed Shoretel Sky to eleven branches in four states over a 6 month period and experiences were not very consistent. Had issues with not enough power bricks being sent with the phones, some phones not having the the face sticker showing messages, directories, etc., user guides (quick start guides) not getting shipped with the phones at some branches, and phones being programmed incorrectly. This made it very difficult to plan my trips to train employees and install these at the various locations.

• Studio Builder - Can get messy really fast when building.. I'd love a more free-flow setup. Think something like LucidChart where it's all drag and drop. When I'd finish building our trees, it was VERY hard to show our executives because of how chaotic all the lines looked
• I'd love to see some additional integration flexibility, aside from Salesforce. We use Help Scout and the inability of "splitting" created interactions from TD to HS creates a challenge with having a CS team and Sales Team. We have to have all inbound calls go through CS and all outbound go through Sales. Then it's just workflow / transfer city
• Creating an API that would refresh the Callbar / browser window would be nice to avoid things timing out if we don't have calls going in/out in 1-2 hours. What will happen is that our status will read "Available" but when a call comes in, it'll push to VM until we go and logout / in to refresh the system

Incentivized

Although the price is higher than some of the other Hosted systems out there, the value is definitely worth a renewal. Everything is relative: there are some companies out there who need phones, but don't necessarily care how they work, the functionality/features available/durability etc., they just care that they have phones that make and receive calls. There are other companies that are completely reliant on phones and certain functionality that is provided by the system. There are even some companies who are straight up dependent on the phone system and are losing tons of money anytime they are down, ShoreTel is the perfect fit for theSMB client who sees value in a solid,robust, reliable and high functioning phone system

Incentivized

Renewing the use of talkdesk is a cost-effective solution for our company. By continuing to use it, we can leverage potential cost savings and efficiencies. For instance, talkdesk may have features that automate certain processes or enable better resource allocation, resulting in reduced operational costs. Secondly, renewing the contract contributes to enhanced customer service. Talkdesk likely offers specific functionalities that improve customer satisfaction and support. This could include features such as intelligent routing or real-time analytics that help agents provide personalized assistance and resolve issues more effectively. Thirdly, renewing the contract ensures seamless integration and compatibility with other systems or technologies used in our company. Having a unified system across different departments or functions enhances efficiency and reduces potential disruptions caused by incompatible systems. Moreover, there may be benefits gained from data sharing or streamlined workflows enabled by an integrated platform.

Incentivized

It is very easy to use for any access level and has greatly facilitated users' ability to properly document tickets without getting lost in short or vague comments. Each case is fully tracked through this transcription of information. This made it easier for us to decide whether to implement, use, and maintain it as our contact tool in our customer service center.

Incentivized

I have not used a wide array of communication software, but this far ShoreTel/MiCloud has been the simplest and easiest to get into. My work employs several temps at certain points throughout the year, and they use this piece of software frequently, and new hires seem to have little to no issue using this software. Additionally, this is our primary telephone communication infrastructure, and I have yet to encounter any issues when signed in and regularly using it handling external calls to our department.

Incentivized

Talkdesk is helpful because we use it to receive calls in our BPO. Not only do we track live ques and statuses from agents, but we also receive feedback from our assessors through the talk desk as well as coaching, and it also stores customer contact data; I can track all my calls, and It records all the calls so we can come back to review them. You can also listen live and track your daily productivity. You can change your aux statuses very quickly, and there was an update talk desk that allows you to queue another status while you are on a call or after-call work, which is a great feature.

Incentivized

The system has gone down on us MULTIPLE times. We asked them to move us to a different cluster. Shoretel declined. Basically we had problems or outages every month of the year from June 2012 to date. Our old phone system was just that: OLD, no bells or whistles. But it was up every day and I never had to think about it much until it was time for an upgrade. That's how I want Shoretel to be. I want it so reliable that I never have to think about it.

Talkdesk is very handy but, sometimes we do face issues were the system can just kick you out and not be able to do calls or receive calls but, what I like about the system once you start refreshing or troubleshooting, everything becomes normal it is a unique system and very modern we don't usually have system issues with Talkdesk.

Even though the system uses a lower bandwidth connection we have experienced a higher call quality than our previous system which required a T1 line and back up broadband connection.

reports are good until a report is a big one in size then the wait is longer and some call reports delay by an hour or so which is not ideal as we pull these hourly and need them from Work force management perspective and Quality reports are perfectly fine

Incentivized

ShoreTel Sky's support is amazing. The only reason why I didn't give it a 10 is that we still need to contact them for stuff that we should be able to do, for ourselves, within the management portal. I know their portal is being worked on, so hopefully they will get the "little things" included for self-management.

If Talkdesk had a dedicated phone support line I would have given this rating an overall 10. Their knowledge base is absolutely HUGE and at times very helpful. It's easy to search through and their customer support chat system works perfectly fine, but there are just some times that you need to speak to a human on the phone to ensure you are always on the same page.

I attended the first ShoreTel installer class in Austin,TX. It was a week of intensive study with a live lab and having hands on experience made the class worthwhile. I have taken all of the sales courses and remaining technical courses either online or self study to keep costs down. I send my techs to the first installer course in Austin as I feel it gives them a solid foundation and most of teh other courses they have taken have been online.

Incentivized

The training that was given to us was very smooth and professional. I give my trainer 10/ 10 rate the training was so smooth and very helpful she would make sure we also watch videos of how to use the system which made it very easier for us and what was interesting it is because, the system is also easy.

The training identified some things M5 (ShoreTel's cloud division) could provide, however it was only using it every day and asking the Shoretel support several questions that I got the hang of it. The training was able to highlight functions but I did not learn how to use the phone from the training.

Nothing is perfect!! Needing the ability to repeat the training so everyone was on board was important. Not real sure how many people had to repeat the training as they trained on their own and given 30 minutes at a time.

Incentivized

I feel that the current features that ShoreTel provides are pretty solid, but in future I would love to see it expand into more features to assist inter team communication if possible. Considering that there was not a single issue with ShoreTel in my whole work period of 6months I think it is safe to say that the implementation is pretty standardized.

Incentivized

The implementation and switch from our old software were unproblematic. We experience no issues with our IVR or transferring the number to carry our calls over. All of the information in Talkdesk is also easily synced with our current CRM and is accurate and up to date.

Incentivized

Amazon Connect has lots of free training available for partners and in general. So many demos are available to practice. It's free to test and gain more confidence before deploying in real world scenarios. You can use other AWS features to be integrated with Amazon cloud. Features like lense is amazing

Incentivized

Costs are lower with Mitel's offering than was the case with SureTel's offering. Switching from SureTel to MiTel was simple and painless. A software update was pushed by IT, and users migrated with relative ease. The vast majority of users did not need any involvement from IT during and after the switch over

Incentivized

Talkdesk is a much easier system to utilize and to train on from an agent perspective. Additionally, Talkdesk has far more features than Cisco Finesse, like WFM, caller identification, sentiment, real time call transcriptions, and so much more. Where Cisco Finesse as more of just a call system that allowed us to make and receive calls

Shoretel has been very scalable for our organization. We first installed Shoretel in 2003 to standardize three sites on one phone system. As our needs have changed, our Shoretel system has adapted with our growing needs and added locations. Initially, we were using analog phones and have been rolling out VoIP as our budgeting has allowed.

Incentivized

talk desk has helped us massively with flexibility of one system giving us all the relevant information we need to be able to drive improvement and also good service from work force management to quality improvement to the reporting of the work and inputs going in and assess outputs to determine the success of our work and remaining development areas

Incentivized

• It helps us connect with ServiceNow through a direct integration.
• It allows us to document everything from the chat with ticket documentation in real time.
• It allows us to track agent and case activities.
• It has allowed us to integrate everything with ServiceNow, and it is very valuable, something that Five9 has not achieved at the moment.

Incentivized

• We've definitely seen a business impact on our company in a positive manner. We've been able to provide the best possible service that suits our needs, while not being gouged by ISP's or Telco providers.
• We can better serve our customer service reps and tech support people by managing our own system, creating our own ring groups and control use.

• Better reporting than we had with the previous system. Better metrics = better analytics.
• WFM and QA being modules within the tool have improved how we manage agent performance, which has let to improvements in overall quality.
• Has been a key component as we continue to mature the service desk organization.

Incentivized