A good choice
September 07, 2013

A good choice

Bryan Shigihara | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Sky

Overall Satisfaction

  • It allows us to connect with our customers and vendors.
  • It provides us with the means to handle more calls than we could before.
  • We have been a little disappointed with the amount of service interruptions and the communications to us during those outages.
  • Although this service costs us more per month than our PBX system did, we are actually handling more calls at a time that generate more sales per day. No quantifiable numbers.
For the price, it's the best solution for our business and they have very good customer support.

Product Usage

36 - Sales, Operations, Management
1 - IT Support Techician
  • It is used for daily telecommunications purposes

Evaluation and Selection

We did not have a previous software package, we switched from a legacy PBX system.
Smooth Stone was the only other VoIP provider we researched. We also looked at going with another PBX system. We chose ShoreTel Sky (M5) because of their pricing structure and services offered.

Implementation

I was able to implement this without any prior knowledge of how to implement VLANs.

Training

  • Online training
  • Self-taught
Although it can be a little hard to locate, the training is clear and concise.
Very straightforward. We were able to teach a completely new phone system to our employees quickly. I would recommend this approach to others.

Configuration

Needed to set up two VLAN nodes, one for the phones and one for our normal network traffic.

Support

They are quick to answer questions or make requested changes to our system. Sometimes the return communication in the event of an outage is slow.

Usability

Their software interface is very clean and straightforward. Any questions can be answered quickly by their support staff.

Reliability

Most of the outages that we've experienced have been something out of their control, i.e. hurricanes, severe storms.
Calls connect quickly and clearly.

Integration

  • It has integrated with our computers to allow software control of the phones, i.e. dial from Outlook, etc.
Software installation, very easy to achieve.

Vendor Relationship

Vendor was very easy to work with during the sales process. They have been very forthcoming and easy to work with post-sales as well.
We did not try to negotiate too much, our main goal was to find a provider that could offer us what we needed without a lot of negotiation.