ShoreTel Helps the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency Revitalize Service to Neighborhoods

December 26th, 2017 by admin

A public redevelopment agency revitalizes telephone productivity, simplifies business operations and improves customer service across the city, county and community by implementing a ShoreTel UC solution. The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) is a Joint Powers Authority created by the City and County of Sacramento to represent both jurisdictions for affordable housing and community redevelopment needs. The Agency serves as the Housing Authority for the City and County of Sacramento and is the leading public developer of affordable housing and oversees residential and commercial revitalization activities in 15 redevelopment areas throughout the City and County. "Our network infrastructure is mostly Cisco, and while we considered demonstrations from four leading vendors, only ShoreTel was able to meet all of our requirements for cost, support, simplicity and integration." - Ann Roland, IT Manager, SHRA.

The Challenge

The agency used to rely on two distinct PBX telephone systems that supported but also split the agency, and no centralized directory. This meant that the organization's ability to effectively communicate with its stakeholders and staff was hampered. Aging telephony equipment, a desire to upgrade to IP-based communications and plans to move into a new location, led the agency to ShoreTel for help. "We had to do extensive cost justification for our executives who were familiar with Cisco, Avaya and Centrex, but not with ShoreTel. In the end, ShoreTel offered the very best total cost of ownership—by almost 10 percent—and had a simple straightforward architecture. Because ShoreTel is on the CMAS state contract, the procurement process was simple and we did not have to delay the move to our new building. ShoreTel was just the right solution for us." - Ann Roland, IT Manager, SHRA.

The Solution

The Agency's UC solution comprises a total of 343 ShoreTel IP 265 phones and a ShoreTel Voice Switch at each of the 16 locations, including the new headquarters, to help ensure survivability and redundancy. Benefits include:

• ShoreTel ease of integration means the agency can eliminate tedious and costly paper-generating processes with integrated fax capabilities that expedite housing certification applications and renewals and access internal databases to improve customer service.
• By using the ShoreTel TCO Tool, the agency was able to determine that the total cost of ownership of the ShoreTel system is up to 10 percent less in maintenance alone over five years compared with the existing system.
• Installing the ShoreTel UC system has eliminated over 100 old lines and circuits, merged phone directories and reduced travel requirements.
• Mobility features in ShoreTel Mobile Call Manager and ShoreTel Office Anywhere help enhance productivity and connectivity when management staff is located away from their office or on the road.

"Since implementing ShoreTel, we have so many choices for getting the work accomplished. The four-digit dialing and ShoreTel Call Manager [now ShoreTel Communicator] features accelerate call management. Staff is able to set their own call rules, and can quickly view all voicemail to better prioritize and return important calls. And we're able to view history to track conversations and stay organized, rather than having to listen to voicemail in the order they were received. It's as if we've been able to breathe new life into our desktops." - Ann Roland, IT Manager, SHRA. READ THE PDF SUCCESS STORY

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