Featured in the Great Lake IT Report - February 2008
Premises Systems shows law firm a better VoIP
The Bloomfield Hills intellectual property law firm of Rader Fishman & Grauer PLLC was worried about switching over to a new, Internet Protocol-based phone system.
But several months after a flawless switchover to a ShoreTel system installed by Walled Lake-based Premises Systems Inc., even the law firm's technophobes are happy.
"We've gotten kudos from end users we never thought we'd get kudos from," said Michael Stewart, managing partner of the firm who handles technology from the partnership side. "Staffers who are technology-reticent."
Steven Treppa, the firm's IT director, said the move to replace the firm's phone system was made because "the old PBX was aging, specifically the voice mail system, which was not going to last much longer. So we were in a situation where we were going to have to spend some money either way."
Knowing the future is in Voice Over Internet Protocol systems, Rader Fishman looked at products from Cisco Systems, Avaya and Nortel.
"Nobody offered a product that had more functions than we already had," Treppa said. "Just out of complete serendipity, Roy Bruinsma of Premises Systems gave me a cold call -- they were calling law firms, since VoIP is a natural fit for multi-site businesses. I had heard some things about ShoreTel, interesting technology, so I said sure, c'mon in, and when Dave Jasinski (Premises Systems director technology) showed us the product it just knocked our socks off, especially the integration with the PC. The other systems were still pretty much phone systems where your voice mail goes to your e-mail inbox. With the ShoreTel system, you can easily control your whole phone through your PC. Users can conference in someone without touching the phone, off their PC, without calling me for help. It's very hard to drop someone off a call accidentally."
Said Stewart: "I like how it integrates with Outlook. When someone calls in, their Outlook contact information automatically comes up. When you go to someone's Outlook contact, all the numbers you can contact them at come up and you just mouse click on them. I don't really touch my phone. And you don't even need to use a microphone on your PC. We're using a phone, we just don't have to touch it. Another feature I like is, if I work in a conference room, I can move my extension from place to place without any challenges."
Staffers can also have "VPN phones" at home or other remote locations, so that when clients or colleagues call their office number, the call automatically follows them there.
The system also automatically backs up voice mail messages, much like other types of messages are backed up. That's increasingly important for legal compliance reasons.
Rader Fishman officials said the initial cost of the new system was comparable to a Nortel system. Ongoing maintenance and support costs will be much less.
The complete project took two months from decision date, to implementation, to end-user training. The flawless Premises Systems installation happened over a weekend in July, with the actual switchover taking about 10 minutes.
"It's been rock solid," Stewart said. "We like the feature sets. Yet, we have been most impressed by its reliability and ease of use. We plan to expand the system to include our other offices."
Feel free to contact Roy Bruinsma at 248.715.1087 or via email: rbruinsma@cablers.com to explore how Premises Systems can help your organization leverage ShoreTel to gain and maintain a competitive edge.
