ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1 Addresses Growing Customer Demands of Global Enterprises

Support for New Languages, More Powerful Reporting and More Open Interfaces Make ShoreTel the Simple Choice for Multimedia Contact Centers Around the World


SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - September 1, 2009) - ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified Communications (UC), today released ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1, the latest version of its application suite designed for high-performance and highly available inbound and outbound multimedia contact centers.

Designed for contact centers around the world, this new release includes support for seven additional languages and advanced reporting features that help dramatically improve customer service while reducing deployment and maintenance costs. The addition of more open interfaces to this release makes it easier for organizations to integrate custom applications that help streamline processes and provide business intelligence.

Another brilliantly simple ShoreTel solution, ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1 is easy and cost-effective to deploy, maintain, and use. All-in-one capabilities include multimedia, integrated interactive voice response (IVR), outbound functionality, integrated reporting, hot standby redundancy and an intuitive call flow builder.

NEW FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS

--  Contact Center 5.1 strengthens ShoreTel's increasing international
    presence by supporting contact center operations in Belgium, France,
    Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates.
--  The addition of more open interfaces makes scripting easier and
    enables real-time agent activity feeds so organizations can improve the
    customer experience.
--  Powerful built-in reporting includes new reports on extensive post-
    call activity, and reports can now be scheduled to be emailed -- all
    without requiring third-party packages or database knowledge.
--  ShoreTel has expanded its developer program to include open interfaces
    from Contact Center 5.1, creating a one-stop shop for system integrators,
    programmers and vendors to access all of ShoreTel's open interfaces.
    

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS

--  Contact Center 5.1, based on ShoreTel's proven distributed telephony
    platform, allows agents to be located anywhere, including home offices,
    enabling organizations to create highly productive, cost-effective virtual
    contact centers.
--  ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1 includes integrated IVR and sophisticated
    built-in reporting while other vendors require standalone, third-party or
    professional services solutions.
--  The application suite increases individual agent productivity and
    responsiveness, enabling superior customer service, technical support and
    sales program management. Self-service capabilities enable customers to
    perform tasks such as reviewing billing options and checking balances,
    while retaining the option to reach a live agent.
--  The combination of ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1 and the ShoreWare®
    Call Manager provides agents and supervisors with a unified desktop
    application for all communications, including inbound and outbound calling,
    telephony presence, instant messaging, and video.
    

QUOTES

"Our medically trained specialists are ready to handle calls 24/7 from residents throughout the state of Georgia, and ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1 helps ensure that waiting for advice is avoided as much as possible. A unique advantage of the ShoreTel Contact Center solution is in its ability to integrate remote agents on the fly to help meet a surge in traffic. During public health panics like the recent peanut butter recall, our traffic more than tripled. ShoreTel lets us handle these kinds of spikes more easily since our poison specialists can login to the poison center and answer calls from home using their regular phone lines and respond quickly to concerned residents."

- Dr. Robert J. Geller, Medical Director, Georgia Poison Control in Atlanta

"ShoreTel continues to deliver the architecture, applications and services companies need to deploy and maintain end-to-end unified communications that give them a competitive advantage by improving customer service. With Contact Center 5.1, we have made it easier for companies around the world to increase their productivity and satisfy their customers while spending less money. That's what we mean by 'brilliantly simple.'"

- Kevin Gavin, Vice President of Marketing, ShoreTel

RELATED LINKS & CONVERSATION

-- ShoreTel Contact Center 5.1

-- ShoreTel Customer Success Stories (videos and case studies)

-- ShoreTel Features

-- ShoreTel blog

-- ShoreTel Twitter handle

-- ShoreTel awards

About ShoreTel, Inc.

ShoreTel, Inc., (NASDAQ: SHOR) is the provider of brilliantly simple Unified Communication (UC) solutions based on its award-winning IP business phone system. We offer organizations of all sizes integrated, voice, video, data, and mobile communications on an open, distributed IP architecture that helps significantly reduce the complexity and costs typically associated with other solutions. The feature-rich ShoreTel UC system offers the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and the highest customer satisfaction in the industry, in part because it is easy to deploy, manage, scale and use. Increasingly, companies around the world are finding a competitive edge by replacing business-as-usual with new thinking, and choosing ShoreTel to handle their integrated business communication. ShoreTel is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has regional offices in Austin, Texas, United Kingdom, Sydney, Australia and Munich, Germany. For more information, visit www.shoretel.com.

Contact Information: Press Contact: Rachel Shelton Eastwick Communications Tel: +650-480-4069 rshelton@eastwick.com

ShoreTel products ShoreTel Vice President of Marketing Kevin Gavin