ShoreTel Ranked Highest Vendor in Customer Loyalty, Service and Value, Finds Nemertes Study

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Nov. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- ShoreTel® (NASDAQ: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple phone systems and unified communications (UC) solutions, rates best among leading IP Telephony vendors in customer loyalty, service and value by IT professionals, according to a recent Nemertes Research report.

For Nemertes' 2014 Unified Communications and Collaboration PilotHouse program, 500 IT decision-makers and influencers (of U.S.-based companies, some with global presence) were asked to identify, rate and weight their primary providers in various areas including IP Telephony and integrated Unified Communications. Weightings and ratings were combined with Nemertes' assessment scores for provider strategy and financial viability. Results were segmented into Midmarket (consisting of businesses with fewer than 2,500 employees) and Enterprise (consisting of businesses with more than 2,500 employees) to provide the Nemertes Lighthouse rankings, which are part of the PilotHouse program.

In the Nemertes Lighthouse ranking, ShoreTel was named the top provider overall for Enterprise IP Telephony, beating all other vendors included in this study, and also ranked highest in value and customer service.

In addition, ShoreTel ranked best in customer loyalty in more technology segments than any other vendor in the study, specifically outscoring others in Midmarket and Enterprise Unified Communications suites and in Enterprise IP Telephony. In these segments, ShoreTel had the highest percentage of customers who plan to stay with their provider for the next two years.

"The key thing to remember with the PilotHouse program is that the results come from IT professionals' ratings of their providers. It's based on real-world experience," says Robin Gareiss, president of Nemertes. "ShoreTel performed extremely well in customer loyalty overall in the research, and specifically better than Avaya, Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft in both enterprise and midmarket UC."

High customer loyalty goes hand-in-hand with ShoreTel's consistently top marks for value and customer service. IT professionals who use ShoreTel for Unified Communications suites ranked it highest in customer service, and ShoreTel also received the highest customer service score among all providers in the study in both Enterprise IP Telephony and Midmarket Unified Communications.

As for value, the Nemertes study found it to be the most important criteria to customers in Enterprise IP Telephony, and ShoreTel received the highest value score among all competitors in the study.

"We work hard to consistently align ourselves with our customers' priorities and these top rankings confirm we are doing things right," says David Petts, senior vice president of worldwide sales at ShoreTel. "This third-party validation matches what we hear from channel partners and customers alike – that our price structure, our solutions' ease of use, and our world-class customer service make our solutions financially viable and highly attractive for companies of all sizes."

A full summary of ShoreTel's results in the Nemertes 2014 Unified Communications and Collaboration PilotHouse program is available for download.

About ShoreTel
ShoreTel, Inc. (NASDAQ: SHOR) is a leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems and unified communications solutions. Its award-winning on-premises IP-PBX solution and cloud-based hosted phone system eliminate complexity and improve productivity. Recognized for its industry-leading customer experience and support, ShoreTel's innovative business phones, application integration, collaboration tools, mobility, and contact center applications enable users to communicate and collaborate no matter the time, place or device, with minimal demand on IT resources. ShoreTel is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., and has regional offices and partners worldwide. For more information, visit www.shoretel.com.

ShoreTel and the ShoreTel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of ShoreTel, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks, trade names and service marks herein are the property of their respective owners.

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SOURCE ShoreTel

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