Century 21 M&M and Associates

Century 21 M&M and Associates, based in Modesto, California, began in 1994 with John N. Melo, Larry A. Matos, and two realtors. Today, the company has over 700 award-winning associates and staff in 15 locations throughout the San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, and lower Sacramento counties. Century 21 M&M and Associates has been the recip­ient of the 2100 Cup Award, an annual award presented to the company that lives up to the high standards and values designated by the Century 21  System.

“ShoreTel seems to have been designed for a business like ours — it’s a perfect fit for business that requires flexibility and changes on the fly.”
- Kevin Kaplan, Senior Vice President, Century 21 M&M and Associates.

In late 2005, Century 21 M&M and Associates had a hosted-IP (VoIP) telephone solution that was not offering the hoped-for stability and perform­ance. With limited IT staff, the company also wanted to be able to expand its IT platform and manage the telephone system from in-house. The company decided to look for a phone system that was scalable to accommodate future growth, and would allow it to implement a call center that would provide more information about where leads were coming from, helping staff to process those leads more efficiently.

“Real estate is a mobile business, so we wanted a phone system and a call center that would provide features to meet our specific requirements and allow us to better manage that business.”
- Kevin Kaplan, Senior Vice President, Century 21 M&M and Associates.

Impressed with the solution’s flexibility, functionality, cost-effectiveness, scalability, and ease of management, Century 21 M&M and Associates chose ShoreTel. Working together, ShoreTel and its reseller provided Century 21 M&M and Associates with one ShoreTel T1 switch for each of its 14 branches and two for its Modesto headquarters. In addition, Century 21 M&M and Associates has deployed three ShoreTel 20, eight ShoreTel 60, and seven ShoreTel 40 Voice Switches throughout its network, for a total of 34 switches across 15 locations. Century 21 M&M and Associates now has more than 600 ShoreTel IP Phones throughout the organization, including models 110, 530, and 560. Benefits include:

• Century 21 M&M and Associates has saved in management costs as well as personnel costs because the system is easy to administer. In addition, ShoreTel Contact Center has enabled the organization to improve the productivity of its call center agents.
• Contact Center provides call center agents with in-depth caller information to help them provide exceptional customer service.
• Contact Center helps Century 21 M&M and Associates process leads more efficiently and improves its lead-to-sale conversion ratio.
• Contact Center enables the agency to distribute calls centrally, shortening the sales cycle and attracting and retaining quality real estate agents.

“The ShoreTel solutions offered more functionality at a lower price — it’s just a more cost-effective solution. We really like ShoreTel’s Contact Center functionality for the call center, and ShoreTel gives us more flexibility for the future to manage the business more effectively.”
- Kevin Kaplan, Senior Vice President, Century 21 M&M and Associates.