Halliday Financial Group

Halliday Financial Group is an independent financial planning firm dedicated to serving the needs of individuals, families, businesses, and not-for-profit organizations. With four offices in New York and 50 employees, the company utilizes a full spectrum of financial alternatives to assist its clients in all areas of financial planning. Its clients look to Halliday Financial to preserve their capital and provide real growth in their portfolios after taxes and inflation.

“We didn’t have a central receptionist function. I decided it was time to look into a more efficient way of handling the phones, one that enabled customers to call a central receptionist and quickly be able to reach anyone at any of our locations.”
— Andrew Halliday, President and CEO, Halliday Financial Group.

Without a central receptionist, every Halliday employee had a secondary responsibility to answer the phone; whoever was available at the time the phone rang was expected to answer. In a time of significant company growth, this task was diverting resources from revenue-generating tasks. It also meant that each call was answered differently, and each caller treated differently. Halliday Financial wanted a solution that would streamline communications into one number for all four of its offices, as well as capitalize on the cost savings, customer service, and productivity-enhancing benefits of IP.

“The ShoreTel IP telephony system also allows us to set up communications so that we are able to have a much more direct impact on the quality of the initial phone interaction with clients. We’re delivering a consistent message and consistent quality care.”
— Andrew Halliday, President and CEO, Halliday Financial.

After seeing a product demonstration, reading case studies, and talking to a current customer, Halliday chose ShoreTel. Following necessary upgrades to the firm’s existing network, ShoreTel provided the firm with four ShoreTel 60 Voice Switches and one ShoreTel 40. A ShoreTel T1 connects the Glen Head and Albany offices, enabling least-cost routing capabilities between those two offices. Fifty ShoreTel IP Phones rounded out the hardware component of the deployment. Benefits include:

• In addition to upping the quality of customer care at the first point of entry — the main telephone number — the firm has saved the roughly $40,000 that it would have spent hiring a second receptionist.
• Least-cost routing minimizes costs by avoiding toll charges. If an employee at the Glen Head office makes a call to Albany, it is routed through the company’s data lines.
• With the ShoreTel system in place, all employees are now on the same phone and voicemail system, using four-digit dialing to reach coworkers and even dialing them by name.
• The system has improved both productivity and customer service. Its built-in suite of versatile, real-time tools, including telephony, IM control, and collaboration services, frees employees to spend more time serving customers.
• ShoreTel’s conference call capabilities enable the firm to set up conference calls on the fly and to eliminate the expense of third-party providers.

“ShoreTel has come through on its promises...what we didn’t realize was that we’d be getting all these other features that would improve our bottom line by increasing productivity and enhancing customer service.”
— Andrew Halliday, President and CEO, Halliday Financial Group.