Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors

Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors is the number-one home services company in the U.S., with over 70 offices in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Like all full-service home companies, Prudential Fox & Roach must constantly react to the expanding and contracting real estate business while managing a constantly changing workforce.

“We needed to standardize on a single voice system and wanted a solution that could be cost­-effectively deployed in each new office and make it quick and easy for us to adapt to constant staff changes.”
- William Friemann, VP of Operations, Security and Compliance, Prudential Fox & Roach.

Prudential Fox & Roach typically employs an acquisition strategy to grow its business. Not surprisingly, many acquired offices have old PBX phone systems — some that are no longer supported, or for which replacement parts are not available. The firm looked at a number of alternatives to replace its disparate phone systems. Ease of installation, management, and administration was among the organization’s top criteria, along with cost of ownership, support and training from the vendor, and a productivity-enhancing set of user features.

“I knew about ShoreTel’s architecture, capabilities, and customer satisfaction levels and recognized it would be the perfect solution for Prudential Fox & Roach.”
- William Friemann, VP of Operations, Security and Compliance, Prudential Fox & Roach.

Liquid Networks, a trusted systems integration partner of ShoreTel’s, provided Prudential Fox & Roach with more than 400 ShoreTel  IP Phones and a ShoreTel voicemail server for its main co-­location site in Philadelphia. Seven of the organization’s offices also received a ShoreTel Voice Switch (either a ShoreTel 40 or ShoreTel 60) plus a ShoreTel T1 voice switch that connects to the co-­location site for access to the voicemail server. Five more offices are scheduled to come online in the near future. Benefits include:

• ShoreTel Call Manager’s streamlined interface enables employees to manage communications using their ShoreTel desk phone, computer, mobile phone, or home telephone, increasing productivity and easing collaboration.
• A call­-routing log displays the caller’s experience within the system to the Prudential Fox & Roach receptionist, ensuring they are connected quickly to the right agent.
• The system behaves like a single, unified platform, and scales with plug-and-play ease, complementing the firm’s strategy of growth by acquisition. Setting up each new office can be done in-house, in minutes.

“It’s also a great benefit in this field to be able to dial by name and not have to remember phone numbers. It’s all about connecting quickly with people — more quickly than the competition.”
- William Friemann, VP of Operations, Security and Compliance, Prudential Fox & Roach.