ReMax Premier Realty

RE/MAX Premier Realty, located in Fredericksburg, VA, provides top-quality real estate services and support to its clients by creating an exceptional workplace for its associates that fosters outstanding achievement. There are over 700 individual brokerage offices in the area directly competing for the $2 billion-plus real estate market, and RE/MAX Premier Realty’s success can be attributed greatly to its leadership in technology and dedication to providing its agents with tools that give them a significant competitive advantage.

“Because the real estate business is so phone- and client-intensive, we simply could not risk a technology platform that wasn’t capable of delivering exceptional quality and reliability.”
- Larry Van Ness, Founder, President/CEO, RE/MAX Premier Realty.

Since the agency’s founding, a critical component of its competitive strategy has been to acquire a telephone system that could be leveraged as an integral part of its technology platform. The agency wanted to ensure that its agents were able to maximize the power of technology to stay in touch with clients more efficiently and effectively. Specifically, it needed a phone system that would allow them to break the mold of the stereotypical real estate agency, and to design its business from the ground up like a Fortune 500 company.

“ShoreTel is a technology that we feel we can use for years to come without becoming obsolete.”
- Larry Van Ness, Founder, President/CEO, RE/MAX Premier Realty.

With the help of ShoreTel’s reseller partner, also based in Fredericksburg, ShoreTel provided RE/MAX Premier Realty with a ShoreTel 120 and ShoreTel T1 Voice Switch, as well as a voicemail server and 35 ShoreTel 530 IP phones. The system extends to the organization’s headquarters, and a VPN connection puts the CEO’s home office on the system, allowing him to manage the system and conduct business as if he were working at the central location. Other benefits include:

• Minimal downtime during deployment: the new phone system was designed and rolled it out in two days; realtors and other staff were trained on the system in half-hour sessions.
• It’s important for a realtor to always be in touch with their clients; the system offers user-configurable call handling options and find-me routing that keeps agents in the loop no matter where they are.
• All moves, adds, and changes can be performed from ShoreTel Director's Web-based interface. Adding new branches offices is as simple as installing a T1 line between sites, accessing Director, and plugging in the phones.
• Improved reliability of the system: ShoreTel’s Call Control software is distributed to every voice switch, which eliminates any single point of failure.

“Too often, small companies think they can’t have what the big Fortune 500 companies have because of complexity and high cost. ShoreTel eliminates both of those challenges.”
– Larry Van Ness, Founder, President/CEO, RE/MAX Premier Realty.