Union Bank

Based in Kansas City, MO, Union Bank had its beginning in 1965 as Bannister Bank & Trust.  Three of the bank’s founders remain on the board of directors today. The collective vision of the bank’s founders for a community bank built on customer service continues to be an integral part of its culture. Today, there are 11 Union Bank branches throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area.

“Our bank was built on excellent customer service and we still strive to fulfill that mission."
— Lisa Dawson, Executive Vice President, Union Bank.

A 2004 customer survey indicated that although the bank was built on excellent customer service, there remained the need to have customer calls answered by a person rather than an auto-attendant or voicemail. Beyond a system that offered them the tools and flexibility to serve customer needs better, the bank placed priority on ease of management, business continuity — including backup and recovery/redundancy — and features that would enhance customer service.

“We took these responses to heart and immediately began to search for a better telephone system.”
— Lisa Dawson, Executive Vice President, Union Bank.

Deployed in February 2005 in phases across all 11 branches, the new ShoreTel system consisted of seven ShoreTel 120 and ShoreTel T1 Voice Switches, a voicemail server, and more than 200 ShoreTel 200 IP Phones. Users were trained ahead of time, so going live was just a matter of flipping a switch. Easy-to-configure workgroup features mean that during business hours, customer calls are routed to a live person. Only when the bank is closed are calls routed to the auto attendant. And even then, customers can use a self-service directory to find the right extension and leave a voicemail, knowing that they will receive a call back the following day. Other benefits include:

• Satisfaction is notably up, with customers commenting to bank operators how pleased they are to be able to reach a live person during regular banking hours.
• Employee productivity has improved with presence information and rich media features. Easy-to-configure remote and mobile options let bank employees move to other desks, or other devices, and log in as if they were at their own extension.
• The ShoreTel system’s open architecture distributes system intelligence across the network, providing backup in the event of a natural disaster. In an outage, calls are routed to another location for guaranteed customer responsiveness.
• Management is simplified through ShoreTel Director’s browser-based interface, so moves, adds, and changes are quickly and easily handled in-house and in minutes.

“ShoreTel has improved the overall efficiency of communications within the bank. We have a much more efficient call center and productivity is enhanced tremendously.”
— Lisa Dawson, Executive Vice President, Union Bank.