MiVoice Business Solution

Pros

We were able to communicate with over 50 people as a result and deliver our monthly initiatives. We could view various participants in the multi-pane arrangement, and the various presenters could take center stage while presenting their own material. When players needed to be muted but inquiries could still be answered, the chat feature came in handy. We were able to issue invites with the calendar integration through the usage of Micollab, which was effective and simple for attendees to utilize. As speakers used presentation slides to showcase their topic, the screen-sharing tool was the most useful to us.

Cons

We discovered that the MiTeam Meeting program missed some features we wanted to utilize frequently. We had been using polling in the previous program, but MiTeam did not support it. For us, this was unquestionably a con. We use polling to assess audience knowledge and interest as well as to determine how some content will be presented. There was no doubt that we required this. We also encountered some problems when integrating the calendars for MiTeam and MiCollab.

Pros

Very consistent with little downtime once setup is complete. It is able to solve for a variety of solutions and situations.

Cons

Menus and setup can be difficult with areas seeming to be programmed different from other areas in the same system.

Pros

The concept and features it offered were really good... when it operated correctly... It was an IP phone system (new technology being offered at the time). It had a softphone feature via your computer which was a bonus when Covid19 hit - allowed us to work remote using the company telephone system.

Cons

We had more trouble with it than you can imagine. I spent more time troubleshooting issues with various employees than doing anything else. I became a full-time Mitel troubleshooter for our company of 65 employees. There were issues all the time - poor audio... dropped calls... cannot make a call... Didn't operate correctly on a new laptop (Windows 11)... Whenever an issue occurred, a case ticket was required which the administrator had to issue it - an employee couldn't call Mitel directly for assistance - which was an overall hassle and you could end up talking and rehashing the issue with 3 different people.

Pros

I like being able to have my calls from my office automatically forward to my cell phone without the caller knowing my cell number.

Cons

There isn’t any feature that I would say that I like the least.

Pros

We were lacking quite a bit with our prior phone system. So the transition to shoretel was much needed. I was involved with the RFP and pricing discussion with a multitude of vendors. In all cases, Shoretel offered the greatest amount of features, including integration with our CRM (Dynamics) all while having the lowest price point. As the Director of HR, I am able to act as system admin with zero technical background, which is also greatly appreciated.

Cons

Reporting analytics are limited. Requires integration with third-party product to get the analytics we prefer. That being said, we dive more into our call details as we are a call center and execute performance metrics at the agent-level based on said data.

Pros

Our company switched to ShoreTel a few years ago, and I've noticed a significant difference in how I use my phone and voice services. The desktop application makes it extremely easy to track missed calls, know the status of people I'm trying to get a hold of, and forward any calls when I'm out of the office.

Cons

Only one complaint - when voicemails get sent to my email, I have to listen to them through my external phone speakers instead of the earpiece. Sometimes I get confidential calls, so I can't be discreet about checking my messages.

Pros

I like the line redirection feature the most. You can configure and redirect your line to your mobile phone with one click, which is great and convenient for remote or offsite days. I also like the messaging feature because not everyone in my company uses Skype, but most everyone uses Shoretel. Shoretel also replaced all of our physical phone directory sheets, which is a nice step into the 21st century.

Cons

The call history feature doesn't always update in real time. I've seen instances of a missed call not showing up immediately in my call history, making it impossible to promptly return the missed call.

Pros

ShoreTel Connect integrates seamlessly with our Salesforce databases, allowing me to quickly call candidates and clients by simply clicking the number on the screen. When making 100+ calls per day, this small quality of life assist is very welcome.

Cons

I have experienced some issues while attempting to use ShoreTel when not connected to our company's network. When connected via home/public Wi-Fi, there will be intermittent issues with maintaining a connection to ShoreTel.

Pros

usually on most days it works great, the call quality is good and their are no issues.
i like the ease of use and it connects instantly. I like how it gives us options to break, without having to log out and the timer helps me know how long i have been on my break or lunch break,

Cons

sometimes we have issues with the phone still rings while we are still on a call with the customer and sometimes the customer cannot hear us when we are answering the phone and vice versa, the support people keep blaming it on our computers but it is clearly not our computers when we havent had these issues with our older system.

Pros

There are a lot of great features for conferencing phone calls and have a simple to use call tree. Love the customization.

Cons

There are quite a few glitches that I experience. For example, I will go to put a call on hold and it will display an error. Eventually I can put the call on hold, but it can get frustrating if I have a customer waiting.

Pros

MiCollab enables employees to master their own availability. Wish to choose when to receive phonecalls on your desk phone and when on your mobile? Redirect calls to a co-worker when you are unavailable? Change your status based on your calendar, schedule or location? You name it, the software can help you accomplish it.
It integrates with Outlook so it can recognize who's calling, and you can look up your collegues in the employee directory. You can even set up a conference call with multiple attendees if you are an advanced user.
Clients are available for a wide range of platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, IOS and Web.

Cons

The user interface design is not very intuitive. You need to get used to it since it does not really follow Windows interface design standards. Also, some features are not available on all platforms.
There is a new Windows client available which is much more user friendly, but it lacks some features like programming the buttons of a Mitel desk phone.
Room for improvement is how Mitel handles it customers. We do not get direct access to the software. Everything must be done via a 'partner' even though we pay yearly to receive product updates. This is the only vendor that refuses customers to download the licensed software directly.

Pros

This product has a lot of great features that make it worthwhile to businesses:

- the lowest price on the market (they guarantee the lowest price for their service)
- option to "barge" calls (3-way the call without being transferred in)
- option to silent monitor reps (monitor the reps with your phone on mute)
- option to silent coach reps (talk to or coach your reps without the customer hearing)
- see who is not on the phone, on a call, or has their phone set to do not disturb/busy/etc.

Cons

Mono recordings for calls; this is especially limiting for my job function (Call Center Quality Assurance), as to transcribe conversations you need dual stereo recordings to be able to differentiate your customer service rep from the consumer/customer. It is also such an old platform that it's difficult to find any 3rd Party Quality Assurance programs that are compatible with daily monitoring of our businesses customer service/sales reps.

Pros

Real time reporting of inbound/outbound calls. Being able to customize inbound calling and pull daily reports on several metrics with the calling.

Cons

Backend setup and customization is a bit more cumbersome that other software used in the past.

Pros

I like that it integrates with Salesforce and the click to dial functionality is awesome. It allows for easy dialing without the worry of mis-clicking the wrong number. I also like that it ties a call to a contact and case and allows you to easily take notes while you're on the phone.

Cons

The biggest problem with this software is that it's very unreliable. Call notes regularly get lost. Calls won't attach to cases and the notes will get deleted. I also don't like that there is no way to handle extensions.

Pros

I'm able to see which of my CS agents are logged in and available to take calls, as well as sign them out of the system if they're away from their desk. The analytics are really powerful and allow me to schedule lunches and breaks according to when our slow times occur throughout the day.

Cons

The reporting could be more up-to-date. Looking at the average call times is usually 15 minutes behind.

Pros

What can I say. This is a straightforward softphone solution allowing me to work remotely. It is simple enough to customize to my needs. For example, call routing, contacts, voicemails, etc.

Cons

I'm struggling to find a negative, but if I had to pick something I would say I wish there were more integrations available. E.g. integrations with Zoom. This may be possible and just not configured.. I don'tknow.

Pros

I liked the ability to see and manipulate calls and call receivers in real time.

Cons

At times this product would freeze or fail until the full upgrade was purchased and installed.

Pros

There is absolutely nothing that I like about this software or Mitel in general.

Cons

Frequent outages and problems, terrible customer support, incredibly expensive and overpriced. Hard to use. Employees hate it. The worst, period.

Pros

Great all around flexible phone system, enables many of our trusted call center associated to work remotely and yet still be tied into the main platform. Great at capturing data.

Cons

Hard to pull the data out as the instance is localized inside our firewall, making it difficult to grant access to some but not all departments using the tool. Would have loved a better way to get the data out and leverage our BI rather than only have Brightmetrics to assess it.

Pros

MiCollab allows users to manage their phone from their desktop, including listening to voicemails. Additionally I love that it allows the user to see the status of other users. It integrates with the Outlook calendar and will note if a user is in a meeting, on the phone, etc. Users can customize their setting as to their status too (ie: in a certain office, on vacation, etc.). We also love the chat feature. Lastly, our reception answers phones for 3 offices. The MiCollab has been a great addition to the front desk process. Now just about any one in our office can run the front desk using MiCollab.

Cons

There is a bit of setting up and customizing that needs to be done. We have to dial 9 for an outside line. We needed to have that added to our contacts and incoming calls so the user could click and automatically call those numbers.

Pros

I loved that the end user system software worked so well. It was easy to use and allowed end users to manage their phone options (forwarding to VM/other line, softphone, etc.).

Cons

It ended up being too expensive for us to maintain and we had to move to another phone and software provider.

Pros

It's fast and easy to use. Anyone can learn how to use it. There so many features that help get the job done!

Cons

Can be glitchy at times, settings on things like visible voicemails for specific workgroups will un-toggle on their own or some employees select a default for soft phone and mitel refuses to keep that default setting and defaults to DeskPhone.

Pros

The Micloud reports and daily statistics features are very good. Lots of good information. Getting complete data is easy.

Cons

The initial setup was very difficult and there were some complex connectivity issues that would arise due to the connector being run on a PC.

Pros

Translation option and we liked the actual phones.

Cons

Needed to contact support often and they were not available often.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing MiVoice Business Solution

Pros

I forget which phone system provider we were with before but Shoretel is definitely much better! The phone has more features which helps me perform my work functions more efficiently.

Cons

I would like to be able to forward voicemails to my coworkers from the main voicemail screen. I don't think we have this function.

Pros

When our team went from audio-based monthly webinars to video-based we took advantage of the MiCollab platform we already used and tried the MiTeam Meetings to deliver our monthly content. It allowed us to connect with over 50 people to deliver our monthly initiatives. It also allowed us to see different participants in the mulit-pane format and allowed for the multiple presenters to be front and center when delivering their own content. The chat feature was helpful for when we needed to keep participants muted but questions that arose could be addressed. With the use of Micollab we were able to send invites with the calendar integration which was efficient and easy for participants to access. The screen sharing feature was the most valuable for us as presenters used presentation slides to highlight their content.

Cons

We found that the MiTeam Meeting software lacked some functionality we were wanting to use on a regular basis. Polling was a feature we had used with the previous software and was not available with MiTeam. This was definitely a con for us. We use polling to gauge audience interest, knowledge and guide how some of the content will be delivered. This was definitely something we needed. We also found some obstacles with the calendar integration between MiCollab and MiTeam. It didn't always work seamlessly which was a point of frustration for our admin side of operations. We also found that not having mobile integration proved frustrating for some of our participants that needed to access the webinars via mobile device.

Pros

I like the ease of use. Very reliable for the most part. Integrates well with other platforms and apps used by our company.

Cons

If there is a data outage in the clusters within the data centers outage issues can be an issue. A private cloud solution may be a better option to avoid outages

Pros

I found this product to have a user-friendly interface when managing the phones in our organization. What I liked the most about the product is the ease in knowing which phone blocks are available for use, as well as the number of phone numbers available in that specific block. Additionally (unlike Cisco Call Manager) it shows the full phone number. This is VERY useful if you are forced to have different call blocks with different prefixes. Not to mention, the call communicator for each user was AMAZING. We could easily make calls to other extensions (or outside numbers) from our desktop using the communicator. Also, if you wanted to call someone in your organization, it will indicate if the person is available (green) or on a call (red). Also great for our call center that had a call queue available.

Cons

Nothing that I could think of that I liked least about the product. I think this is a very user friendly interface and we had no complaints when using.

Pros

Although its a hardware and software VOIP telephone system, the software is extremely powerful and flexible, yet very easy to setup and use. Once it's programmed, it simply works. There are a lot of hardware options when selecting phones and enterprise required devices that making simple connections to remote offices and mobile users possible. You will also notice Mitel has acquired ShoreTel, but same high quality software and hardware support available.

Cons

Tech support is great, but extremely expensive and only available through VAR's or primary vendor you purchased hardware through. Trade off is that if not too complex of implementation, instruction manuals provided make for fairly easy install and setup.

Pros

It is an easy program to learn - very little, if any training needed. We use the system for calls in general but also for sales and support lines with rollovers. It is easy to call people via the PC, conference and transfer calls. It also displays extensions, if people are already on calls, etc. which is very helpful when trying to route customers to an available rep.

Cons

It seems like it sometimes conflicts with some programs and auto-logs people out. Maybe this is sometime we have setup incorrectly, but we have had it happen with a few different users. It will auto-log them out, but yet appear, on their screen that they are logged in.

Pros

The ability to set states (in a meeting, vacation, available, etc) is the primary perk. I also like the ability to download voicemail files for record-keeping or forwarding to other ShoreTel users in my office.

Cons

The functionality of certain features is unstable. Call forwarding works with hit or miss accuracy. I've had issues with calls being forwarded, but are unanswerable once the other line rings. Additionally, the ease of use for many of the phone options are clunky. My phone has the color display, yet I have to use the numeric keypad to select features on and off like older legacy style phones. I'm also frustrated I get notified of voicemails in Outlook when off my network, but I'm unable to play the file from the cloud.

Pros

I have used Shoretel/Mitel for 10 years now, i have been using the same phone since implementation. These are sturdy and well put together phones.

Cons

The initial sales rep was kind of a shark. Needless to say he is no longer doing sales for shoretel. Shoretlel did the right thing and made good on his promises.

Pros

This was quite an upgrade from our previous telephone software, so many of the features are an upgrade from what we had before. The software that each employee uses on a daily basis for their individual phones is helpful. It gives you minimal information, but is helpful in connection with each user and desk phone.

Cons

As an administrator I do not feel like the software is user friendly. Half of the symbols that represent functions on the phone system, don't even make sense to me. I end up going through each and every "main menu" item to get to every sub menu item searching for what I need. The purchase of this type of phone system (and the subsequent software) would have been optimal maybe 3-5 years ago, but doesn't function exactly as was told to us by the sales team. We were quite interested in the instant message and conference features available on the software, only to find out that the instant message feature is separate and requires its own dedicated server and separate installation. The tele-conference features were out of date and are much better met with a software like GoTo Meeting.

Pros

Pros:
* It is fully cloud based
* Ability to rent equipment so no excess inventory is required
* they try... but fail

Cons

Cons:
* inconsistent reporting/call history
* long hold time for support and if the issue is complicated, it takes several days to get resolved
* the datacenter / database backend is constantly breaking; causing issues logging in or getting the phone(s) to work at all
* the mobility app (application on smartphone) is antiquated and constantly dropping
* Price is extremely high compared to the poor quality of service received

Pros

The management is drop dead simple. The documentation is all hot linked to the part of the management interface you are using right then. The user client is easy to use and looks great. The system has been rock solid and I love the architecture with resiliency and cheap redundancy built in from the ground up.

Cons

There has been some support upheaval during the closing days of ShoreTel ownership, but that seems to be improving under Mitel, hopefully that trend continues.

Pros

The product is easy to use. Thats about it.

Cons

When you using the soft phone app we have several issues. 1. Calls drop a lot. 2. You can't just quit the program when you are done. You have to log out. We have noticed that if you do not log out regularly, the sound quality degrades. 3. The Mitel Director portal could use some updating. It is just too busy and we end up calling our third party vendor for support. The Mitel Admin User Guide needs to be updated as well.

Pros

I highly recommend this product. I use the Shore Tel phone system everyday and till now very satisfied with its performance. I like the ease of recording any incoming or outgoing calls. You get a copy of the recordings to your email as well. It got the caller id feature which is really helpful too.

Cons

None, Very satisfied with its functionality and performance.

Pros

Shoretel has decent support and this product makes things easy for our company. We have had the phone system for quite a few years and have not had much difficulty with it when we had it. We did switch over to a new phone system because it had much more versatilely for our growing company.

Cons

The client could be more user specific I wish there were a theme and more general updates. The web interface is could use some more work as well.

Pros

Phone software that allows us to integrate calls into our email and has been easy to use for even our least tech-savvy employees.

Cons

Updates time-to-time has been problematic, but I feel that maybe more due to our tech side vs software issues. If your system isn't set up in a conventional manner it could potentially cause headaches

Pros

I like that it is a quick-to learn software with an easy to use interface. It's almost plug and play with how simple it is to use for the office.

Cons

There are frequent sign in and log out issues without any reason or network issue.

Pros

Very good features especially for the employees who work from home or travelling.

Cons

As an administrator, i don't like much. As micollab client is configured on the micollab, the micollab is no as consistent as expected. This make the administrator to re-configure micollab some times.

Pros

My company uses this software for our phone service and IM service. It is so nice to be able to instant message employees that are not in the same building.

Cons

No complaints here- I'm very happy with the functionality of this product. We will continue to use it in our company.

Pros

There is a lot of functionality to use, which gives you options on how you want to use it within your business.

Cons

The user experience needs updating, as there is too much training needed to use the system.

Pros

The overall function of it is easy to use. There are plenty of options for make busy and the ability to check on other callers and stats.

Cons

You can only call out one line, there is no way to use more than one line at a time which is extremely difficult in a call center atmosphere which requires you to make multiple calls at once. It requires having to hang up and call back which is tedious.

Pros

-Easiest auto dialing system I have ever used
-Desktop app handles outbound/inbound calls without a problem
-Their customer service is great
-Really handles everything when it comes to calls and a must for any sale/customer service team

Cons

I did not find anything wrong with this software. My only advice would be to make sure you have a good internet connection or you could have some issues.

Pros

Easy to use, great management of devices, users, and admin.

Easy dialing,

ShoreTel phones can also take a BEATING.

Cons

The software could be a little cleaner on the side. The UI needs a bit of a change, especially the back end which just looks old.

Pros

There isn't much I like about Mitel, but if I were to pick one thing it would be the softphone app they have for Google Chrome

Cons

The softphone application itself constantly needs to be updated and glitches out quite often.

Pros

I love all of the features that they make available. As an admin setup for new users is very straight forward.

Cons

I wish their video chat feature allowed for more than just Vidyo. Vidyo is an awful video chat system.

Pros

Shoretel is a very simple program, and gives you exactly what you need; integration with salesforce, easy dialing with a click, tracks the basics (length of a call, connects, outbound calls, inbound calls, and voicemails)

Cons

Shoretel crashed often (aka, once every two weeks) and the whole sales floor would have to stop calling, and sometimes it would miss calls.

Pros

There doesn't seem to be any problem with their billing service as they always make sure they get paid on time. Besides that it is really difficult to find anything this system does well.

Cons

The up time as they like to measure it is closer to 75% not the 99% they advertise. What does it matter if your system is working from 9pm-7am when most businesses are not operating. Call recording is always a mystery if it will actually record the call or not. We needed a specific function of the phones to operate our business. We made this perfectly clear from the first business meeting to the last. When we began setup they told us that the system did not have that feature. They eventually created a work around, but our contract is up this fall and cannot wait to get off of this system.