Email Center Pro has helped simplify my job in many ways. Within just a few days of starting to work at Palo Alto Software, Email Center Pro allowed me to respond to emails with ease. The email templates make it a smooth process to answer incoming emails promptly and with an intelligent response. In past jobs , learning this process could have taken a few weeks, or maybe even a few months. Email Center Pro relieved pressure  on me, and also on my trainer and supervisor, by saving time and money on my overall training.

Answering high-volume emails can be hard to track and manage, but Email Center Pro is a very manageable approach. You can assign emails to each team member, ensuring that you answer your customers more efficiently and in a timely manner. This allows my teammates and me to answer over 100 emails per day. Customers are ecstatic about our response time and we often receive feedback thanking us for our rapid-fire replies.

On a daily basis, Email Center Pro plays a huge role in boosting my level of customer service expertise. Our first duty is to answer each customer professionally and ensure they have a pleasant experience with our company. Email Center Pro reassures me every day that I’m meeting our customers’ needs and our company’s mission. I have complete confidence that Email Center Pro helps me take customer service to new heights.

Tags: collaborative email, ECP Power Users, Email Center Pro
Posted on February 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »

Palo Alto Software CEO Sabrina Parsons has a remarkable capacity for life. She runs this company. She’s a wife (to COO Noah Parsons). And she’s raising two young lads.

But all of that pales in comparison to what’s done over the last few weeks.

Since we began the “Solidarity Experiment” in support of Email Center Pro a few weeks ago, Sabrina has been pressing life’s gas pedal without the benefit of sugar. That’s right, none. Zero. Zilch.

Because of Email Center Pro she’s been eating crackers and all natural jam for dessert. On Halloween, she watched the candy come and go. And, even more earth shaking, she’s been roaming the halls of Palo Alto without the suckers you see laid out to the right (Organic Chili Lime Lambada Lollipops) putting a giddy up in her gait.

I know, you’re thinking to yourself “they’re just suckers.” But that would be a devastatingly short-sighted. I kid you not, Sabrina showed up to my initial job interview with one of those sugar sweets sedating her.

But she has been faithful to the cause of Email Center Pro. We’re in pursuit of 4,000 users — and it’s going very well. Of course, “very well” is all in the eye of the beholder — depending on whether or not you’ve got sugar permissions.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager

Tags: Email, Email Center Pro, palo alto software, team, teamwork
Posted on November 5th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Email Center Pro was in Portland for the Oregon Association of Broadcasters Conference in early October.

It was a spirited conference with a couple of dynamic speakers who painted a bright future for the broadcasting industry. We can only hope that such positive energy was good for Email Center Pro as well.

The reason we journeyed to the Rose City for the conference was because we’ve built such a strong relationship and use case with radio station KLCC in Eugene, OR. The team at KLCC has done nothing but prove the effectiveness of Email Center Pro as a service, which led us to believe that other broadcasting outlets might benefit from the service as well.

Our booth at the OAB conference received plenty of traffic — despite the less than glamorous display. Check it out below.

Give it up for The National Guard!

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager

Tags: collaborative email, Email, Email Center Pro, palo alto, roller skating, shared email, team, teamwork
Posted on October 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

Email Center Pro continues to do well. We’re adding users and the reviews of version 2.0 have been sterling.

In fact, I might argue that the new ECP 2.0 User Interface is more attractive than the mug on display below.

Who knew that email could be so much fun?

Oh, and forgive the shake…I just felt like dancing.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager

Tags: Email, Email Center Pro, palo alto software, team, teamwork
Posted on October 24th, 2008 | No Comments »

From the Dashboard view,  the Recent Actions area on the right side of the screen shows you the latest log-ins, notes, replies, and assignments. Click the links in this area to jump to the relevant conversations and immediately get up to speed.

For more detailed information on this and the many other features in Email Center Pro, check out the help file.

Teri A. Epperly
Documentation Manager

Tags: ecp update, Email Center Pro, Tips and Tricks
Posted on October 20th, 2008 | No Comments »

With our recent launch of Email Center Pro 2.0, we’ll be posting “Tips” and “How do I?” instructions here to individually highlight what’s changed and what’s been added in. Here’s our first Tip. Stay tuned for more to come…

Can’t remember where that important email was? No problem. Email Center Pro 2.0 has more flexible and specific search criteria to help you find any conversation, every time.

1. From the Dashboard tab, find the Saved Searches area on the right.
2. Click the New search link.
3. Use the drop-down menus in the Search tab to choose search criteria like “Body contains” for full-text searching, “Action date is newer than 3 days,” or even “Attachment name ends with…”
4. Click Add Additional Criteria to further narrow the search results
5. Click on a conversation from the list to open it.

You can also use the fields at the top of the Search tab to Name and Save your search for future reference, and to Share it with other users.

You can see an example of Saved Search in the Email Center Pro Feature Tour.

Tags: ecp update, Email Center Pro, Tips and Tricks
Posted on October 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

Today, we let Email Center Pro 2.0 out of the starting gate. Flush with a new user interface and a host of initial enhancements, we firmly believe that we’re offering a service capable of helping to reshape the way users think about work flow, in general, and email, specifically.

And that’s a good thing, because those skates you see over there to the right represent a small component of how strongly we at Palo Alto believe in Email Center Pro. You can skim through the other posts on this blog and find the one related to the “Solidarity Experiment”. The four-wheelers over there are the actual pair being worn to work every day by our VP of Customer Experience, Jake Weatherly.

He’s going to do so until Email Center Pro can claim 4,000 users. He started, as did all of the participants of the experiment, when were at about 2,000 users. Now that we’ve climbed above 2,200, Jake can be heard singing “Y-M-C-A” as he whips around the office as if he was carrying burgers and crinkly fries to the drive-in restaurant customers.

My hunch is that Jake selected “wear roller skates” as his “sacrifice” because he secretly wanted to know what it might be like to go about 7′3″ for six or eight weeks. Interesting that he also bought a very large truck and started drinking Miller Genuine Draft.

Over the coming weeks, as Jake literally spins around the office, and the other participants in this cruel little undertaking suffer as well, Email Center Pro 2.0 will realize a host of new feature packages that elevate it into a rich service capable of providing a solution to a wide swath of communication challenges.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager
Email Center Pro

Tags: collaborative email, Email, Email Center Pro, palo alto, roller skating, shared email, team, teamwork
Posted on October 15th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

You all remember Braveheart, right?

Best Picture of the Year in 1995, Mel Gibson, kilts, “Freeeedddooommm”…

Right, that one. The brutal story of an against-all-odds Scottish rebellion against England. It’s the story of a few brave souls standing firm to hold their own in the face of inconceivably long odds.

In true hyperbole fashion, at Palo Alto Software (Scotland) we’ve banded together in pursuit of Email Center Pro users. And we’re on the attack against the unknowing marketplace (England).

Ok, so we’re not exactly risking life and limb, but we are engaging in commitments that show corporate solidarity as we pursue a common goal. And that common goal is this: We are hungrily hustling toward a user base of 4,000.

And at least 12 Palo Alto employees are making commitments varying in nature from the very difficult to the community-focused until we do. And now that your curiousity is piqued (even if it’s not, just go with me), here is a list of Palo Alto crew members participating — along with each individual’s “sacrifice”:

Tim Berry, Founder & President: Shaving his beard

Sabrina Parsons, CEO: Giving up sugar/sweets

Noah Parsons, COO: Giving up sugar/sweets

Cale Bruckner, VP of Product Development: Coloring his hair silver

Jake Weatherly, VP of Customer Experience: Wearing roller skates every day at work

Vie Radek, Controller: Crocheting an Afghan to be donated

Josh Cochrane, Director of Online Marketing: Going without caffeine

Chelle Parmele, Social Marketing Manager: Giving up soda

Alex Boone, Developer of Email Center Pro: No eating out for lunch

Kristen Langham, Director of Business Development: Collecting canned goods for donation

Teri Epperly, Documentation Manager: Exercise and Yoga stretching every day

Shawnie Gartman, Senior Customer Care Specialist: Riding her bike to work or working out at least three days per week

Jason Gallic, Product Marketing Manager: No shaving

Over the next few weeks, as we aggressively pursue our user goal, this blog will be the epicenter for all things “Solidarity Experiment”. Here you’ll find profiles of each of the participants, including a little more about what each one does at Palo Alto Software, why each opted to forgo his or her particular item and how life is getting along without it.

Which reminds me to remind you NOT to get stuck in the path of those who’ve decided to go either without sugar or caffeine. Productivity is already plummeting from those corners of the office.

Anyway, the documentation you’ll see includes words, photos and perhaps some video — along with a few surprises.

No matter what, though, it’s going to be fun…if by fun you mean itching places on your face where previously hair dared not grow.

Oh, and because I know you’ve been scanning through the article rapidly in pursuit of this figure, here it is: we’re currently at about 2,000 users.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager
Palo Alto Software

Tags: , Email, Email Center Pro, palo alto, team, teamwork
Posted on October 8th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

“Software as a Service” products are treading lightly, but with increasingly regularity, into a world that’s not much different than, say, Hershey’s Chocolate. If you visited the home base in Pennsylvania, they’d serve you as much sugary decadence as your heart desired. But you’re far more likely to pick up a bar at your neighborhood grocery store.

Email Center Pro is now among the SaaS products offered on the Etelos Marketplace. The service went live there a couple of weeks ago, and was officially announced on Tuesday, Sept. 16.

It’s a nice opportunity to expose Email Center Pro to an audience looking specifically for hosted solutions to common business functions.

ECP entered the Etelos Marketplace with five other SaaS products looking to gain traction in an ever-expanding market. Those companies, LOOP, Blink Logic, Box.net, Entellium and Central Desktop help to round out what we think is a strong six-pack.

As for Etelos, their marketplace is in the business of  giving developers a channel for distributing and hosting applications, and giving businesses a wide selection of those on-demand applications from which to choose.

Tags: Email, Email Center Pro, etelos, etelosmarketplace, saas, software as a service
Posted on September 19th, 2008 | No Comments »

I was in San Francisco last week for the Office 2.0 conference. The effort was the third installment of Ismael Gahlimi’s pledge to bring together leading minds in the Web 2.0 space for a 3-day discussion about moving the duties associated with work off of the hard drive and onto the Internet — exclusively.

That means all of it, from data storage to accounting, and everything in between. It’s a radical shift in concept. Moving all of a business’ operations into “the clouds” gives pause to some (data security junkies) and brings smiles to others (whomever might be concerned about the bottom line).

Whatever your feeling about moving organizational functionality into a hosted state, the fact that it’s gaining momentum is impossible to deny.

Thankfully for those of you who need to use email (please don’t overlook the sarcasm there), Email Center Pro is a product with its eye on “the clouds”. And that’s probably one reason I felt so at ease while scrolling through the demo booths last week in San Francisco. Yes, there were plenty of cool applications on display. But were any of them attempting to do to email what we are? No, not that I could tell.

With a rich feature set that’s only sweetening as we approach the public release of version 2, it was nice to see that Email Center Pro might be standing in the gap between the obligation of email and the genuine usability of a collaborative tool.

Jason Gallic
Product Marketing Manager

Tags: cloud computing, Email Center Pro, hosted software, office 2.0, software as a service, web 2.0
Posted on September 12th, 2008 | No Comments »