VoIP has become a normal part of many modern businesses, but some providers offer better options than others. Here we look at the best of them.
The best VoIP services offer a seamless online telecoms system that can suit any size of office. The internet revolutionized telecoms by making Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) available, but the development of cloud-based phone systems and the proliferation of mobile devices has transformed the telecoms market even further. Whereas before it would take lots of hardware and months of setting up to put a business telecoms network into play, now it takes minutes with a cloud-based VoIP solution. Even better, the costs have gone down significantly due to the lack of need to invest in infrastructure, meaning that the latest telecoms solutions for business are incredibly accessible and very cost-effective. For the startup business, it’s never been easier or so cheap to set up a business phone system or even a call center solution. For the established business, not only are cloud-based VoIP systems more cost-effective, but the availability of analytics means that not only can staff productivity and the customer journey be better tracked, but it’s also simple to gain actionable insights from the business intelligence provided. This is especially as VoIP phone systems can now be supplied as part of a Unified Communications solution or even Contact Platform as a Solution. While many VoIP providers include softphone apps for desktops and mobiles, you can add your own IP phones and conference call hardware to your service as required. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly at present, VoIP services usually include some form of video conferencing either as a default or upgrade option. Whichever VoIP system you’re thinking of buying into, here we present the best currently on the market. RingCentral Office offers a leading cloud-based VoIP platform, with a comprehensive range of features available that should provide everything you need for your business phone system. On top of this, there are powerful customizations available to more fully integrate RingCentral Office into other applications using APIs. Pricing for RingCentral Office plans varies according to the number of users, plan selected, and whether you pay monthly or yearly, which can produce some extreme variations in pricing. For example, a single user paying monthly, the standard plan would cost a steep $49.99, while for 2 or more employees paying annually the same plan would cost $24.99 per user. For discussing pricing and features, we’ll simplify this by presuming 2-99 users paying annually, with pricing increasing or decreasing for less or more users respectively: The cheapest plan comes in at $19.99 per user per month and offers a fairly limited range of features, such as unlimited calls in the US and Canada, as well as a toll-free or local number with 100 free minutes — barely just over an hour. On the plus side, however, there are call management features and phone system administration tools, and audio is provided in full HD voice. There’s also a voicemail to email feature, as well as voice to text. It’s only really when you go up a step get to the Standard plan at $24.99 per user per month that the full power of this cloud-based VoIP system really begins to show. There’s unlimited audio and video conferencing, though with the latter limited to four participants. It’s at this level that the multi-level attendant becomes available, along with unlimited internet fax. However, the Premium plan, priced at $34.99 per user per month increases the video conferencing limit to 100 participants, and also adds Single Sign On (SSO), multi-site support, and integration with CRM software such as SalesForce and Zendesk. Additional numbers are available for an extra monthly fee, allowing for toll-free, local, international, and vanity numbers as required. Altogether, while the basic plan is quite basic, the higher level plans show-off the wide range of comprehensive built-in features that RingCentral Office can offer.
