Easy to rollout and administer. It’s just another tab in Zoom, really intuitive for staff to start using; required only minimal training – in many cases we only provided a Quick Start guide.
Leverages their high quality and reliable backbone. The service has experienced 100% up-time and 0 complaints of call quality or reliability.
Has all the features you would expect from a UC system, light on Call Center capabilities which are not needed at our firm.
Pros:
– Reasonable price
Cons:
– Was not able to change voice message
– Clients need to press an extension to get to number; no direct line in
– Customer service is very tough to get ahold of; need to read up how to access how to get help, to get help; Customer Service once reached, kept referring me to articles to read and eventually disconnected the line.
Zoom is pretty much in Comcast territory for support. We signed up because we wanted to use the meeting software and use the integrated meeting/phone system.
We were promised an implementation call – they never sent the email to schedule it. We called to talk to support, they would not speak with us – our plan (which we paid for a year) was not high enough to warrant support. Which was really rough since they ported our number and then refused to talk to us about getting setup. Talked to a random sales person, who helped, but we spent days setting up what took me 30 minutes to setup with Gotoconnect. The phone features are seriously lacking compared to Jive. Call quality seems fine, meeting software is good, so it’s not all terrible, but the transition was rough, and they make you feel second class.
I’m supremely disappointed – I had a good opinion of Zoom, but that’s shot. My recommendation is DO NOT pay for a year up front to get a discount. If I had not paid for a year, I would have fired them today.
I recently tried to move my small business to Zoom Phone as I wanted to have conferencing and phone systems with one provider to simplify. This was a HUGE mistake and probably the worst IT support experience of my life. Zoom Phone apparently does not allow regular paid business plans to access live support. Rather you have to schedule an appointment with a phone specialist and only get 2 to 3 appointments. If you’re not able to set up your phones during this time you are out of luck. We had a major issue with our desktop phones not provisioning and could not solve it on our own. Tried to access additional support which resulted in someone on the APAC support team getting back to us at 4 a.m. on a Saturday asking for a photo of the phone’s screen. I’m sorry but I am not generally at the office at 4 a.m. And if there is a several hour delay on each back and forth when trying to troubleshoot an issue you can imagine how long this takes and how inefficient it is.
They also purposefully hide access to even remote support – if you submit a ticket with Zoom Phone as the item you need help with they will auto-close it, you have to submit with “other” to get to a human being. In the chat bot there is a special phrase you have to enter to get a human being. That is just underhanded. And when I reached out to my sales rep three times to ask if I could upgrade to a plan to allowed live support so I could actually get my phones set up he just didn’t respond.
I struggled with trying to get the phones set up for three weeks. My remote IT team also could not get it set up. My husband, who is a CTO with 20 years of IT experience could not get it set up. The guidance they have for provisioning phones has no business being consumer facing, full of errors and gaps and exceedingly technical even for IT professionals. Do yourself a favor and stay FAR FAR away from Zoom Phone. I highly recommend Nextiva, I’ve gone back to them and am very grateful to be with a company that has competent live tech support again.
I was looking for a new VOIP provider. My existing provider was excellent but expensive and I was looking to reduce costs. As a Zoom user, Zoom seemed like an easy choice, but I was wrong. Provisioning a VOIP system can be tricky and I had done this with a previous provider but Zoom has no dedicated provisioning or person to call. It’s all through their help icon. It was incredibly frustrating so after just weeks trying to get set up, I moved to another provider and have been so much happier. I love Zooms meeting and webinar platform but would certainly not recommend their phone service!
They were not able to onboard. Staff failed to respond in a timely manor and when we did do a video set up, zoom staff was incompetent. No support. No account rep communication regarding concerns. I would avoid. Zoom Phone during business hours goes to answering service. It is a waste of time!
Given the current climate everyone is trying to find solutions for running classrooms from home. I was led to using Zoom by recommendation from other lecturers. In the scramble to find a universal solution that could work for everyone Zoom became the most popular solution. Having use the software for the past three months I can say that it does its job competently. Sadly I haven’t upgraded to the pro version but that might change given the unstable times we are in now. Overall i like all the extra feature the software has. Its made having online tutorials a breeze.
Via Capterra
Overall, Zoom has provided that easy & seamless transition from 100% in-person work to now 100% virtual work in a matter of 2 days. Also, Zoom has been crucial to our “office bonding” since it has now been approximately 5 months of both seeing these coworkers.
Via Capterra
Like I already specified, it wasn’t great. I can’t recommend this software to anyone, because I personally had quite a few problems with it, but I will totally give it another try, just to be sure what was the problem regarding it. I have heard good things about it, but for me was such a nuisance.
Via Capterra
With many imposed restrictions during these tough times, Zoom has proven effective for office work for us. Connecting with peers to know the progress or to discuss upcoming schedules are easy and flexible, eliminating the need to go to organisation. It also gives flexible timing to speak to foreign client and also show them the progress of the project by sharing the demo via this platform.
Via Capterra
Zoom has become a household name as an HD video conferencing platform, but not many know about its business VoIP service, Zoom Phone. This business phone system packs in several useful dialing features and comes in at two very reasonable price points that are SMB-friendly. However, is the service itself any good?
In this guide, we’re going to take a close look at this VoIP service so that you understand pricing, features, and what makes it stand out in a relatively crowded business communications market.
Learn more about Zoom Phone Pricing & Plans in our complete review here.
Zoom Phone is a cloud-based calling solution that is used when you need to quickly contact someone using VoIP. Unlike the traditional Zoom experience, there is no video on these calls. However, the features that you would find on a business phone system are all accessible and streamlined to create a better experience than is available through a traditional landline calling system.
In addition, if you would like to turn your call into a Zoom Meeting, it’s a straightforward process that only takes a single button press. You can invite additional attendees at any time or keep it a one-on-one personal meeting.
With Zoom Phone, your business will be able to communicate with customers and work internally using collaboration tools and features of Zoom, which means that in addition to voice, you will have access to audio conference rooms, messaging, and video conferences as well without changing platforms. As we covered in our Zoom Phone enhancements piece, Zoom is steadily making improvements to the software.
Zoom phone is useful option for small businesses that are looking for an easy means to foster both better customer telecommunications. For existing Zoom Video subscribers, the service sets up in minutes, and your company can begin making and receiving calls immediately.
Unlike traditional Zoom, which is focused on conferencing, this service is specifically designed for businesses that are looking to add the features of a VoIP phone system to their existing Zoom video meetings. This type of dialing is very advantageous when using a service provider like Zoom because of its cloud-based nature.
With the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN), dialing via landlines requires extensive hardware on-premise, expansive copper wiring in your building, and expensive long-distance calling rates.
With a service like this one, the hardware is maintained remotely by the provider. You only need an internet connection, and the cost of long-distance calling is drastically reduced. In fact, the service allows for unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada without the need to incur local long-distance fees. Since VoIP is so versatile, more than 61% of businesses adopt VoIP services like Zoom at the end of their landline contracts.
In addition, out of the box, there are several Zoom Phone features that allow you to expand your repertoire by adding call routing, service management, and recording for calls. As a result, this makes for a much more well-rounded solution than what you might receive using traditional landline services. You also receive this without much hardware investment and there are multiple servers for georedundancy and higher uptimes.
Finally, with virtual phone numbers provided by a Zoom local or toll-free license, your business creates points of contact for your business. Do you want to appear local to your customers? Remember, based on a report by BrightLocal, 60% of customers prefer to reach smaller businesses by the phone, and a local number grants the illusion that the company is locally accessible.
Conversely, having a toll-free number also grants a more national presence. Customers feel more assured when a number has a 1-800 prefix – it indicates the business is larger and more reliable. Additionally, numbers like these cost nothing for the dialer. Both of these number types are available with this service, so you create the profile that best fits your customers.
Unfortunately, the service does not have international direct inward dialing (DID) numbers. These allow your business to appear local to international customers, but Zoom has indicated that this feature is on the horizon for customers looking to create inroads to international territories.
While this VoIP service does have two plans, the differences between the two are primarily in billing structure, not in dialing features. Zoom Phone is an add-on to Zoom Meetings, so you’ll need to be subscribed to that service first. You can even sign up for the paid phone service if you’re on Zoom Meeting’s free plan.
All of the same features can be found in both the metered and unlimited plans – you’ll just be paying for minutes with the metered tier. This is advantageous for different business types.
| Metered Calling | Unlimited U.S. & Canada Calling | |
| Pricing | $10 per month, per user/extension | $15 per month, per user/extension |
Here’s how this helps for different business types.
Features included in both plans
Each plan has a single Zoom app for voice, video, voicemail, messaging, group meetings, and web conferencing, and each connects to PSTN, cellular, or VoIP calls with high call quality. The apps are also Windows, macOS, iPhone, and Android native.
During calls, both plans allow you to seamlessly add a third party for a conference. Zoom also has a relatively expansive list of supported devices for those with existing hardware.
Zoom also doesn’t tie you down. When you’re ready to cancel your subscription, there are no additional fees or fines. The service also renews automatically each month or year based on your preferences.
Zoom is a strong contender as a small business-friendly solution for breaking the grip of traditional landline communications and bringing your voice calls to the cloud. Zoom’s servers are in Australia, Canada, China, Europe, India, Japan, Hong Kong, Latin America, and the US, so you can expect a degree of reliability when using the service thanks to georedundancy. The provider is one of the few without a dyed-in-the-wool uptime guarantee or service level agreement (SLA), so there’s not much to protect you from outages.
Zoom is still a great option for audio quality; calls are crystal clear and features like call recording and call routing bring much utility. Also, establishing easy calls between team members has become incredibly important during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Not convinced that Zoom Phone is for your organization? Need a more comprehensive enterprise-grade business communications solution that has UC features like screen share, cloud storage, and breakout rooms? We have comparison tables for both business and enterprise VoIP, so check those out to find your business’s next provider.
