The SaaS model has been extensively adopted in critical business processes from finance and marketing to project management and customer service. For some reason, however, one major business aspect—telephony system—is slow to get into the cloud bandwagon. Even today, we still see many business owners trying to compare traditional telephony with cloud PBX. If this is you, you should be comparing cloud PBX with other cloud PBX by now because, as you’ll see in our review, the benefits in mobility, flexibility, costs, and configurations are great.
To help you understand the different business-class cloud phone systems, we’re presenting one of the most sophisticated cloud PBXs in the market today: RingCentral Office. This detailed review will give you an idea how far cloud telephony can go. Use this review to decide if RingCentral fits your situation or as a benchmark to compare other cloud PBX plans. You can easily get a RingCentral Office free trial here to experience the actual features for yourself.
What are the highlights of RingCentral Office?
All the sophisticated features of standard PBXs without the costly hardware and maintenance
Optimized uptime in emergencies, poor or loss of Internet connection
Available phone numbers that allow you to go international, local, toll-free
Enterprise-grade security like failover technology, 24/7 monitoring, system hardening, physical and biometric security, and bi-coastal, Tier 1 datacenters for cloud hosting
Multi-level auto attendant lets you create flexible company-wide phone menus
Simplified end-user design that maximizes user adoption and ease of call management
Features that connect all employees from anywhere at any time, supporting BYOD initiatives
Scalable features that grow with you like adding more lines, locations, extensions, and users
Mobile app features for both users and administrators
What We Like the Most about RingCentral Office
1. You get sophisticated IP PBX in an instant
Set up is in minutes, not weeks, as with most SaaS products. You just need to sign up for an account, configure the settings, and the system sets up your phone system over the Internet. Straight up on the same day, we got a sophisticated phone system that has all the standard PBX features, plus extra features in call management, mobility extensions, data security, app integration, and online meetings that you’d expect in a SaaS product (heads-up: we have an IP phone already, but if you’re buying one, RingCentral delivers them in 5-7 days).
After receiving a phone number in our email, we logged into RingCenral website to create extensions, organize call groups, set call queues, enable an auto call attendant, and configure rules for call forwarding, voice mail, call routing/blocking, and voice mail. In short, what took us a week to do all these with a traditional sophisticated PBX system was done in a day.
If you have more complex phone configurations like transferring existing business numbers or requesting for a vanity number, add a day or two, while a support team from the vendor guides you through on-boarding for a smooth transition. We did come across a few hiccups on our first try manipulating the submenus, which took us a while to figure out the navigation. Overall, we found the interface responsive.
The simple interface to set up user settings.
2. It simplifies PBX
The vendor claims to have decade of R&D backing its system and 300.000 deployments to fine tune a sophisticated system. But the end-user interface is designed for non-technical administrators. There’s no hardware to install, no technical configurations needed, the most complicated tasks we’d experienced, in fact, was not about the software; rather, developing our call management rules for individual extensions and company-wide settings. Once we got the rules worked out, it only took us a few clicks to set the system for answering rules, call forwarding, call screening, recording, alerts, and missed call notifications. It was just a matter of which users, groups, or departments are assigned to which rules.
We also saved a lot of hours from repetitive tasks by creating batch templates to manage universal rules for call groups and departmental settings. You can add/remove users from a template, which is convenient for companies with high employee turnaround. On the other hand, you can customize call settings for individual events or specific locations, even as you keep the templates.
Similarly, you can set up multi-level call-flow configurations, for instance, allow callers to dial an employee name to reach a local line, or link a direct number to the trunk line for a quick access to an external party. And with up to 250 voice menus and submenus per account, it’s a good thing the system has a graphical editor that helped us visualize a complex tree menu that we created. This aided us a great deal to identify possible misconfigurations.
Overview page of your account homepage.
3. Plenty of features to manage your work communication
RingCentral is one of the most complete PBX systems we’ve seen around. You have a rich set of functions from call management to conferencing and business SMS to mobility that may be one too many if you’re a small company. But pricing is flexible and with scalable features, you’ll find the software growing with your business communication needs. Even if you start with the basic plan ($24.99/month/user), you get to enable PBX across smartphones, tablets, and PC and support BYOD in your workplace.
Some of the key features we like that are not always available in other PBX systems are:
Forward calls to smartphones and tablets
Call a group where all phones ring at once
Divert unanswered calls to the next person in the chain of command
Conference call bridge numbers
Full-blown Internet fax
Business SMS
Even the basic plan has plenty of features. Here are the things that enable a small business to enjoy enterprise-grade phone capability: unlimited calling (U.S. and Canada); 1,000 toll-free minutes (additional minutes at 3.9 cents/min.); HD video conferencing for mobile and desktop users; integration with MS Office and Outlook, Google, Box, and Dropbox, and U.S.-based support and implementation. For larger companies, RingCentral has premium ($3.499/month/user) and Enterprise ($44.99/month/user) to get more features, such as:
Inbound caller ID name
Automatic call recording
Multi-level auto attendant
Integration with Salesforce, Zendesk, Desk.com
Single sign-on
Voicemail-to-text
Not the least, the vendor has a wide range of preconfigured IP phones, such as desk phones, cordless phones, receptionist phones, conference phones, and more. While RingCentral supports a veritable array of SIP-compatible IP and analog phones (requires Cisco SPA-122 ATA router), it’s recommended you get the preconfigured phone for a smoother transition.
Meeting interface with collaborative tools like sharing and markup features
4. Unites all your locations and onsite/offsite workforce
The software has strong mobile support (iOS and Android) that connects all your employees, remote workers, and locations around the world. Your entire organization can send/receive HD calls, faxes, SMS, attend conference calls, and receive notifications and voicemail through their mobile device. They can perform these functions over Wi-Fi or 3G/4G without consuming your carrier minutes (this is not applicable to countries where VoIP is prohibited). Employees’ smartphones are literally transformed into BOYD line extensions.
Moreover, we noted that RingCentral’s mobility feature extends to administrator’s tasks. You can configure settings, manage extensions and direct numbers, view real-time statuses of phone users, host meetings, and more even on the go. You can also run a call report from your smartphone or tablet. That means the entire office can be empty and still function normally with calls being directed, forwarded, collaborated on, and managed on the field. Companies with a virtual office or consultancy firms with loose organization can benefit from a truly mobile PBX.
We observed that under normal bandwidth call quality is excellent (HD voice). It’s also good that RingCentral works okay even with a slow Internet connection (90Kbps) because the system adapts bandwidth and reduces conversation latency in poor network areas. This is important for companies with an offshore workforce in places with low bandwidth.
Another benefit of a cloud PBX like RingCentral is that it ensures business continuity during emergencies. For example, in case of a power outage or major disaster like fire, employees can still communicate using their mobile devices. Likewise, the mobile app can switch to cellular voice and data networks when the Internet is down.
The iOS interface allows users and administrator to take RingCentral on the go.
5. Reach more customers with wide range of company numbers
Customers in North America are not charged when they call your RingCentral toll-free number. This makes it easier for customers to engage you. You bear the cost at 3.9 cents/minute on top of your 1,000 toll-free minutes upon sign up. But callers outside of North America cannot call your RingCentral toll-free number. On the other hand, you can make international calls or forward calls from your toll-free number to any international number.
If you have an existing toll-free number, the vendor can work you through the transfer process. More importantly, we found out that the vendor allows you to keep your RingCentral toll-free number in case you switch provider in the future. This makes the cloud PBX a viable long-term, risk-averse service.
On the other hand, vanity numbers are important to help your customers remember your number, a hotline for instance. RingCentral offers a large inventory that you can check right inside the system. But keep in mind that additional charges apply to these numbers ($30 one-time setup fee).
Meantime, if you need a number to appeal to a local market, the system has over 200 area codes to help you reflect a virtual local presence. Realtors, legal firms, home service providers, and other local-centric businesses will find this feature useful to attract potential local customers. For example, list your local number in National Local Directory Assistance and you’ll show up in local searches for your category. Your local number can also be made available to 411 callers. You can request for as many local codes you need to cover different locations, while you maintain a single office.
You can reflect a local outbound caller ID for local markets.
6. A Good way to cut operating costs
We thought RingCentral is one way to cut operating costs if you’re scouring budgets for those small savings to increase margins. For example, a traditional on-premise PBX system charges $3,000 for the phone and $4,000 for software licensing. RingCentral, on the other hand, charges only $1,980 for phone (Cisco 303), while there’s no software licensing. But the most glaring cost benefits are in the monthly fees: RingCentral won’t charge you for, among others, unlimited local and long-distance calls, unlimited Internet fax, 24/7 tech support, audio conferencing, telephone service, and toll-free numbers. These can cost you from $200 to $300 per service in an on-premise PBX. In fact, the vendor calculated that you can save up to 68% in one year comparing the upfront and monthly costs of both RingCentral (if you’re in the U.S. or Canada) and traditional PBX. But that’s considering your business consumes a lot of calls. In our estimate, a business with basic PBX needs with little need for overseas calls and teleconferencing can still see around 20% to 30% savings using a cloud-based PBX.
What customers say about RingCentral Office
Call and streaming quality, mobility, and phone configuration flexibility are some of the usual quoted positive comments that we found across app discovery platforms, social media, and media reviews about RingCentral. Here are three quoted testimonials that reflect the common sentiments about the cloud PBX app.
James Fitch, a self-starter SaaS consultant from Chicago, IL, likes the quality streaming of RingCentral. His clients are spread out worldwide as disparate as Malaysia and Croatia, and he often finds himself hosting a webinar to find leads. “I’ve hosted webinars in my bathroom to block outside noise. Both audio and video streaming in my iPad were smooth. I used screen sharing extensively to give presentations, so you can imagine the importance of uninterrupted streaming is for me.” He said RingCentral allows him to project bigness to big-ticket companies “in the comfort of my house.”
On the other hand, Lowell from Seattle, WA uses RingCentral to expand their customer support. “We’ve about 60:40 resident reps to home-based temps,” he said. “A cloud PBX like RingCentral can easily pull them together as one seamless contact center.” He mentioned the convenience of the app’s integration, adaptability with different IP phones, and its mobile flexibility. He said that the ease of removing and adding users is very useful for companies like his, which relies on seasonal workforce.
Another key comment about RingCentral is its call forwarding and escalation, as voiced out by a certain Leslie Yu from Kentucky. She said they set up a two-level phone configuration to handle product inquiries. “We have two teams to cover calls during business hours, but they have intermittent schedules, so instead of assigning them specific hours, we configured RingCentral to forward the call to whoever is on board.” The flexibility in phone settings, she admitted, helped her users to quickly adjust to cloud PBX.
Awards and Quality Certificates won by RingCentral Office
Best Phone System Award for 2015
Our extensive teston of RingCentral features showed that it’s definitely a best-in-class cloud phone system. It’s basically a must-have solution for companies of all settings and dynamics. The award highlights that the software’s top features, outstanding customer service, and track record are the best in its category. When clients choose RingCentral, we are confident to say they are using the best phone system available on the market today.
Supreme Software Award
The award highlights the company’s extensive knowledge of the B2B industry and the needs of its clients. What is more, it sets the standards of a truly useful and helpful phone system that is worth replicating by all provides of such services. After putting RingCentral through a variety of testing scenarios, we found the vendor is conscientious even about little details of their service, but ones that still matter to managers and other users.
Best Mobile Support Award
RingCentral’s iOS and Android native apps take PBX system into the next level. Its cloud telephony infrastructure along with its friendly pricing and terms allow companies to greatly expand their business phone communication and increase collaboration between teams in and out of the office. Likewise, the RingCentral mobile app not only extends the phone user’s experience, but equally important, it allows the administrator to manage users and configure settings while on the go. We closely examined the mobile app and concluded that it has one major disruptive characteristic: uptime for business phone lines can be extended even if no one is in the office.
Great User Experience Certificate
RingCentral is awarded this special certificate for the extent of its phone configurations to create deep menu levels or multiple layers of call forwarding and escalation. Similarly, RingCentral users are fully satisfied with the app’s extensibility that covers local, international, and toll-free numbers. We found the cloud PBX system to have a well-designed end-user interface backed by sophisticated system that allows even small businesses to enjoy enterprise-grade telephony. The many positive comments about the software also convinced us that RingCentral greatly facilitates a quality work communication for businesses of any size and needs.
RingCentral Office SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction
Our B2B experts conducted a review of RingCentral Office functionalities, user experience, customer support and other key elements of the service. Final results as summarized by the SmartScore system gave RingCentral Office an impressive score of 9.6/10, while the results provided by the Customer Satisfaction Algorithm place the overall user satisfaction rating at 99%.
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