15

Jul

Glitch Central? RingCentral Virtual Phone System Review

07-15-2008 | Posted by: Jeremy Reither

Not long after we posted an overview of virtual phone systems, we signed on for a very brief (7-day) free trial with RingCentral (we came to find out not long after that they were offering 30-day free trials through some of their web affiliates). We did our best to evaluate the service before it came time to plunk down the credit card, but in all honesty, it was a coin toss when that time did come. But it’s been about a month and a half now, and we have a pretty well formed opinion. The system is great when it works, and offers some real promise and benefits over land lines and cell phones, and while the Virtual PBX (call manager) is great, the VOIP (phone service) doesn’t always work like it should.

One of the great things about RingCentral is that it has a full feature set - lots of options and customizability. There’s more than we could ever try to cover here (RingCentral has a whole website devoted to doing that), but here are some of the features that made us sit up and take notice (for better or worse):

Smooth:

• Multiple Extensions: This is nice when you’re moving from a single land line; suddenly you have extensions. This isn’t a RingCentral feature so much as a standard virtual phone system feature - but it’s nice.
• Ring all your phones: Another pretty standard feature with other providers, this is great nonetheless. No matter where you are, you can have RingCentral call you at all your numbers - you get the call whether you’re at home, at the office, or on the road.
• Voicemails in your e-mail: Having voicemails delivered to your e-mail is great for people who check e-mail regularly throughout the day. You can even play voicemails from your Blackberry or other smart phone. So, rather than checking another voicemail box, you just continue to check e-mail.
• Forward to another number / voicemail / canned reply: Don’t feel like taking the call at your desk? Forward it to your cell and take a walk. Canned replies (my words, not theirs) allow you to have the system tell the caller that you’ll call them back (or that they should call you back) in xx minutes. These are nice options for friends and other callers you know well - don’t recommend them as much for clients or bosses.

Not So Smooth:

• Going through a tunnel (at your desk): Just like with cell phones, we’ve found that calls can often cut out for seconds at a time…with people on the other end saying “I lost you for a minute, can you repeat that” fairly frequently.
• Call controller unresponsive: Sometimes the call controller will show that the number your calling is being dialed, but there will be no sound for some time. Usually this is followed by a fast busy signal. It seems like this is happens more often when you’re in a hurry, of course.
• Call controller (keypad) is choppy: When dialing with your keypad or even with your mouse, the dial tone (the beep) you hear when you press a button on the call controller can be delayed. If you press the button twice because you didn’t think it registered the first time, you might be getting ready to dial a wrong number. Even if you catch it, you have to press backspace and fix it before dialing. Kind of a pain.
• Headset volume automatically muted: On at least two occasions, I’ve been trying to figure out why the call controller showed that a call was in progress, but I wasn’t hearing anything. The call controller had muted my headset. Warning: the people on the other end of the call can hear you while you’re cursing your computer.

Above I referred to the ‘call controller’ a few times. The RingCentral call controller is just the software applet that you use to…well…control your calls. It’s like a little virtual cell phone that sits in your application tray, and pops up quickly if you click on it. It syncs with your Outlook address book, which is nice, and stores call history.

Here’s the life size version:

Also Worth Mentioning:

• Computer sounds in your ear during a call: If you’ve never used a virtual phone system or VOIP phone system before, it might not dawn on you that you’ll be hearing all the other sounds your computer makes during your call - right in your ear. If you think call waiting is annoying during phone calls, try calendar reminders and instant messenger dings. If you can control your phone headset volume and other computer noise volume independenly, I recommend it.

So, is RingCentral VOIP a viable solution for your *only* business phone? I say no - not as long as you’re going to be relying on it as your main phone for presentations or important client calls. The service quality just isn’t good enough. I wonder if it’s even on par with a cell phone. The virtual PBX service, however (RingCentral’s primary service offering, to be fair) seems to work great. We’ve been able to customize it to meet our needs, and it seems like they’ve thought of everything. Having a single phone line has really simplified the biggest problem about working from multiple locations.

• Overall, it’s a great combo package, and the convenience of the VOIP line - when you’re traveling, or working remotely - *might* be worth the $330/year. But think of it as a complimentary phone, and keep that land line.