3CX vs. Avaya Experience Platform

In many scenarios decision is driven by budget and compared to other solutions at the time of purchase [3CX] was simply the cheapest solution for what it has to offer. If you are looking for integrations, extensibility, and advanced functionalities, this might not be a solution for you. At the time of use (and this may have changed by now), there was a lack of APIs, CLI commands, and similar so nothing could be automated with the system. There are ways of importing data through CSV but automation would solve us so much time and support calls if we were able to connect with other systems.

Incentivized

The Avaya Experience Platform is well suited to allow remote working for call center agents. Staff can log in and work from anywhere using Chrome and their user credentials. The technical issues and lack of some features have caused some frustration for our staff and made it difficult to get buy-in for this product across all call center groups. This is difficult because a solution like this is intended to make their work more efficient as opposed to causing frustration.

Incentivized

• Simplicity: Using a single 3CX interface we can manage every phone and extension used throughout our company.
• Flexibility: There are a wide variety of options to configure each extension and phone. Changing anything after the hardware is deployed is very easy.
• Portability: Phones with 3CX can be easily moved or repurposed within an office or at remote locations, including users' homes. The mobile app allows users to use their office extension anywhere without exposing their cell number.

Incentivized

• The app and the ability to use the "office" phone while on the road.
• There's an easy implementation and training process to get everyone on board quickly.
• Flexibility of transferring calls to different mediums - I can switch a phone call to a conference or patch in other parties with ease.

Incentivized

• I would like to be able to see direct-dial numbers on the handsets. Currently that is not possible but that would be a nice feature.
• You need an SBC per location, which can be a point of failure.
• You also need a server that might get disconnected, which is another point of failure.

Incentivized

• One are for improvement for Avaya is the ability to operate behind the VPN. For the virtual employee, this is an issue as we are unable to use it behind the VPN and it must be launched from the remote desktop.
• The color scheme could definitely use some updating. The charcoal gray background of Avaya's windows, coupled with the black font is not very contrasting. I have used Avaya for years and would love to see an update as to its color scheme to better fit the virtual employee.
• Avaya could also improve the way an employee moves within the program by titling the icons seen or expanding the Avaya window to allow for a better understanding of what each con does. For example, the Work History window would go unnoticed, had I not been playing with the software one day. These little items are unknown to many professionals in my industry as they sit in the window with no explanation.

Incentivized

I have always found Avaya's technology and support to be the best in the industry. Even as they worked out financial difficulties and continue to fend off competitors they have adopted and incorporated new technologies. They have done so in a logical and supportive manner and offered all these benefits as they went along. I haven't seen any of their competitors do any of this.

Incentivized

I find Avaya easy to use but I am not a beginner. I think it is much more difficult for beginners unless the administrator has some basic programming skills. The system is getting more difficult to use but I enjoy learning and haven't found myself stumped yet.

Incentivized

The 3CX Phone System is only a five because while they provide set-up/how-to/Q and A documents to help your district or company get started, they do not offer support for free. The documents provided, though, are good enough for you to get you up and running. We also found a good source of help through a sip trunk provider, which was a 3CX reseller provider.

Incentivized

I give it this rating because the support services of Avaya have proven to be reliable when needed. Great feedback for our queries has always been received from the support agents. 24/7 availability of support, which is very essential as our Call Center department also functions this way, therefore, the knowledge and technical support we require is always available to us.

No, everything was implemented by Avaya Support

Incentivized

The main differences between 8x8, Inc. and 3CX is pricing and ease of use in my opinion. The 3CX system uses annual based pricing plans based on of simultaneous calls your company needs, not the number of extensions/users and offers a free plan. 8x8, Inc. charges per extension with different plans. We currently have 19 extensions so the 3CX system makes more sense for us, however, if your company only has a few extensions you may want to throughly consider both options. In my experience, it was difficult to add new extensions and phones with 8x8 because at least at that time we had 8x8 I could not add anything on the web admin. I had to call a sales rep which took a lot more time. Also, if you didn't purchase a phone and/or headset directly from 8x8 at a usually higher price than Amazon for example then you would have to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to hours on the phone with 8x8 tech support to program the phone to work with the 8x8 system so adding a new extension could turn into a long ordeal. I can easily add new extensions on 3CX directly in the web cpanel. Granted, if you are actually adding a new phone number you would need to purchase that number from a company like ATT first before adding it to 3CX. The difference between a phone number and an extension would be a phone number allows a customer to call in directly using that number. The extension would require the customer to call the main business number then be transferred to the extension. 3CX provides a list of supported phone models on their website

Incentivized

Switched from Polycom to Avaya, although polycom worked well there were too many reoccuring connectivity issues and the turn around time for solving them was also too long. Avaya has fewer connectivity problems and their support is much better too. Pricing wise they were similar so we didn't have much to lose.

Incentivized

• 3CX has a lot to offer for a very low cost as its business model is based on simultaneous calls and not per device. It's very cost effective and very affordable.
• As the 3CX server does not require a high-performance server to run, with the Public Cloud option, it might allow even further savings.

Incentivized

• It does what we need it to do, so we don't heavily invest in this technology but rather into the manufacturing end of our business.
• We believe we have more than achieved the return on our investment for the Avaya phone system and associated equipment.

Incentivized