3CX vs. RingCentral MVP

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

Ring Central is HIPPA compliant. Having a BAA is critical to working in the mental health field. I need to have the ability to text with clients and staff from one place. I can receive and view faxes in real time. Voicemails are transcribed. Being able to set up different lines allows one to specify where calls go. We have message-only voicemails with basic info. We can set to away. Security is easy to set up

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

• Implementation for new clients.
• Support
• The software and app are very intuitive and user-friendly, so it's easy to get started and get going on their system.
• They made it very easy for me to import all our client contact information and team members as users.
• Their online help menu is very good.

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

• sometimes the call handling settings can be difficult to navigate
• some customers have told us that our number shows up as a "spam risk" on their caller ID even though this is our same office number we have used for decades

Incentivized

We are grandfathered into our unlimited toll-free minutes plan. We are very unlikely to switch because of that. It has been the major factor saving us a lot of money compared to switching to other solutions. I don't know any other company that still offers these unlimited plans.

Incentivized

They were working on updating a few of the modules while we were going live, so this made usability difficult to train on once they did go live with those changes. Now that the changes are in place, we have really enjoyed the usability of the platform

Rarely is there an issue with calls dropping. An issue we sometimes have is how the transcripts mishear the caller's message and enter funny words. Customer service call-ins have been few and far between, but issues are always resolved in a professional but quick manner.

Incentivized

Occasional bandwith issues. In addition to this, I have one individual whose calls are blocked. We were not able to determine whether this was a RingCentral or a carrier issue.

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

Support does not offer solutions that can be used to take action. For instance, if call quality is low, it could be due to many reasons. Bad hardware, bad WiFi, RingCentral service issues, the recipient of a call, the caller of a call, etc. But RingCentral support does seem to want to pin most of the issues on "jitter" and wait for the issue to go away.

Incentivized

I really didn't know all the capabilities

Incentivized

If someone has an existing system I tell them to keep that running initially and keep RingCentral separate initially until the system is configured and tested to one's satisfaction. After testing and configuration is completed, then roll over the main phone numbers to the new RingCentral system. I've seen one person who immediately flipped over to RingCentral without properly configuring/testing the software and had many issues with missed customer calls until I helped him sort out his configuration

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

Ring Central is very user friendly, training and support are easily accessible from the desktop application. It's easier to customize your user experience. Mitel is discontinuing cloud-based systems and partnered with RingCentral, we had actually looked at RingCentral before we chose Mitel

Incentivized

not to sign up for it or give them any money for a product that does not work

There is a browser version which allows the product to be used by almost anyone.

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

• We were able to save money by canceling our BVOIP circuits, which was a cost of 12k monthly.
• The ability for our employees to give out one number for communication.
• We were also able to cancel our contract with a call recording software we had.

Incentivized