Avaya UCaaS vs. Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)

Call centers where lots of calls come in per day are better suited for Cloud office. Small businesses or companies that don’t really make outgoing calls or receive a lot of incoming calls other than within the company would not really be suited for Avaya Cloud Office.

Incentivized

Cisco Unified Communications Manager is suited for medium to large customers who are in search for a solid call control platform with added security in mind. Cisco Unified Communications Manager also supports receptions, small groups and also a mini contact center type of set up with its Hunt Group, Pick up Group and call queuing facilities and also with set up of music on hold function while calls queuing.

Incentivized

• User-friendly GUI management interface with the possibility to create different rooms, notebooks, calendars, and chats.
• The management interface for recordings is made in the rooms with the possibility of downloading them to the location.
• Link and file sharing with other participants.
• Chat with all participants and individual.

Incentivized

• This solution is extremely stable and has been running in our environment for several years without (unscheduled) downtime.
• The ability to have voicemails automatically sent as an email message is extremely helpful in helping us to keep in touch while away from the desk.
• The Call Manager provides us very granular settings to route our calls as we want.

Incentivized

• Avaya has very strong contact center offerings and more contact with our salesperson would be helpful, so we can explore the latest offerings
• Although it's adequate a slightly more intuitive UI would be helpful
• More integrated reporting at the end-user level.

Incentivized

• Administration web page is little bit hard to understand at the beginning specially if you are not familiar with naming convention and GU Interfaces.
• Call Detail Record interface is fine but would be desirable to include more options that fit organization needs in terms of reporting purposes.
• Self Care Portal interface could be more useful to the end user if it includes options to manage some features without administrators involving.

Incentivized

Things change, business requirements change so when we come to renew we may explore other options, we might go all in on Teams or look at something different - we need something that allows us to increase and importantly decrease our licence count more flexably which Avaya / Ring Central don't allow.

Incentivized

We have been using this product for 20+ years and will continue too. This is a great product and new features are always coming out.

Incentivized

There are few times that we have not been able to take advantage of the tool, but those moments are related to the bandwidth of each person in [their] home. Those who have low signal cannot access meetings on the platform smoothly.

The usability part of Cisco Unified Communications Manager is very much simple from a usability point of view. Day-to-day Move Add Change Delete (MACD) can be performed by the administrators very easily with simple training. From the initial deployment point of view, some of the thing can be improved to simplify the process.

Throughout a year and and a half of remote learning, we only experience two minor technology issues that were resolved within an hour

Incentivized

We have not been faced to any performance issue.

Incentivized

The Customer Service and Representatives are always kind and willing to go the extra mile to get anything resolved. Yet, we have not really needed them after the initial set up since the product actually works and we have not really experienced any major issues.

Incentivized

CUCM is supported by most third-party vendors for related products, so it makes finding solutions to specific needs easy. Also Cisco TAC is very knowledgeable, and we have never run into a problem they have not been able to resolve. Usually they are resolved without the need to escalate tickers either.

Incentivized

whilst on site it was delivered by teams to the desks , not the fault of the trainer

Incentivized

The online training was clear and effective.

Incentivized

Thank to the help of Avaya implementation team, the migration was done with minimal impact. All activities were well defined and done in time.

Incentivized

This was the first phone system we implemented that could span multiple locations. We were very satisfied once fully implemented

Incentivized

Apart from Cisco Webex Calling/app no other vendor offers their own phones hardware, gateways. We need to add other vendors like yealink, Poly, Audiocodes to complete the solution. This makes things very difficult from management perspective. As you have to hire a person who can manage a multivendor environment. Also, in case of outage, multiple bridge open and every vendor blame others. Cisco is costly so we gave a chance to Avaya UCaaS based on its history and reputation in Calling market.

Incentivized

We have been a Cisco based shop and have looked at other cloud voice options such as MS Teams pbx, and others, but ultimately, the features, endpoints, and reliability of Cisco has been the common factor in staying with them as our voice provider. Their integrations, room systems, and hybrid design allows for us to be flexible and keep a high up time vs reliance on 100% cloud.

Incentivized

It fits us well being in multiple geographic areas and we can purchase local numbers or do a BYOD SBC setup

Incentivized

• This made working from home possible, allowing me to take calls that I wouldn't be able to without having them forwarded by our communications department
• It works with Teams, realizing when I'm on a conf call and automatically sets a status of away, preventing my phone from ringing, but allowing me to see the voicemail via text so that I can respond
• If I step out of the office for a little bit, I can have my calls go directly to my cellphone to make sure I'm still available if needed

Incentivized

• Communication and collaboration - Our offices are able to communicate both internally and externally due to this system.
• Down time - Struggles with CUCM has caused a lot of down time due to the instability of the system.
• High Costs - the cost of both the license and the maintenance was much higher than other systems.

Incentivized