Avaya Unified Communications vs. Skype (discontinued)

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

Having interacted with a new replacement tool, Microsoft Teams, it is challenging to recommend Skype, as it lacks some essential features, such as being less equipped with the latest updates, and it is not platform-independent, causing issues on PCs and phones, as well as during calls that might hinder work.

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

• The instant chat function is great. Very straightforward, easy to use, easy to learn, no technical issues.
• Video calls are pretty easy also, user friendly and a mostly stable connection with no issues.
• Voice calls are easy also, eliminates the need for an external landline or the need to use your cell phone. Clear connections, not really any dropped calls.

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

• Skype is a RESOURCE hog. People who have limited bandwidth will have poor call quality.
• It is hard to figure out how to use emojis and upload images in the chat.
• The background images do not fool anybody....it is clearly not your real background.

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

I have given this rating as this need to give more than that as it's very helpful for us and makes our work more efficient and fast.

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.

Skype is not as good as Facetime in terms of ease to glance at it and figure out how it works. I think that's a result of Skype trying to be too many things at once. A lot of the menu and UI could be streamlined, and I would jettison some of the additional functions that have been tacked on over the years to simplify. That being said, while some options are slightly hard to find, they all work flawlessly once found.

Incentivized

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

I have never contacted support directly. However, my rep with Enterprise Systems is excellent. Since joining Avaya, all inquiries and/or concerns have always been resolved within a reasonable amount of time. If it's a less complex issue, it is resolved in real time. I receive a response within 30 minutes or less. When he is out of the office, he always has a backup.

Incentivized

I am not aware of the current support level for Skype for business, as I have never used even though I have the product. However, the support for Skype's personal paid users is not where it could be. Users who pay for Skype features do not have a clear path to reach out to support. So, rating 6, can be better as soon as I need to use Skype for business support and get a good experience. I will say that I will renew Skype for Business subscription, which is a significant inconsistency on my end. The explanation is that Skype for Business comes bundled with Office for Business, with no additional cost, so why not.

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

It can be used on the phone via mobile application as well as on the desktop by logging in to the website. Easily installed and ready to use.

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 use Skype in combination with Grasshopper. While Grasshopper acts as a routing toll free number with extensions, if we are making calls directly, we do it through Skype. Skype's desktop and mobile apps are easier to use, and provide unlimited local calls at a flat, affordable rate. Allowing our team to use their existing mobile or desktop devices without additional hardware for business office phone calls is important, and Skype makes that possible

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

The service provided is up to date, as discussed before buying.

• 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

• Skype made keeping in touch with an advisor in Mexico very easy. The initiative there resulted in 5 new partnerships.
• Skype has helped me with account management for at least 3 customers in LATAM--usually it's a fast way to answer a question about a support renewal.
• For about 9 months Skype helped me stay in touch with a colleague in Prague. We would meet once a week to go over sales activities.

Incentivized