Likelihood to Recommend Really Digium Switchvox is a great product, it's more of an overall service and it's great. Starting at the phones, I think they're well engineered, from button placement to make call handling a breeze, bright status indicators and programmable keys that keep things simple, and a clear back-lite screen, to light up those late night support calls. I've watched the web management interface grow into a gorgeous, friendly, informational tool that gives me a system that can do 95% of the things my customers request. The only times I've seen it as less appropriate is when it comes to the more budget restricted. I've always believed you get what you pay for, and Digium Switch provides a lovely packaged, turnkey product, that doesn't require an expert to maintain once installed. On top of that, you're paying for the service. I can speak from experience, and countless support calls, that Digium Switchvox's support is second to none. They're efficient, intelligent, friendly, and professional, I've never had a bad experience, keep up the great work!
Read full review In the past, I would have happily recommended this for small business use cases. Due to its affordability, versatility, and low barrier to entry as well as its simplicity to use. Google Voice was integrated into the Chrome Browser, it was easily accessed from Gmail, and integrated into Gmail and could even be leveraged in such a way to when phone numbers were clicked on, Google Voice was the tool used. However over the past few years and more, in the past couple of years from 2021 to current, this tool seems to have lost favor with the Alphabet suite of tools. With the lack of integrations, it's becoming less stable, and people are just opting more for Google Meet Voice. The biggest area where this is less appropriate and where opportunity has opened for others is its lack of features, like virtual attendants, call recording, call transcription, SMS, MMS, CRM integration, and other key features even 1 or 2 person business really needs in this day and age
Read full review Pros Allows us to forward phones internally or externally. Allows us to set up our favorite contacts to sync up on telephone screen for quick calls. Read full review Google Voice has been great for setting up additional phone lines and numbers. The voicemail inbox is a great feature and you can see when messages come in online and listen to the messages from your computer. Google Voice allows us to have multiple phone numbers and lines for specific business purposes. Read full review Cons I've installed quite a few of these systems for a number of customers, and I've found a number of times having access to the second Ethernet port on some of the larger systems, and the ability to do some sort of static routing, and firewall functionality. I would love to have the ability to connect one port to the carrier's cpe router, and the other port to the customer's network. I've worked with Voip products for a number of years, and various asterisk iterations. I'd like to see more access to the asterisk cli for troubleshooting, and/or potentially some sort of shell access. I'd like to see the Digum Switchvox phones have vpn functionality. It would be great to deploy a field office with a pre-provisioned phone that automatically connects back to the corporate network via a secure vpn tunnel from most internet connections. Currently we either use a softphone, manually program a Cisco phone that does have the capability, or deploy an semi expensive router that support a secure tunnel. It would be much easier to sell a customer on a remote office and a fancy Digium phone, if they didn't need the extra hardware. Read full review I think there is room to improve with regards to call forwarding. I wish there were a concise way to know if the call was to your Google Voice number or your personal number before answering the call. when I add a contact to my account on the web it doesn't seem to sync with my phone even though the same email address is logged in. Read full review Likelihood to Renew It's user friendly, how to use it is self explanatory, they support all their own options while someone like Phone Booth uses a third party. I can cancel Google Voice anytime and I choose how much I spend with Google Voice
Read full review Usability I haven't had problems with dropped calls, bad reception, lost recordings - everything works the way it should. The iOS app is easy to use, and the process is easy to explain to other people. It's also the cheapest way I've found to call internationally - I've used it to interview people from London and Austraila.
Read full review Support Rating I have not had to use Support yet, so I did not rate this. I have not had to reach out for anything.
Read full review They do not offer support unless you have the Business account for Google Voice under G Suite. This is tough, because Google doesn't really have a customer support team for this service, so when it gets shut down for a few hours, we have no choice but to wait it out. But this doesn't happen that often, which is great.
Read full review Implementation Rating It is a pretty seamless program to transfer to, even for people who either have little experience with these programs or people who were stuck on
Skype Read full review Alternatives Considered I've installed, and maintained a number of different phone systems over the last few years, including nationwide level Voip service providers relying entirely on custom built Asterisk systems, to SOHO systems connected to cloud level services. So far Digium Switchvox has been one of my favorites when it comes to ease of use, customer service, and over all reliability. While there are a few things I'd like to see done a little differently, updates are released frequently with fixes, and new features.
Read full review The integrations of Google Voice with all our devices are flawless, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux and Mac. Also, the call performance is far superior on wifi as well as on mobile data. With
Skype , we had several problems with personal accounts, performance issues, and in general, it felt awkward to use it.
Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model Google Voice should be also be use to those who have difficulty in speaking English. So the contract term will need to be a little strict as Google Voice is used in navigations as the part of GPRS navigation is personal. The private data need to be in control much more securely and safely.
Read full review Professional Services It help to connect with the products that we use as a part. We need to get in touch with our professional world. It is like a tool that helps us to get in touch with everything from A to Z in our professional careers. So we need to be in touch with everything as linearly as the jpb can be done.
Read full review Return on Investment Ease of forwarding calls when out of office has been a life-saver. Read full review Cost for Google Voice is stellar, starting at $10/mo per user. While it doesn't offer a new Audio/Video conferencing solution it does integrate with GSuite so it makes use of Google Calendar and Hangouts/ Google Meet. Gets the employee's to use their company phone numbers more as texting is easy and deployment is simple. The cell phone app is reliable and easy to deploy. Read full review ScreenShots