FluentCloud vs. Google Voice

I have tried a few programs over the years to record and track calls and this one is by far the best. Easy to use and more functions than I will ever use. I love the reporting options. There was one particular scenario that comes to mind where I was glad to have FluentCloud. I had a client that was really really angry, cussing, yelling, threatening suit, etc. because he had gone to an appointment almost 2 hours away and when he got there the woman told him that we forced her to schedule the appointment, that we were pushy and rude and she just wanted to get off the phone. Thankfully I found the recording and was able to prove to him that she DID schedule the appointment but she also picked the day and time, answered all of the questions and took absolutely no persuasion at all. Basically it was an easy close. The client couldn't believe it and still to this day he is my client.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

• Allows us to record thousands of calls per day. As far as I know there is no cap, at least we haven't hit it yet.
• I really like that I can pull reports/recordings several different ways. I can search by caller name/extension, or by phone number, or by date and time of the call, etc. Very easy to use dashboard.
• I also like that we can set security options to where certain people might have more access than others. We have it set up so that the caller can only access and see his/her own calls, but the trainers can see themselves and their team, and then higher management has access to all calls in or out.
• FluentCloud is super easy to use, absolutely does everything we need it to.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• The whisper coach and other trainer features are a bit frustrating as the caller has to be on a current call to connect and each monitoring session only lasts for the length of that one call. An improvement could be made to allow a trainer to continue piggybacking on the monitored extension, so they can listen to a trainee for as long as they choose.
• The recording system has had some hiccups recently where the recording quality is so bad as to be unusable. They have fixed this issue a few times, hopefully it doesn't pop back up. Along the same lines we have had a few occurrences where recordings we not available to review until 4 or 5 hours after the cal.

Incentivized

• It can be tricky to configure exactly how you want it. If you are particular about which voicemail greeting goes to which number, and how it appears when it rings through to the phone - it can take a good amount of work to set it up properly.

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At this time there our research has found that feature for feature there isn't a better solution for our needs at this cost point. We have had great success and don't foresee a need to change

Incentivized

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

I think it works really well in the arena it operates in, but not so well in areas where an enterprise system would be more appropriate. It's great for quick solutions that just work, but not so much for more complex call management tasks.

Incentivized

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.

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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

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I have used others besides what is listed below but FluentCloud is by far the best I have used, especially when it comes to tracking and reporting call volume and production of our calls. Being a call center that is production based on call volume having something like FluentCloud is essential.

Incentivized

Google Voice operates in a narrow niche compared to other high-volume call products, such as Gong and Outreach. Google Voice would be much better, structured for small teams with limited calling, less structure, and fewer call scripts. For instance, this would better serve a support motion, where you provide a phone number for customers to call, so you have some level of routing and an end destination. If you were also expecting constant change in the personnel who have assigned numbers, it is easy to provision and remove numbers, but you might lose continuity with some of the phone numbers being allocated.

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• I am not part of the finance department. But I would say that it has more than paid for itself.

Incentivized

• Google Voice has saved us a lot of time in regards to overall productivity.
• Google Voice allows us to operate at a greater scale than without it.
• Google voice allows us to track which advertisements are working best.
• Google Voice allows us to spend less time listening to voicemails.

Incentivized