FluentCloud, from FluentStream Technologies, is a dynamic, cloud-based business phone system. FluentCloud includes FluentStream's leading phone system, phone service and customer support team, all in one. The FluentCloud product aims to provide businesses with new telecommunications flexibility, with an emphasis on price and performance. In addition, the vendor offers a wide range of custom applications and communications integration strategies to businesses and software…
$20
per user per month
Webex Calling
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Webex Calling is Cisco’s flagship cloud calling solution with over 12 million users worldwide. It delivers an enterprise-grade calling experience that enables customers to replace PBX hardware with a cloud calling solution. Webex Calling's connectivity and collaboration experience includes calling, meetings, messaging, contact center, and integrated devices.
$17
per month per user
Pricing
FluentCloud
Webex Calling
Editions & Modules
Essential
$20.00
per user per month
Advanced
$30.00
per user per month
Complete
$45.00
per user per month
Webex Call
$17
per month per user
Webex Suite: Meet + Call
$25
per month per user
Webex Enterprise
Contact Sales
Cisco Unified Communications Manager
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FluentCloud
Webex Calling
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
Unlimited calls to the US and Canada, first-class quality and 99.99% uptime US-based customer support team and fully customizable plans with “A-La-Carte” options.
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.
It seems quite able to handle the normal day to day voice call requirements quite well. Our previous Cisco phones had cameras that could do video calls, but if we need that we go to a Zoom session. Conference room use is not terribly convenient, although this might just be a case of us figuring out how to adapt the environment.
FluentCloud is excellent at customer service, their staff is always helpful and responsive. I have never had a typical service experience where first diagnosis is always the user's system. Their engineering staff is also hands on, I've been so grateful to have Brian's help in selecting the right router - he even configured it for us.
Ease of use, the system is quite easy to use even beyond adding extensions, users, new DID phone numbers and complex routing queues. It's also easy to configure feature codes and program them so users can perform multi-step tasks with a few key punches on their dial pad. We use feature codes to allow callers to switch their caller ID to our DID numbers that are local to the area on the fly.
Robust features: ability for whisper coaching, barge in and a dashboard to visually check the status of each user.
Internal calling can be done by searching user in directory or by dialing short code extensions for users. Pretty quick and easy to reach internal people.
Webex Calling integrated seamlessly with call recording solutions making it very useful for compliance call recording which is needed by customer service centres today.
Features like call forwarding, call transfer, conference, voice mail, etc are available.
User authorisation for different types of calls is available.
It provides basic call centre features as well so that companies requiring basic call centre features can use it within Webex Calling.
There are times when calls are really garbled, there was a couple months there that we couldn't listen to any of the recordings because they were not decipherable.
They changed something recently where now when you are listening to a recording and you hit pause it takes you back to the beginning when you start again rather than just continuing where you left off. That is a pain in the butt because I have to pause quite often for interruptions.
I think what it's doing is it is still the leader when it comes to being able to present calling platforms. And I mean I guess it's number one competitor from a software perspective is Microsoft Teams, Cisco is doing everything possible to provide open source to enable Microsoft and Cisco to work together, particularly when it comes to user room experiences so that no one is feeling like they're left alone or compromised or somewhat segregated when they're choosing one technology versus the other, which is a great thing.
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
The service can be intermittent and the call forwarding feature will not always work perfectly. There will be periods of time where the calling feature will not work at all and people on the other end can hear me but I am unable to hear them. It also requires a fairly strong signal which can be an issue if you work somewhere remote or a building without much service.
Cisco Webex Calling is an outstanding cloud collaboration that includes enterprise-grade cloud phone system designed for the modern hybrid workplace. Webex Calling integrates calling, messaging, and meetings into a single, intuitive platform, empowering your teams with unparalleled flexibility and productivity. Benefit from advanced features like HD audio and video, voicemail to email, call forwarding, and intelligent call routing, ensuring crystal-clear communication and efficient workflows from any device, anywhere. Webex Calling prioritizes security and reliability, offering redundant data centers and end-to-end encryption to safeguard your conversations. Its scalable architecture effortlessly adapts to your envolving business needs, providing a future-proof communication foundation. Enhance collaboration and streamline operations with a solution that's not just a phone system, but a comprehensive communication hub.
I've not actually had it ever be unavailable when I needed to use it. As mentioned before, a network outage would take it down, but we have redundant systems for our network connections with automatic failover.
I don't really see this impacting any other system performance at all. The client is very light use on resources, even on my iPhone. I don't know what else it connects to behind the scenes other then the campus directory, but I haven't seen or heard of any impacts. It seems fairly self contained except for wherever it interfaces with the general telephone system connectivity outside the campus.
I have been working for a long time with Cisco as a provider and also Cisco TAC and Cisco Support Engineers. The support starts right beforehand in the documentation of the product you are interested in. From the start you have a good, complete, and detailed and easy to read datasheet and there's always someone available to answer any questions.
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.
The company uses Microsoft Teams. They do use Microsoft Teams right now and for a long time a lot of the different practices have been using on-premise, contact Call Manager and Unified Communications Express. But Cisco WebEx, the cloud-based product is one of the new ones. And some of our other site practices are also using RingCentral. So cloud calling is not new to the company. For those of us who are familiar with Cisco products, the transition to WebEx calling is not as difficult as it might be for some other products. Going from on-prem to RingCentral, there is more of a learning curve with.
So far it has been very reliable, with very little down time that was associated with the product itself. We have had network outages due to external factors such as construction cutting a fiber link, but other than that kind of thing not much for failures.
Webex calling is a good solution for customer which are ready for cloud.
However some customers doesn't want to share their CDR to a UcaaS so Cisco shouldn't focus on cloud opportunity and up to me the gap of investment, marketing, evangelization is too big weighing the pros and cons for cloud too often
