Grasshopper vs. Skype (discontinued) vs. Sprinklr Service

Seems like it is perfectly suited for ANY small to medium business. I can imagine that a business would outgrow the system eventually, but probably around 75-100 employees? Great system for offices that are not managed full time, companies with remote workers, budget conscience start ups, anyone with a need for a registered office line.

Incentivized

Skype is an excellent choice for phone calls, both local and international, and is also one of the most affordable solutions for business office line. It is simple to use and get started with and provides a call experience on mobile that is similar to a regular phone call. It is not the ideal tool for team chat. For text-based team communication, a separate dedicated tool is still ideal

Incentivized

Sprinklr Service has always been well-suited for all of the work we do. As it's all social media content, and most require responses or escalations, Sprinklr Service covers all of that. The only time I think we wouldn't need it is if we were working with a much smaller client who didn't need us to have eyes on so many platforms at once.

Incentivized

• Since calls always come into my cell phone from the same Grasshopper number I just saved that number in my phone as my company name. So I always know when a call is coming in for my company and that it's not a personal call. Of course, all calls are saved and logged in Grasshopper so if I need to go back and check the actual caller ID I can do that.
• All voicemails are immediately sent as audio files in an email to the email address on file for each extension. I personally love this feature. I can choose to go into the Grasshopper app to listen to them but its use so much more convenient to get an email, open it up and listen right from the email. The caller ID for the call is also included in the email text. So all the info I need for any missed calls is right there. Great stuff.
• By far, one of my favorite features is the option to receive faxes to the same business number. Even though fax is being used less these days it is still used quite a bit and being able to receive faxes and having them immediately emailed to me is great.
• The ability to transfer calls from extension to extension (as in cell phone to cell phone) is great. It doesn't matter where my colleague is. I can send the call to the right person and it's ringing on their phone in seconds.

Incentivized

• Perfect for chatting via text. Has emojis, file sharing, audio sharing, and even video sharing capabilities.
• Good for video chats. You can do 1 on 1 sessions with a good quality video.
• Privacy is also another important function they have. They allow for private conversations between users.
• Ability to delete conversations with sensitive information you may not want seen by users not authorized. Can share confidential information via Skype.
• Customizable profiles to fit your company culture.

Incentivized

• Transparency—Sprinklr Modern Care allows us to engage with our customers openly and honestly. Even frustrated or angry customer posts offer an avenue for us to display our business integrity and turn negative experiences into positive ones.
• Moderation—Being able to moderate and organize our community so easily by merging topics into one canonical thread or archiving out of date threads helps to keep our search results relevant and improves the chances that our visitors find the help they need easily.
• Company Visibility—The ability to easily alert any company employee of topics that might be interesting to them helps to improve the overall visibility of our customers. It also makes it easier to spot trends and encourage quick action if many people comment on one topic with the same problem.

Incentivized

• Making calls from your Grasshopper phone number - Sometimes (well, most of the time) I'll just make a call directly from my cell phone because the process of opening the app, typing in the number I want to call and then making the call can take more time than the call itself.
• Missed Calls - Myself and other coworkers have experienced frustration with Grasshopper and "missed" calls. Sometimes my phone won't ring, but I'll get an email with a voicemail. So it skips ringing my phone all together and goes directly to voicemail. I've had my phone in my hand before, ringer on, and never receive a call but received an email with a voicemail.
• Checking Voicemails on your phone - In order to hear a voicemail from your mobile device, you have to log into the app. But the voicemail shows up under missed calls / voicemails like normal phone calls but when you try to listen to it, it's just a recording of grasshopper telling you that you have a voicemail.
• Transferring Voicemails - You have to memorize all the extensions and the process for transferring voicemails. While it's just memorization needed to make the process work correctly, it takes a lot of time to remember how to transfer the call, the extension you want to transfer it to, and sometimes after going through all of the steps I accidentally hang up on the caller. It's user error, but I feel like if they made the process simpler, and they gave you a directory when you indicate you want to transfer the call, it'd make it a lot easier.

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

• I find it difficult to dive into analytics for each social post. The reporting tool gives me an overview of the channels but I would love to look at a breakdown of each post performance.
• You currently can't add closed caption subtitles to videos uploaded through Sprinklr so this results in having to revert to the native platform.
• I would love to be able to set up a newsfeed that includes posts from a number of our partner accounts, so I can keep up to date with what they're posting.

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.

The initial use of the product started out as a 90 day test to see if we could engage customers at a higher level using Sprinklr Modern Care. After a year the use of Sprinklr Modern Caren has now been extended to multiple products.

The admin functions are kind of confusing in the old interface which was my most recent experience on the admin side.

Incentivized

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

It's a very easy program to learn and use. I have trained over 50 people on it over the years, and not once has anyone had trouble using it. It's very user-friendly and covers all the bases that social media moderation requires.

Incentivized

No issues with system availability. They manage updates in off-peak hours and I usually don't notice the changes until I log into the system the next day.

Performance is great and is not negatively effecting our processes. We have to make sure it doesn't effect out load times. Not currently seeing any issues with widgets affecting page load times.

When I was setting up my account I contacted support a couple of times. They were also very professional, personable, and helpful. Their response is prompt and thorough. I'm confident I can get any question answered as well as help with any issue I might have. That's pretty important to me.

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

I know the Sprinklr conference calls have been helpful, but sometimes submitting a ticket can be a little daunting. In the past, we've included information in screenshots that are then asked for by a member of the support staff. The turnaround time has been between 3 days, which isn't horrible.

Incentivized

Training was efficient and fun. It was all webinars and YouTube videos. These were mostly lunch time sessions. 10

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

Basic setup took me less than 30 minutes. This includes initial configuration, putting in the initial content, and getting the look-and-feel customized. The domain routing took the normal lag time any other website or blogging service. The really important thing was to get the user accounts setup and begin seeding the system with content before a public launch.

We moved away from Grasshopper when we implemented an answering service that had an application which provided the same functions as grasshopper for calling and texting. We initially selected Grasshopper as our communication solution because our original answering service just handled incoming calls and did not have an app available to clients.

Incentivized

Selected Skype because it was the only platform that was available for such purposes for video conferencing or audio conferencing. Since Microsoft, the tech giant, backed it, it was assured that it would work great in terms of productivity, with utmost security measures for all data, conversations, work materials, and personal information.

Incentivized

We previously used Sparkcentral for our social media care. While we were very happy with the team there, the product had not evolved as much as Sprinklr and we found it to be lacking in its ability to handle different languages, route certain types of conversations with higher priority or to certain teams / agents. It also did not have as robust a reporting structure as Sprinklr does

Incentivized

• Having an IVR allows us to miss fewer calls from clients or prospects, positively impacting our sales.
• Saving money by not having to hire a receptionist helps keep our expenses down.
• I do believe that the professional image our Grasshopper IVR gives our customers has a positive impact on our customer loyalty.

Incentivized

• Skype has contributed to increased efficiency for remote collaboration, especially now due to the ways things are and having so many remote employees. Without this tool, or any collaboration tool, business could not move forward.
• I think Skype is the cost effective solution also between it and the other competitors out there. I'm not privy to the exact costs, but it strikes me as the cheaper option.
• The only negative impact I would say is its lack of functionality and customization for larger organizations or groups that have employees spread out or require inter-departmental collaboration.

Incentivized

• Increased employee efficiency: Having a clear, one-stop "shop" where users can leave feedback, ask questions, and find bug fixes or workarounds has saved me (and other community managers at my company) loads of time that was once spent responding to numerous emails on an individual basis.
• Better customer service: Since everyone in the company is alerted of what's being written on our forum, it's easy to spot a high-priority issue, delegate to the person in charge, resolve it, and respond as soon as possible.

Incentivized