MiVoice Office Application Suite (Mitel Application Suite) vs. Webex Calling

Mitel is useful for larger organizations where instant messaging can be used throughout departments and in-house phones need to be set to cell phones. I wouldn't say that it's not appropriate for smaller organizations, but they might not need all of the robust features that Mitel offers. The user experience is extremely intuitive and organizations of any scale will be able to easily navigate it.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Call reporting
• Voicemail system and transfers: This is one of my favorite features! I am able to transfer voicemails and leave notes for my team. It also comes in an email notification.
• Integrated with our email system.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• It would be nice if they had more documentation on how to do things within the system that was easier to find.
• The software has so many features that it can be overwhelming.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

It is a very easy product to deploy and configure and to really take advantage of. It does not matter if you are using it in an office or your home, or for a security office or a collaboration meeting room - you have the right endpoint available for each case and the configuration parameters to improve the functionality you need.

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Great technical support. My only recommendation would be to have staffed support after hours. They have an after hours answering service and while the technicians always called back it would be good to reach support immediately 24/7. Technicians are very knowledgeable and helpful as is their sales staff. They also have great training to take.

Incentivized

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.

We did it inhouse for our teams

Incentivized

In retrospect, Mitel was not the right solution for us but it has sufficed while we look for a replacement that integrates with our CRM. Skype for Business was being phased out, we were currently using RingCentral, and we anticipated the conversion back to ShoreTel (we had a hosted environment in the past) would be similar to our previous experience with the system. The Cloud-based software and technology, however, did not meet up to the hosted environments capabilities, at least when it came to call-management

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Efficient, easy to use conference system for better communication
• Useful mobile app to allow employee presence while out of office.
• Global directory removed the need for employees to maintain one.

Incentivized

• Webex Calling allowed us to continue working in a remote world
• While workshops are best in person, Webex Calling allowed us to continue offering that critical service and also included break out room functionality for small group activities, when needed.
• The recording feature allows everyone to hyper focus on the discussion - if anything was missed in notes, it was always saved in the recording when we had one. Perfect for interviews and workshops.

Incentivized