OpenPhone, a business phone service from the company of the same name in San Francisco, adds work phone numbers to existing devices. No new hardware required; all that's required is an app. Extended services include a lightweight contact management CRM, and customer service team management (e.g. shared inbox) features.
$15
per month per user
Zoom Phone
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Built on Zoom's platform, Zoom's cloud phone consolidates business communication and collaboration into a single system. Available in 40+ countries, with expandable coverage through a bring-your-own-carrier offering, Zoom Phone supports inbound and outbound calling through the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Features: Post call summary & next steps A post-call summary from Zoom’s AI Companion keeps the focus on the conversation instead of…
If you have more than 2 people in your organization, then this will save you so much time. Delegation is the key to starting a business. Even when you're a 1 person show, being able to present to your user base the differentiation of options for client communications is critical. As a founder, feeling compelled to be always on is something I strive not to be. OpenPhone gives you that flexibility. I have found it to be less appropriate in complex HIPPA compliant areas, but that is it. OpenPhone really does seem to suit an open array of use cases.
Zoom Phone is great for remote work. It's pretty user friendly. You can easily transfer calls to those who have Zoom extensions programmed into the address book. Obviously, this would apply to most tech nowadays, but call quality can suffer during bad weather.
Call quality can be spotty on wifi if the connection is poor, but nothing they personally can do about that. 4G LTE is usually stronger and more stable.
Voicemail handling for queues and groups can't have their own shared voicemail box.
They recently starting limiting how many greetings you can have per user, so you have to do some annoying workarounds by setting up additional users to accomplish it when you have a number of ACD.
Does not yet support texting.
I wish they had built in text to speech to quickly build new greetings or phone tree options when needed.
You can't just assign a phone number to a call queue or group. You have to use a specific user. Fortunately, the cost is reasonable per user so its not a big problem, but annoying none-the-less.
The Salesforce integration could be better, I hope they improve it. For example, voicemails and call logs don't show up in the native lightning case feed, but as tasks.
When callers call, I wish it would pop up how they called and what tree they went through. So we could see what number they called into and perhaps what menu options they used.
I'd love to be able to ask them questions to gather info for reps answering phones when appropriate.
Zoom Phone has a very sleek design which makes it very easy to operate and use both in the setting up of and interacting in a meeting space. That being said, certain features can seem a bit crowded while trying to screen share or display video which somewhat defeats the purpose of the application as compared to a standard conference call.
Support have been great during the time for implementing Zoom Phones to our team of 50 people. There were times where they kept supporting us through links but more and more we had actual people getting back to us via emails so we are very happy overall. The product is so great, too.
OpenPhone has an easier user interface than Grasshopper. Years ago when I was using Grasshopper, I recall that their user interface looked antiquated and full of complications. They would also update the interface just as everyone was getting used to using it. OpenPhone has many more functions. Grasshopper's app did not offer basic functions such as in-app texting between team members, and its call transfer function was incredibly complicated to use. In my opinion, Grasshopper was an inferior service/product in almost every way.
The big draw for us to Zoom Phone is that they shook up the market. They entered the phone market by taking their overwhelming success in video conferencing, and bringing that innovation and skill to designing a game changing phone system. There is really not much difference among the other systems, except maybe their interface. They're a dime a dozen. Zoom does things differently, focusing in on the needs of the end users, and delivers a solid system that is worry free for I.T. departments
