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Fuze

Fuze

Overview

What is Fuze?

Fuze is a cloud-based unified communications platform that includes IP PBX voice service, video conferencing, and collaboration tools such as content sharing and instant messaging capabilities. It also integrates with a wide range of popular CTI, CRM, and click-to-call solutions.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Fuze is widely used as a Unified Communications platform, offering voice, video, and text collaboration for offices and mobile users. Its …
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A great product

8 out of 10
February 17, 2022
Incentivized
Fuze is being used by the whole company. We tried to eliminate the use of hard phones and started asking users to use softphones.
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FUZE - 2 Years Later

9 out of 10
October 27, 2021
Incentivized
We use Fuze company-wide. Desk phones, mobile app, desktop app, and Outlook add-in are all in use by various people. What parts of Fuze …
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Enjoying Fuze

9 out of 10
September 03, 2021
Incentivized
Fuze is used for quick communications through the message feature and calling anyone with ease (no need to look up or memorize phone …
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Read all reviews

Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 13 features
  • Mobile app for iOS (94)
    8.1
    81%
  • Answering rules (99)
    7.1
    71%
  • Message alerts (93)
    6.6
    66%
  • Directory of employee names (107)
    6.0
    60%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
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Pricing

View all pricing

US Outbound

$0.02

Cloud
Per Minute

Fuze Meetings

$15

Cloud
Per User/Per Month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee required
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.fuze.com/fuze-plans

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $15 per month
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Product Demos

Fuze YOUnified Communications HD

YouTube

New Sansa Fuze Demo

YouTube

HTC Fuze Invisible Shield Application Demo (part 1)

YouTube

Demo of World War 2 No 36 Mills bomb training grenade (Safe and Inert !) & genuine inert DRILL fuze!

YouTube

Fuze Desktop Demo Video 4.8 Final

YouTube

Demo - Liquid Nails Fuze*it All Surface

YouTube
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Features

Cloud PBX

A cloud PBX system is based on cloud computing technology where data is stored and transferred over the intenet without any need for on-site PBX equipment

5.9
Avg 8.2

Call Management

Customized phone system settings

6.8
Avg 8.4

VoIP system collaboration

Team collaboration via cloud phone system

7.4
Avg 8.3

Mobile apps

Apps are compatible with mobile devices.

8.1
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is Fuze?

Fuze is a global cloud communications and collaboration software platform for the enterprise. The platform is designed to enable seamless transition between calling, meeting, chatting, content sharing, and collaboration on any device. The vendor’s value proposition is that Fuze empowers the digital workforce anytime, anywhere, and across any device.

Headquartered in Boston, MA, Fuze has additional locations including New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Ottawa, London, Amsterdam, Aveiro (Portugal), Paris, Munich, Zurich, Copenhagen, and Sydney.

Fuze Features

Cloud PBX Features

  • Supported: Hosted PBX
  • Supported: Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
  • Supported: User templates
  • Supported: Call reports
  • Supported: Directory of employee names

Call Management Features

  • Supported: Answering rules
  • Supported: Call recording
  • Supported: Call park
  • Supported: Message alerts

VoIP system collaboration Features

  • Supported: Video conferencing
  • Supported: Audio conferencing

Mobile apps Features

  • Supported: Mobile app for iOS
  • Supported: Mobile app for Android

Fuze Videos

The reimagined Fuze user experience takes Unified Communications to the next level by blending voice, video, and chat across a single interface designed to enable the business user as well as the IT administrator - all while maintaining the same enterprise-grade platform ensur...
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Fuze is a global cloud communications and collaboration software platform for the enterprise. Through an innovative and consumer-inspired unified experience, Fuze enables seamless transition between calling, meeting, chatting, and sharing. Fuze empowers the digital workforce a...
 Show More

Fuze Competitors

Fuze Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesGlobal - NA, EMEA, APAC
Supported LanguagesEnglish, Spanish, French, German

Frequently Asked Questions

Fuze is a cloud-based unified communications platform that includes IP PBX voice service, video conferencing, and collaboration tools such as content sharing and instant messaging capabilities. It also integrates with a wide range of popular CTI, CRM, and click-to-call solutions.

Fuze starts at $15.

RingEX, Mitel MiCollab, and Dialpad Ai Voice are common alternatives for Fuze.

Reviewers rate Mobile app for iOS and Mobile app for Android highest, with a score of 8.1.

The most common users of Fuze are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).

Fuze Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)8%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)27%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)65%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(199)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Fuze is widely used as a Unified Communications platform, offering voice, video, and text collaboration for offices and mobile users. Its cloud architecture and intelligent design ensure business continuity, even in the event of a primary circuit outage. With Fuze, organizations can address the distributed nature of their workforce by providing voice, call center, instant messaging, and teleconferencing capabilities throughout the organization. Users rely on Fuze as their primary means of communication, enabling 24/7/365 connectivity among employees in corporate offices, satellite offices, and work-from-home setups. During the Covid shutdown, Fuze proved invaluable as it replaced outdated phone systems and allowed employees to take their phones home and use them seamlessly as if they were in the office. Fuze's variety of features and capabilities meet the high expectations of users who have experienced more advanced systems in the past. It serves as a single communications platform across multiple locations and divisions within an organization, meeting the diverse needs of various divisions around the globe. Whether it's for collaboration, messaging, calling or replacing traditional phone systems, Fuze offers ease and convenience while addressing critical business issues such as managing multiple phone systems, supplier accounts, invoices, and call support problems. With its streamlined unified communications experience, Fuze has helped reduce telephony and conferencing costs while simplifying internal communications infrastructure. From remote meetings to contact center solutions and sales departments' communication needs, Fuze provides a reliable platform that improves productivity and builds stronger relationships with customers. Users appreciate how it integrates seamlessly with different devices like desk phones, computers, and mobile devices, streamlining communication processes and saving valuable time.

In summary, Fuze offers a wide range of use cases including voice calling, video conferencing, instant messaging for collaboration purposes within an organization or between offices and mobile users. It solves critical business problems by providing reliable connectivity among employees regardless of their location or setup. With its variety of features and capabilities, Fuze meets the high expectations of users who have experienced more advanced systems in the past. It simplifies internal communications infrastructure, reduces costs, and improves productivity by providing a streamlined unified communications experience. From contact center solutions to sales departments' communication needs, Fuze proves to be an invaluable tool that enhances collaboration and strengthens relationships with customers.

These recommendations reflect users' positive experiences with Fuze, highlighting its effectiveness in improving collaboration across multiple platforms. Users highly recommend Fuze for its ease of use and navigation, as well as its ability to enhance web conferencing experiences, especially with the webinar function. They suggest ensuring a steady internet connection with sufficient bandwidth and comparing Fuze with other options before making a decision. Users also advise thoroughly testing the setup and considering other customers' experiences before fully committing to Fuze. Additionally, they recommend checking if Fuze can integrate with the CRM system and suggest having a backup plan for connecting with clients. Some users mention the need for improvements in contact center reporting and call quality, as well as better technical support. They also recommend working closely with Fuze for call tree preparation and phone routing. Overall, users find Fuze to be a reliable, cost-effective solution for lightweight audio/video conferencing and collaboration.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
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Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fuze is being used by the whole organization. After we merged with WeddingWire we got stuck using it because it was cheaper. It addresses the use of a phone system for contact center users and regular users. It gave our sales team SMS capability so they can text sales leads and current customers.
  • UcaaS.
  • Browser based app ability.
  • Salesforce integration is horrible.
  • Their support team is lackluster.
  • The CSMs and account managers aren't knowledgeable about phone systems.
  • Fuze is NOT a contact center system. They need to merge with somebody like Serenova.
There are other systems in the industry like inContact or NVM that are the Cadillac while Fuze is that old beat up Ford Pinto. There are so many contact center capabilities that are missing with Fuze. Now I see why Fuze is the joke of the industry among my peers. They don't listen to the customer for product ideas or enhancements. If you need a system that can work with Salesforce then look elsewhere.
Cloud PBX (3)
46.66666666666667%
4.7
Hosted PBX
50%
5.0
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
50%
5.0
Call reports
40%
4.0
Call Management (4)
47.5%
4.8
Answering rules
50%
5.0
Call recording
40%
4.0
Call park
50%
5.0
Message alerts
50%
5.0
VoIP system collaboration (2)
70%
7.0
Video conferencing
70%
7.0
Audio conferencing
70%
7.0
Mobile apps (2)
45%
4.5
Mobile app for iOS
40%
4.0
Mobile app for Android
50%
5.0
You have to go back and forth with the support team numerous times before you get a resolution. Most of their support team is offshore so English isn't their first language so you get the language barrier as well. Then you ask the CSM or Account Manager (AM) for assistance and they are pretty clueless as well. Fuze needs more employees who actually know how a phone system works.
Fuze is fairly easy to implement. If you are needing their help then good luck. You are better off implementing on your own unless you actually get a good project manager from Fuze that can assist. I was lucky enough to get a good one when we implemented some extra sites.
Fuze does not stack up against NVM or Five9 at all. Fuze is such an inferior product to NVM. inContact and Serenova have great platforms as well but I haven't used them first hand yet. All these other plaforms plug into Salesforce well as Fuze does not. Fuze needs to actually listen to their customers. It takes Fuze months just to do a simple release.
300
sales & service
5
We use individuals in our IT team, sales trainer is trained in Fuze troubleshooting as well. We have 1 individual who is the Fuze admin who handles all Fuze issues on the IT team. He has a vast background in contact center software. End users submit tickets internally then he deals with the end user issues. If he can't resolve them then he reaches out to Fuze support.
  • remote work
  • cloud software
  • SMS
  • Local presence dialing
  • Call routing based on Salesforce account owner
  • Call routing based on Salesforce case owner
  • Call Recording
  • Salesforce plugin
Fuze is not scalable for our organization. It doesn't work with Salesforce like other products. Their support team takes days to answer inquiries. If you call their support team they just open a ticket for you so calling is pointless. They don't have a chat option for support. Their Account Managers and CSMs don't know contact center technology but are always trying to upsell you. We've provided their senior leadership info about their lackluster performance but Fuze doesn't care to improve. We provide product enhancements that either get ignored or takes months to even be considered.
Yes
We only chose Fuze due to cost. It should have never replaced what we had already in place. But then once we started using Fuze it seems to be as much if not more expensive than what we had because they way they nickel & dime you.
  • Price
Price per user was the only reason but once we went in and realized the wrong user type was being used it jumped from $30 per user to $50 per user and more for Supervisor users.
Now that I know how Fuze works with the user licenses I could show leadership that price was not as cheap as advertised.
  • Allowed us to remote work during this pandemic
  • Allowed for SMS so reps can reach customers in an alternative fashion
  • We have multiple sites using Fuze which is nice to be consolidated
  • Implemented in-house
No
Change management was minimal
  • Lack of knowledge by Account Manager & CSM
  • no training
If you've used other phone software then it's pretty easy to learn. Once we figured it out then we did train the trainer so now our internal sales trainer handles the Fuze training.
The Fuze configuration is too limited. We've had to either use Fuze developers or own in house dev team to code items that we wanted done like local presence dialing and call routing based on Salesforce account or case ownership. The IVR is very basic which may be good for some but we needed a more in depth IVR.
Set up your departments and locations then users then your queues / IVRs
No - there is no facility to customize the interface
Some - we have added small pieces of custom code
We had to add custom code for local presence dialing and call routing based on Salesforce account and case ownership. The custom code for local presence dialing we had to work with Fuze dev team which took at least a month. This was not an easy process. We had our internal dev team do custom work but had to hire an external consultant to help with coding work as well.
For call monitoring we had to set up FCC which is not an ideal solution
No
Fuze doesn't offer premium support
Yes
It took months for them to fix a bug we reported
Only time I've had exceptional support is when I've worked with a project manager or Tier 3 level support agent at Fuze.
  • Phone functions like dialing, SMS, voicemail
  • The admin interface is straight forward
  • If you want a more robust IVR it's not here
  • An agent can only be in 1 department. You can't 1 agent in multiple groups
  • Reporting needs work
Yes
The mobile interface works pretty well. We use it as a backup for when agents are working from home and are having local network issues typically due to wifi. Using the mobile interface allows them to use their data network instead so they can work.
You have to rely on the Fuze app. Fuze needs to be able to work seamlessly in Salesforce to be able to compete with other vendors. Basically, they are great for UcaaS but less than desirable for CCaaS. It's like they are 20 years behind. Overall, Fuze is very easy to use and to get up and running. Not the best solution if you have multiple teams with complex IVRs.
It's easy to get Fuze across multiple sites and departments. It's not scalable for Salesforce due to lack of functionality
We've had a few outages over the past year. More than other vendors I've used. They usually have outages fixed within an hour. The downside is they do not provide root cause of outages. If they do at takes them at least a month to get it to you.
Fuze works fine in the office but for remote users on wifi Fuze is sketchy. The Fuze app bogs down the end user PC or Mac. The app is very heavy.
  • Salesforce
We tried to integrate Fuze with Salesforce but it was a disaster so we had to pull out their Salesforce plugin
  • Salesforce
  • ZenDesk
The vendor supports this integration. Since our Salesforce integration went so horribly we haven't attempted the ZenDesk integration.
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
We use the API to send data to Salesforce
The Salesforce integration was very easy to set up
If you plan on integrating Fuze with Salesforce be sure to test it out in your UAT environment before rolling out to production
Typical company, they want your money so they sell you the stars in the sales process
After they have you sold they don't work as hard to keep your business. They say one thing but do another. They provide you an Account Manager and CSM who are typically not knowledgeable in phone systems.
Cost per user
Bring in the manager to the AM & CSM to conversations
No
  • Fuze updates itself
  • Data to be fixed
  • Salesforce plug in actually work
No
No
February 26, 2021

Fly High Fuze

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have been using Fuze for almost 3 years now across all of our Technicolor US region & EU regions. There are regularity issues in the APAC region especially in India & China where Fuze wasn't able to provide their solution for telephony until now.
  • Fuze is really coming up with a new unified collaboration features & upgrading it to benefit to clients. Such as softphone services for both desktop, web & for the phones.
  • The Fuze project team is good enough to analyze the customer's requirement & come up with a very positive deployment approach. Delivery of hardware phones & timeline is up to mark from fuze.
  • Fuze support seems to be very impressive nowadays.
  • Fuze could still improve on the support side. Need to engage with our Site IT teams to discuss the Fuze issues if the site is really facing. The Fuze support team needs to understand the concern about the issues. At least once in a quarter fuze need to conduct a survey on site level to improve the service quality if anything change is required from our local IT on the Fuze solution.
Fuze solution is well suited for all our technicolor sites in US region. Fuze has yet to come back with a resolution & need to identify a suitable solution for India & China. Fuze really needs to do some groundwork here. Fuze needs to be extra careful when assigning the DID's or porting the no's, we had some serious issues on the Burbank site & all our outgoing calls were barred due to this issue.
Cloud PBX (5)
80%
8.0
Hosted PBX
80%
8.0
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
80%
8.0
User templates
80%
8.0
Call reports
80%
8.0
Directory of employee names
80%
8.0
Call Management (3)
80%
8.0
Answering rules
80%
8.0
Call recording
80%
8.0
Message alerts
80%
8.0
VoIP system collaboration
N/A
N/A
Mobile apps (2)
90%
9.0
Mobile app for iOS
90%
9.0
Mobile app for Android
90%
9.0
Fuze needs to improve on providing the SLA for porting the no. in various countries. Need to improve on the hardware (IP Phones/Conference phones) delivery timelines across other countries.
We wanted to replace the legacy PBX systems across all US regions & we found Fuze is really interesting because of the cloud-based subscription-based model solution. We wanted to bring some change to our user to upgrade it to the next level & we found Fuze is very innovative with the solution.
900
10
  • User freindly
  • Softphone
  • Cloud PBX
  • Cost model
  • Teams Integration
Ultimate Support.
Yes
It's up to our BU's to decide on this & in some part, we deployed teams telephony.
  • Price
  • Product Usability
Fuze license cost.
It depends on the fuze cost model for future plans.
  • helps in making comparison between different business units in terms of profitability and asset utilization.
  • Fuze desk phones which doesn't support teams.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes
Change management was minimal
  • Deskphone reboot issues.
  • Online training
  • in-person training
It was good & received good feedback from users.
Online training was exceptional which covers everything including screenshots of how to use softphone services.
Yes with the training document for softphone use.
It's quite easy for some basic configurations like softphones & deskphones.
Nothing as such.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
Nothing as such.
I think so.
No
For our spain site we wanted to set up a call center agent. I had opened a ticket in the fuze community for the same task & within a day that ticket was assigned to fuze support & the support person was really helped me in order to set up this process very easily in one shot & it was successful
Fuze sometimes will breach the SLA for the issue raised by our helpdesk.
  • Softphone
  • Cleaning fuze inventory
Yes
Overall fuze service is good.
  • outlook
  • teams
  • Single Signon
We would like to see team's integration with fuze.
This will be done through from our sourcing team.
The better pricing structure for hardware devices & fuze license cost
No
  • We are using fuze solution in our global locations recently we benefited moving into aws.
  • Nothing as such
No
D. SKye Hodges | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We were tasked with creating a UC infrastructure that would scale with our company's acquisitions. We had very old hardware (Avaya and ShoreTel, Cisco, Nortel, and a few other small PBX devices), we needed something that would deploy fast and unite all our users on a common platform. After evaluating a number of vendors we chose Fuze for it's scalability, price, and common UC Features that we needed across our growing enterprise (we started with 5,000 licenses and are scaling up to 15,000). Fuze is our single point Unified Communications platform.
  • Handing off a call from wifi to the cellular voice/data seamlessly
  • Persistent chat across all your devices
  • Calling features across multiple desktops and mobile devices
  • Desktop Sharing and collaboration
  • Web UI needs to have the ability to make phone calls
  • We did a lot of number forwarding in our old platform, with Fuze sometimes this is cumbersome
  • Better support of SIP/ATA endpoints
Fuze would be my go-to tool for any business, whether 5 employees or 50,000 employees. They unite all your users on a common communication platform that has chat, voice, and video, desktop sharing, voicemail, call flow features, advanced call routing, queueing, and distribution. Fuze is really the choice I'd recommend for anyone.
Cloud PBX (5)
100%
10.0
Hosted PBX
100%
10.0
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
100%
10.0
User templates
100%
10.0
Call reports
100%
10.0
Directory of employee names
100%
10.0
Call Management (4)
100%
10.0
Answering rules
100%
10.0
Call recording
100%
10.0
Call park
100%
10.0
Message alerts
100%
10.0
VoIP system collaboration (2)
100%
10.0
Video conferencing
100%
10.0
Audio conferencing
100%
10.0
Mobile apps (2)
100%
10.0
Mobile app for iOS
100%
10.0
Mobile app for Android
100%
10.0
Fuze support has been evolving, we were first able to reach an engineer that could solve the problem immediately, but that sometimes resulted in long hold times. Now they have all calls go to a group where they get answered almost immediately, that team opens the support ticket and most times tries to connect you with a live support engineer. I look forward to them continuing to evolve.
The implementation of Fuze is fairly straightforward, they have 3 options, get new numbers, keep your number and migrate on your port date, or forward your existing numbers to RCF numbers that are just temporary until you are ready to port all your numbers to Fuze. We've used all 3 methods across various sites of ours.
Although Avaya offers some cloud-based solutions, they didn't have the features we were looking for in the price-range we were willing to pay. ShoreTel has great features and great pricing, but we would be heavily reliant on hardware at each location or a higher level of network dependence to reach the servers, Cisco was only used at one of our locations and the price and features weren't inline with what we were looking for. In all cases Fuze really hit the sweet-spot for being incredibly feature-rich, easy to deploy anywhere, no hardware needed, works across all our platforms, mobile connected in every way.
15000
across ALL business functions, from HR to internal support, external customer support, sales, marketing, our receptionists, security, we use Fuze at our warehouse, and across all our mobile workers whether using iPhones, Androids, Mac computers, Windows computers, Linux (even though there isn't a client, there is a web-client that allows you to make and take calls using another PSTN number). Fuze is THE UC choice for our organization.
10
We have global telephony admins that have worked with various systems, from Avaya to ShoreTel and Cisco. The web management interface of Fuze is very easy to learn, it's a simple task to build and deploy a callflow, along with that end-users can control many aspects of the phone system for their own extension, from forwarding to voicemail, voicemail playback, setting their avatar, chatting within the Fuze environment across the enterprise.
  • Can support calls be routed
  • Can sales calls be received and made and routed properly
  • Can our receptionists perform their job duties with little/no downtime
  • We've been able to stop using other web-collab tools, such as Web-ex, Go To Meeting
  • We've been able to get rid of most the telephony hardware on end-users' desks
  • Users can control where calls go: their desktop, mobile phone, another phone, voicemail, etc, without having to engage IT.
  • When the Web client has calling, our Linux users will have "native" access to Fuze
  • Our company may even be able to run more internal meetings using Fuze
  • We won't be affected by outages caused by hurricanes and natural disasters because the number will route in the cloud rather than be tied to a piece of equipment (which may be underwater) at our various locations.
1,000% will renew. For the price, for the features, for the support, for the implementation, for the ability to deploy to a new site, or a new company acquisitioned that has an older PBX, we can get them to Fuze with so little effort, dump the phones on their desk, and give them all the features and "WOW" that they would expect from a modern enterprise.
Yes
Fuze replaced our "old" telephony infrastructure which was hobbled together across many sites and a TON of ancient telephony equipment. The main services Fuze replaced was Avaya and ShoreTel, we are still not 100% migrated to Fuze and it amazes me how much I have to reboot the ShoreTel equipment. This is something you NEVER have to deal with again with Fuze.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor
One of the largest factors that we thought would be an issue was price. Our old systems, Avaya: we stopped paying maintenance, it was too expensive; ShoreTel: very cost-effective, but the hardware runs windows so it's a constant "reboot" nightmare. So at the price level we needed, Fuze came in at a relatively low price, especially for the service that they provide, our GoToMeeting licenses were essentially more than Fuze, and with Fuze we purchased the unlimited GLOBAL long-distance feature, so we've cut significant amounts of money from our phone bills (as well as maintenance contracts and such)
Well, there's really not much that could be changed, we evaluated many vendors, we chose the one that had the most to offer for the price. Fuze certainly is feature rich: a ubiquitous experience across multiple devices and platforms; Desktop Collab; Persistent chat across all devices; End-user control of their OWN call routing, the list goes on, it's endless, Fuze has the features at the price that makes it highly sought-after.
  • Unlimited Global Long-distance included (in certain licenses)
  • No phone hardware (in some cases users just use their mobile phone using wifi or cell-data)
  • No more need to separately license desktop sharing software or telephone conferencing plans
  • Implemented in-house
  • Third-party professional services
  • TIBCO professional services
We used a varied implementation to get Fuze rolled-out to our users/sites. Fuze came onsite to some of our locations and did training, setup hardware, setup callflows and end-user configs. We also did some locations on our own, as well has having some sites get another provider to implement Fuze. We are very happy with the roll-out.
Yes
We have 3 phases and are currently in phase 2. Phase one was identifying all the users and end-points, and discussing how to break them up to make the most efficient use of Fuze and its services. Phase 2 is rolling out to the various sites, we are in that phase. Phase 3 is our "acquisition" phase, when we acquire a company getting them onto the Fuze platform and into the global Fuze infrastructure (we are also in this phase with one of our acquisitions).
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled
The change-management process is well established in-house. So for most major disturbances we knew well ahead of the time and put in the various communications that needed to be sent to affected users. The toughest part of the process is getting the various telephony providers to relinquish control of our numbers over to Fuze, the process is very simple, we provide the data to Fuze and they pursue the number-port. We are very pleased with how this is going.
  • End-user adoption
  • Going from a desktop phone to a "soft phone" (via a USB headset)
  • Call routing changes because of the features of Fuze (some better, some worse, but just the "different" bits)
  • Online training
  • In-person training
  • Self-taught
At many of our sites with more than 50 users, Fuze sent someone onsite to train. This worked surprisingly well, as the trainer allowed the users to set the pace and answered TONS of questions. Fuze has a very streamlined training process, their staff is very professional, very knowledgeable and very engaging.
Fuze has vast amounts of training videos and guides on how to use its products and services. There are literally endless-hours of training and I often point end-users to a particular video which addresses the specific needs of the user, for example: how to check voicemail. Or, how to share your desktop, etc.
Out-of the box, Fuze is 100% usable, the interface is intuitive, you know what to click on to make a call, you know where to search for others and how to start a chat, or a meeting, or collaboration. Fuze keeps the same ease-of-use across the Desktop, Moble, and Web clients.
It's a fairly straightforward answer: You can pretty much do anything you want with Fuze. Whether it's getting calls from one point to another, ring-groups, call-queues, call-forwarding, schedules, advanced call flows, decision making, etc. Fuze can do it. And the great thing is that the end-user is empowered with SO MUCH, they can change their call-routing, answer calls on their cellphone or homephone, or do whatever they want, Fuze can do it.
Since Fuze comes pretty much configured "out of the box" there really isn't much to do, for end users setting up and avatar, setting up their audio options, setting up a voicemail, and the one that often gets overlooked, setting Fuze to launch at the start of Windows. Other than that you can configure away til your heart's content.
No - there is no facility to customize the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
We haven't really needed to do anything outside of what the Fuze product already does, so we haven't had to customize any configurations for any of the products, features, or options, in Fuze. Users have requested additional customization features: like having the app startup silently, or changing incoming ringtones or chat tones, etc. They can be changed, but it is a little more advanced.
Yes
It's just the normal support process. Open a ticket, and engineer reviews the information, contacts us (the customer) with any additional needs (log files, screen captures, packet captures, etc), then when the problem is confirmed, they work with product development to ge the problem fixed. Usually Fuze fixes the problem within a couple of days and releases a new "Beta" client that contains the fix.
They are doing that right now! We use a certain Active directory token to login to Fuze, and a number of users had that token changed last week, Fuze received a list of about 400 users where Fuze is going through and updating the user IDs to match the changed AD token. They are super for doing this it is such laborious work, and something they do with a smile, Fuze Support is the BEST!!
  • Chat
  • Phone calling
  • Desktop Sharing
  • Getting incoming voicemail (since it can be done multiple places, and even emailed and then deleted) some users do it different, so it can be hard to support unless they know what option they picked
  • Desktop Sharing (sometimes a user doesn't understand how simple it is to share the desktop, or that they have to start a meeting first--Hopefully Fuze will come out with the feature that you can go from a phone call to desktop sharing in one click)
  • Fuze across multiple devices: Sometimes one device will ring and another won't, this is difficult to track down.
Yes
The mobile interface is absolutely incredible, not just for incoming and outgoing phone calls, but it can be used for chat (which is persistent and simultaneous across ALL your devices), it can be used for meetings, and you can even watch others that share their desktop, phone calls are a given, but the ability to use Wifi, Mobile Data, Mobile Voice, you can choose which ones to use, and the handoff from one to the other is near-seamless!! It's amazing!
Fuze was built with the end-user in mind. It was built to have a common interface on mobile and desktop. Fuze Web is new, and it also has the exact same interface as the desktop and mobile, and they are still working on the ability to make phone calls from the browser itself, currently it can do meetings just fine. Everything about Fuze was built with the end-user in mind.
Fuze does have scalability limits but most of that is how many end-points they can put on a virtual PBX, or VCX as they call them, I THINK its limit is somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000, but we've not had issues with that because we have put users into various VCXs some by location, some by department or function. Either way, we have 7,000 currently deployed, and are going to end up with over 15,000 when we are done, Fuze is VERY scalable.
Because the people who designed Fuze were Data-center people, they thought of availability first, there really isn't any excuse for telephony downtime, and they certainly do well with this. There has never been a total outage, just a few features sometimes have been offline while Fuze moves the service to other servers, NEVER calling, sometimes chat or physical phones (which can be fixed by rebooting them). The uptime on the Fuze systems is basically: Always up, always available.
Since Fuze runs across multiple devices and platforms they really strived to make a lightweight interface that is optimized for phone calls, chat, and collaboration. The web client loads fast, the chat is always up-to-date, phone calls arrive on-time. The desktop client is the most feature rich and basically it just adds desktop sharing functionality as well as VoIP for calling, and the mobile client doesn't consume a lot of battery, and it stays running to get phone calls, chats, and can do meetings over Wifi, Cellular Data, or Cellular voice.
  • Exchange 365 (Outlook 365)
  • Google Contacts
  • Salesforce contacts
These integrations are built into the product, so there isn't anything to do from an administrator perspective, the end-user can choose to import their external contacts and those contacts are then available in the lookup.
  • Microsoft AD (Micro Focus Access manager emulating MFAD)
The vendor does support, to some extent a Microsoft AD Integration, though it is in it's early stage, we are hoping to be able to get a two-way synchronization to keep our users' data up-to-date in the directory, and to be able to push and pull new and expired users in and out of Fuze.
  • File import/export
  • Single Signon
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Nothing that is really missed, but Fuze does have a very extensive API Library for user data, calls and for reporting, it is very impressive the power that they give to administrators to be able to manage their Fuze environment successfully. Fuze is constantly improving their product, we are very happy!
I give the rating of 10 because Fuze is a cloud-based application, and they have opened up so many doors to get data in and out securely from their databases it is really quite amazing how much power they pass on to the administrators, this makes requests from the users and the business easy to handle.
Probably the best advice with integrations is to consider that "nothing is impossible", that's really quite simple, if you can dream it and program it to access their APIs then you can build it, and your users will be happy. And if you can't build it, there are plenty of people at Fuze that can assist.
The sales process was really quite straightforward, after the vendor selection was done our purchaser was able to sit down with Fuze and go over a contract that provided us a simple billing structure and a plan to rollout Fuze across our organization. The plan that was executed was exactly as they laid it out in the sales contract. Kudos to Fuze!
Fuze has a great technical support team, when we first started working with them all our calls went directly to engineers that would start working on the problem, but as hold times got longer and longer, Fuze implemented a ?Triage? team where they would take all the incoming support calls, open a ticket, evaluate the priority and either inform us that we would get a callback, or check to see if there were any support engineers available. We have reported a number of issues that have all been resolved very quickly and efficiently. Fuze is very quick to fix issues!
Although I don't believe that I can discuss particulars in the contract, we were able to get pricing for our user base starting at 5,000 users with a sliding scale to 10,000 users, and we knew that we were going to grow beyond that so we had pricing up to 20,000 users. We wanted all our voice services to include unlimited Global Long-Distance, which Fuze has a tier for (although there are a handful of countries where they charge a per-minute-unit, each user gets 500 units a month that we had collectively pooled so we will never be charged extra for long-distance, it's all-inclusive). This is a huge selling point for a multi-national company that used to have very expensive long-distance phone bills.
Fuze is incredibly easy to work with, so the best advice is either know what you want, or what you need, bring it to the table, let Fuze work out the details and let them tell you how to best implement their service, they have been doing this long enough now that they have the process down and know how to do it very efficiently.
Yes
Since Fuze is a cloud application the upgrade is done on the Fuze side, the great thing is that they still give you the ability to decide WHEN to rollout the upgrade, and you can even have a few users testing the beta or "new" versions before you roll them out to your entire organization.
  • More headset support
  • Inviting users outside the organization to collaborate
  • Enhanced GUI
  • Audio notification customizations
  • End-user call handling changes
  • Web-audio for inbound-outbound calls
No
No
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