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NetFortris

NetFortris
Formerly Fonality

Overview

What is NetFortris?

NetFortris provides business phone systems using Polycom and Yealink IP phones. They offer three subscription-based pricing plans, all including unlimited VoIP and desktop phone options. Advanced plans include other features such as video collaboration, softphone, and on-demand recording.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

1. User Interface Complexity: Some users have expressed frustration with the complexity of the HUD web and software user interface, …
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Fonality Review

4 out of 10
September 20, 2019
Incentivized
It is used across the whole organization. It is great for creating different schedules based on different regions of clients.
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Great!

7 out of 10
March 17, 2017
Incentivized
I use Fonality to give customers automated information via telephone and to encourage them to make their purchase online through our …
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Read all reviews

Popular Features

View all 14 features
  • Directory of employee names (78)
    10.0
    100%
  • Call reports (78)
    9.0
    90%
  • Message alerts (78)
    9.0
    90%
  • Answering rules (89)
    7.0
    70%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Hybrid Software Subscription (Required with Hybrid Premise)

$14.99

On Premise
per user, per month

Essentials Edition

$19.99

Cloud
per user, per month

Professional Edition

$24.99

Cloud
per user, per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • $5 per user
    Required
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.fonality.com/pricing

Offerings

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

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $30 per month
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Product Demos

NetFortris Product Spotlight - Comm-unity HUDWeb Demo

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

7.8
Avg 8.2

Call Management

Customized phone system settings

7.4
Avg 8.4

VoIP system collaboration

Team collaboration via cloud phone system

7.5
Avg 8.3

Mobile apps

Apps are compatible with mobile devices.

9
Avg 8.3
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Product Details

What is NetFortris?

Rated PCMag's Editors' Choice for Business VoIP 2016, NetFortris (formerly Fonality) is a leading business phone system provider that bundles its unified communications software for a complete business communications solution. NetFortris says it is known for:

  • Innovating with Heads Up Display (HUD) so users can see who's available, chat, audio and video conference, record calls on the fly, and more
  • Building in fundamental call center features like simple queues
  • Offering advanced features that make enterprise-level call center available at the fraction of the price
  • Including a web phone and mobile app at no additional cost
  • Lowering costs with unlimited calling plans between the U.S. and more than a half dozen other countries and territories
  • Providing 24/7 support - even on holidays
  • Transparency: if there is an issue, they'll tell users

NetFortris Features

Cloud PBX Features

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

Call Management Features

  • Supported: Answering rules
  • Supported: Call recording
  • Supported: Call park
  • Supported: Call screening
  • 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

Additional Features

  • Supported: Heads Up Display (HUD) UC applications
  • Supported: 100+ Business Phone System Features
  • Supported: Softphone (Included)
  • Supported: Voicemail Transcription
  • Supported: Call Center Software (Built-in)
  • Supported: On Demand Recording / Record All
  • Supported: Paperless Fax / FaxLync
  • Supported: 24/7 Support

NetFortris Screenshots

Screenshot of Fonality's Heads Up Display (HUD) Web dashboard is home base for connecting with colleagues and customers.Screenshot of Chatting is easy in HUD as they are easily launched by hovering over a fellow user's avatar. Chats are also available within Groups and Conferences.Screenshot of Managers with Fonality's Advance Call Center license can Barge, Monitor, or Whisper with one click. Useful for training, customer insights, and quality assurance. Real-time call queue information is shown in the Dock area to the right.Screenshot of Every Fonality system comes with voicemail boxes for all users, but with optional Voicemail Transcription you'll never have to listen to a voicemail again. Transcribed voicemails are delivered in HUD and via email.

NetFortris Video

NetFortris Integrations

NetFortris Technical Details

Deployment TypesOn-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsWindows, Mac
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported CountriesGlobal (99 countries and territories)
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Frequently Asked Questions

NetFortris provides business phone systems using Polycom and Yealink IP phones. They offer three subscription-based pricing plans, all including unlimited VoIP and desktop phone options. Advanced plans include other features such as video collaboration, softphone, and on-demand recording.

NetFortris starts at $30.

8x8 Work, RingEX, and Vonage Business Communications are common alternatives for NetFortris.

Reviewers rate Directory of employee names highest, with a score of 10.

The most common users of NetFortris are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

NetFortris Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)40%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)50%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)10%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(162)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 57)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
September 20, 2019

Fonality Review

Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used across the whole organization. It is great for creating different schedules based on different regions of clients.
  • Support - very helpful when setting up new features
  • Schedules - allows for numerous call schedules
  • Communication - very prompt when issues with the service arise
  • On call scheduling
  • Managing Fonality could be easier - unless you're a consistent back end user, it's not super friendly
Great for clients that track Support Center statistics via phone. Could be a bit more user friendly.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using NetFortris Fonality on-premise phone servers at a client office of about 40 users. This is backed by a traditional copper PRI to support the voice needs of a small not for profit foundation. We had previously had 3 Fonality servers at multiple satellite offices, one with SIP trunks, another with a PRI, that were linked for intra-office calling.
  • The on-premise server/seat licenses are relatively inexpensive.
  • The configuration interface is not too difficult to navigate.
  • The sales staff is very helpful and not at all overbearing or pushy.
  • Many of these issues might be due to the age of the on-premise server we are using. The config interface can be unbearably slow.
  • Creating call flows/phone trees is slow and inflexible.
  • When we used NetFortris with SIP providers, service was spotty and troubleshooting was difficult -- much of the fault here lies with the SIP providers, but getting important troubleshooting info from NetFortris/the server was next to impossible.
  • Support in general is slow and unhelpful.
  • Server hardware is a Dell Optiplex tower with little in the way of redundancy. They do offer more traditional rack servers as well, but I can't speak to what sort of configuration they deploy with those.
For an on-premise IP phone system, if price is your top concern and your needs are relatively simple, NetFortris definitely bears consideration. I inherited the systems we have in use at one client site, and I will say that they have been running reliably once I worked out some issues that went unaddressed in the original setup of the system (VLANs, DHCP options, poor SIP provider choices, faulty T1 card). If you have competent IT staff, setting up and keeping the server running is trivial (it is asterisk based). If you will need lots of hand-holding, my experience with their support staff has been less than stellar.
Matthew Guerra | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Everyone in our company (5 individuals) uses NetFortris. We purchased NetFortris, when it was Fonality, along with compatible handsets after our previous phone system, a traditional landline, aged out of use.
  • The new handsets we purchased do provide a helpful log of calls -- outgoing, incoming, missed, etc. -- however, I imagine that any VoIP provider can also provide this service.
  • We now use headsets that allow us to move about the office freely while on calls, which we could not do with our old phone system. Again, this probably has more to do with VoIP and the newer handsets than anything provided to us by Fonality/NetFortris.
  • Fonality/NetFortris, for some reason, limits the functionality of the handsets that are compatible with it and which we purchased to compliment it. We are forced to use the HUDweb interface or the HUD desktop app to do simple things like placing calls on hold, transferring calls, and initiating conference calls. In my office, most employees have several windows open at once -- as I'm sure is common in most offices -- and it can be distracting and clumsy to have to minimize windows in order to pull up the HUD to put a call on hold.
  • In addition, the lighted buttons on the handset can be used to indicate when another user is currently on the line, or if they are unavailable (I know this because I have been speaking with another VoIP provider who offers this feature); however, Fonality/NetFortris does not allow us to use this feature. Again, we are funneled into using the HUD desktop app, which does provide the information that we want to have handy, but not where we want it (on the handsets).
  • Customer service has been less that helpful when we call to address our concerns. Ironically, the call quality with customer service is often very poor, and on more than one occasion, I was greeted with someone who did not know how to help me and didn't make any effort to do so.
If you have an office in which all employees are tech-savvy, then Fonality/NetFortris may be for you. It is not a very adaptable system however. If you want it to emulate an existing or prior setup you will be sorely disappointed as Fonality/NetFortris will probably not work with you to make the phone work the way you want it to.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used for the company. We are a virtual company at this time and it is great for the messaging and helps me to manage my team remotely. It would be terrible without fonality. I also like the reporting it provides so I can track our progress and report back to the team.
  • Call Tracking/Reporting. I like that I can log in at any time and track phone calls.
  • Messaging features. The IM portion of HUDweb is GREAT. I can't imagine sending emails all day to my employees and how time intensive that would be.
  • Set up was so simple. As a small business owner I don't have time to do extensive training, and spend time setting the equipment up.
  • I would like more options for my messaging when a caller calls in.
  • I would like to be able to have callers be able to dial extensions when they call in.
It is great for a virtual company for communication and management. When I have an office suite, I will still take fonality with me.
Ed Dennen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is the telephone PBX provider for Sea Education Association, an internationally recognized leader in undergraduate ocean education in Falmouth, MA. Using an onsite server, Fonality provides telephone service company wide for approximately 50 faculty, administrative staff, and student housing. The system provides cost-effective local, long distant, and international calling services for this fantastic semester long study abroad program.
  • From an administrator's perspective, Fonality makes administering the company's phone system easy. Configuration menus and setup options are logically structured and easy to understand.
  • Technical support has been very good. Early on in our deployment, we had some nagging voice quality issues which were network related. Fonality provided exceptional support even though it was not technically their issue. It is important to know ahead of time how well your vendors work with other vendors for integrated services like a VOIP telephone system. Fonality support demonstrated their patience and perseverance in helping us resolve our issues.
  • Although we don't use remote office capabilities much, the ability to set up phones on the system in remote locations has been a significant help to several of our departments.
  • I would like to see a better designed HUD program, the PC and Mac based telephone interface to the Fonality PBX.
  • Fonality is well suited for companies who require strict controls on certain phone calling features.
  • Fonality works well in cases where staff are located in multiple locations and still want to appear as a single entity with their telecommunications.
March 10, 2017

TAC loves Fonality!

Maggie Worthington | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use fonality throughout our entire business, which has offices in Connecticut, Indiana, and Texas. Fonality allows us to seamlessly transfer calls or have group meetings as if we were all in one office.
  • Transfer call
  • Group meeting
  • Customer service
  • Availability of IT people - seems I was always getting pushed back
  • Connectivity - got very complicated and we lost two full days of work
  • User friendliness of server
[Fonality is] great for companies with several offices and you have to transfer calls.
Joseph Greaney | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a kayak company and primarily use it for booking tours in our office. The softphone feature was key so we could also take calls in our shop using an USB headset. The installation was easy and straightforward. Our tech made it simple. My issues now are the subscription plan. We have the basic [plan] and the HUD does not recognize the agent location. We found workarounds by moving a call to a softphone to answer but it sometimes causes big issues for agents. As for now, it is our slow season; we can not upgrade to a call center license. We will keep working on the softphone functionality.
  • Reliability of the system
  • The customization of the inbound call experience
  • Ability to transfer calls to a softphone, hardphone and cell phone
  • Great customer service
  • More clear on the subscription features and costs at time of quotes
  • Remove unusable features from the softphone if subscription does not cover
Great for both small and large businesses. Great for mobile agents when you have the call center licence to forward calls appropriately. Does not work well if the agents aren't tech savvy, there is a learning curve to use the fonality system to the best of its ability. Although, the webinars provide good instruction. The ability for managers to listen in on calls with a call center license will help with training new recruits.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is used across our entire organization. It allows us to fold in remote users all over the US.
  • HUD - graphical display of anyone's status
  • Integrates with our CRM solution, Salesforce.com
  • Integrated chat
  • Remote users are sometimes challenging to set up initially
  • Priority support not an option available to us
  • Have had some administrative snafus over time with billing
Perfect for any organization
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality was signed up with Aug/Sept 2016. There was a painful setup and we finally just installed their system. It still is painfull as the setup was not clear and we had to use our own version of the SAMPLE setup to get this to work. I am working out the kinks in the system and learning more each day. The install department should be more knowledgeable in all aspects as well as the sales [department] too. The sales reps were a little pushy and actually told me several things that come to find out we could not do or they swear they did not say. Promised the world but not quite. I do like the system more and more but there are things like the mobile app that needs to improve. Especially using the app to log in or out. The next month (which was the next day) the sales rep said the promo that they were having was the best they will ever get since he had been there but turns out that since then they have offered the ultimate plan for the same price as we pay for the professional one. Which is also not right due to that ultimate hold more value. Plus, the phones that they offer for free also were better and in color display. I was also told I had to buy (to guarantee their service) their wifi router (which comes with wifi turned off - what's the point) plus it's a lower end model. But, we did not even need that due to the one we had. I also was told by the sales rep that they were never down and that next month they had their biggest outage. The system is used now throughout our company and its used to start help communicating better between departments and customers.
  • For the most part, the sound quality is great. Some hiccups here and there but good overall.
  • I really do like their HUD and it's better that most out there.
  • If our internet goes down it does not mean you lose everything as you can switch it to another device.
  • They need to provide their sales and install departments with more knowledge of their own system.
  • Give the new user better startup (setup) tools to help implement things in a better format.
  • The ability to switch on the fly your status when on the mobile app.
  • Flexibility in sales in order to help the user if a promo changes within the first year.
  • Can't mass upload your phone book.
It's a great way to know who is here in the company and informative to be able to get the customers to the right department quicker.
Brian Bliss | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Small business owner, who uses Fonality services across our business in multiple locations. Business is sales driven and outbound calling and tracking are important components to the business. It is also important to have options and ability to record calls on demand when needed from tracking or review purposes. Fonality provides this functionality.
  • Impressed with the quality of the equipment provided (Polycom VVX 4 Series handset). Great speakerphone compared to the phone that was provided by the previous provider with a lower overall cost.
  • Like the dashboard and softphone capabilities.
  • Customer service and setup was excellent. Available and willing to take necessary time during the setup phase.
  • The initial setup is a seemed a little challenging (however, the customer service was very patient in stepping through the process).
  • Setting up the remote phone location was a little challenging compared to other lines.
  • Would be nice if the record all function was available at a lower cost.
I think this system is very well suited for small businesses who need flexibility in setup. Also for those who like to have the option of a softphone and mobile solutions working in conjunction with the physical equipment in an office. I think this is very well suited for sales offices or call center setups where quality of call and reporting functionality are important.
Robert Duckworth | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used by the whole organization. We were looking for a system where all of our different retail stores were just an extension away. We began looking at VOIP phones to also eliminate phone lines we were paying for. We are also still in the process of getting all the phones hooked up at each location and the numbers ported over. We have been taking it store by store to work the kinks out at each location.
  • All my stores are just an extension away.
  • Very easy to forward calls to a cell phone, and get transcripts of voicemail in my email.
  • Calls are very clear and without lag.
  • Initial set up was painful. Many kinks to work out.
  • Tech support is below average. It seems as if our own IT department is more knowledgeable about the system than their employees.
  • Do not like the fact that if you place a call on hold you can't pick it up without it being transferred.
I would recommend Fonality over some of the competitors, pricing was a major factor in our decision to choose Fonality.
February 24, 2017

Fonality does the job

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's being used by everyone. It addressed our need to have consistent phone capabilities across two office locations, as well as the ability to transfer calls to attorney cell phones with no interruption in client experience. It also gives us additional information about each caller, which is helpful in a law firm setting.
  • Fonality gives you a lot of information about who is calling. This is helpful for tracking leads, storing client data, etc.
  • Fonality is user-friendly and easy to learn, so not a lot of time is wasted on training staff.
  • Fonality makes it easier to transfer calls between office locations or even to cell phones. This allows service professionals to move around and work remotely without any interruption in the client's experience.
  • It took Fonality longer than expected (and promised) to set up the infrastructure required for us to port our numbers over and get started.
  • My staff has been somewhat reluctant to engage with the online videos, etc., for obtaining support. They are "old school" and gravitate more towards phone support, or even the option of having a person come on-site.
Fonality works well in an environment where not all staff is in the same location, and/or needs to move around. It also works well in a fast-paced setting in terms of organizing callers and collecting data.
Fonality seems to be more limited in terms of ensuring that staff learn and utilize the features that are available because all of the support must be accessed online.
February 21, 2017

Overview

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Fonality throughout my Agency, primarily to link three locations seamlessly.
  • Customer service
  • HUD - Heads up Display
  • Bundled features
  • New technology integration...texting
  • Expanding additional services as part of bundled offerings
  • Training
[Well suited for organizations with] Multiple locations
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have it with all of our brokers on it. Two of them are using just their cell phone. It allows the agents to be more mobile
  • Ability to be mobile
  • Ease of use
  • The soft phone (but the app needs work)
  • The ease of use for some people
  • The setup of call cues
  • Need better training when first setting up
[Well suited for] for on the go people. The ring tone is horrible and can be fixed.
February 17, 2017

Click to Dial Enthusiast

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality is being used by my entire organization. It aids in the sales process by routing callers to the proper people, it helps to save time through the "Click to Dial" feature, it helps me manage the company through cp.fonality.com and helps my employees manage their time through the HUD. I am pleased with the level of support and the functionality of the product. I am anxious to see how it helps with telemarketing and training. In the future, I will be using the training features of being able to listen to employees' calls so I can coach them and help them to better traverse a sales call.
  • The Click to Dial feature is one of my favorites. Especially because it integrates directly with Blitz Lead Manager - the CRM I am using. Simply clicking the number in the lead or prospect starts the phone dialing. It saves time with every call, adding time to my day.
  • Setting up the phone tree can be a little cumbersome, but it is a great feature. I know that, when a call gets to me, the person on the other end of the line is looking to get a quote for insurance. Once you have a system in place, it works very well.
  • Call quality, thus far, has been more than satisfactory. The calls are clear and consistent
  • The web launcher has been causing me problems. After it did not initially work (despite numerous attempts to set it up), it started to work improperly. It is still not doing exactly what it is intended to do.
Following up with leads and prospects with its Click to Dial feature makes Fonality an effective tool to a sales organization. Misdials and wrong numbers are virtually eradicated by this feature. In addition to saving a few seconds for every call, you add time to your day and are able to conduct more business throughout the year.

The Polycom phones are a little basic and finding missed calls is a little difficult. Also, the HUD is a little confusing. Depending on how you dial or how the call comes into the office, the call log may only show your extension instead of the external number being contacted.
Traci Ludke | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a new firm working along side an already established firm. We have attorneys working across the country and all calls are directed to the Fonaity line here in Columbus. Working with Fonality and the internet has made the start up of this new endeavor run more smoothly than anticipated. The staff at Fonality were very helpful in their guidance and set up of the system.
  • Customer service is outstanding! They were quick to solve any issue we had.
  • During set up the Fonality staff member did not close out our set up ticket until we were completely satisfied and ready to use the system on our own.
  • We needed a cordless system to use in our small office and it works great!
  • I love being able to keep the Fonality line at my desk and then pass it off to an attorney when my work day ends. It has just been a perfect set up.
  • It would be nice if the landline would also ring when you are using the computer hub and a headset.
  • A hold button on the cordless device would be wonderful as well.
  • Maybe provide a second charging station.
Having two businesses within one office has proven challenging in many ways, but the Fonality cordless phone and the computer hub has helped with this transition and is probably the one aspect of this new endeavor that has been the most helpful. We are able to receive calls, voicemails and keep the business flow moving without any hiccups.
Nick Bhatia | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used across the organization. It helps in the fact that we have employees that work outside the office so it easy to set up for them.
  • Deployment for employees outside the office. They will ship the phone directly to our remote employee and I can configure the phone from the web panel.
  • Their response time to outages is unacceptable. I don't think they realize that our phones are our bloodline for business, their tech support is lackadaisical about when our phones will come back up etc. We probably have an outage 4-6 times a yr. You can't talk to their technical team directly, you have to talk to "Tech support" who talk to the technical team which is just frustrating and takes longer to resolve issues.
  • The phone call clarity is just average, we hear other calls in the background (not very loud but still noticeable).
If you have remote users, it's easy to deploy. But again their service is sub par.
Genie Parker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Fonality's HUD is fabulous! It is so easy to see everyone in the company and know if they are in and on the phone. Transfers and chat are a breeze. The voice quality is also excellent. The auto operator and ACD queues are user-friendly to set up and change on the fly.
  • Fonality's HUD is outstanding!
  • Good Price.
  • Rarely down.
  • We have had confusion when adding VoIP lines.
  • When they did go down their website went down too.
We have total communication at all times with HUD.
February 06, 2017

Experience with Fonality

Joel Craddock | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is the phone service for one of our social service locations (emergency housing).
  • Monitoring of who's on a call and the duration of that call
  • Ease of use
  • Can't think of anything. We've been pleased with the system.
Works well with you have multiple people using the system, giving the receptionist a visual screen to monitor calls.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use fonality for our entire office across departments for all employees. The opportunity and ease to make any changes for phone lines is very helpful to make quick adjustments for every changing day.
  • The support is usually helpful whenever we have any issues that needs to be addressed.
  • The interface provides a lot of options for everything we could need, but is also easy to use!
  • The voicemail to email is great for an email-heavy company like ours. Being able to simply search for old voicemails has come in handy.
  • Though we're always able to eventually fix our support issue, sometimes the representatives don't seem to listen the first time round to what we are telling them, and offer suggestions that would clearly not work due to the issue we are having.
  • Calls can drop a little more often than we are comfortable with while trying to retain a happy and satisfied customer-base.
  • Sometimes not all features we put in place take place as instructed, like turning phones off at a particular time. Calls can often come through well before our office opens, or well after it closes, leaving customers on hold for ages since no one is in to pick up the phone.
Being able to lower the priority for someone's extension on certain lines at a moment's notice is great. A person being out for the day, someone in a meeting, or even just too busy to take calls at that moment makes things easier on our employees, as well as customers who are not having to wait through phone cycles on hold for someone to pick up.
February 03, 2017

Fonality brief review

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Fonality across our whole organization. This model works for our organization which has primarily remote users.
  • System has been stable and reliable.
  • Support has been good.
  • Having a direct contact for ordering and purchasing has been nice.
  • Pricing could be better.
  • We had issues during our last system upgrade. Did not go as smoothly or quickly as we would have liked but ultimately was up and running.
Fonality is well suited for a phone system that has its users in several different offices or companies that have many remote users.
January 27, 2017

DTV's Fonality Review

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Fonality across the entire business. It fills the need for our customer service department, our alternate office location, and people that work from home.
  • The user interface is done in an intuitive way where it's easy to set nup and understand. There are many things you can do for call routing and other phone tree setup.
  • We went from a standard BCM phone system to VOIP system. So having everything done over IP and UI is a lot easier for users to manage.
  • All the different functionality is important too. We can have people working from anywhere and still be connected to the business. You can forward on phone calls to your cell phones. The HUD is a neat feature that [lets] customer service users use a computer app instead of the phone handset.
  • The customer service is almost non-existent. It's really hard to get good service with tough questions. With minor things it's fine, but with more advanced things it wasn't very good.
  • The HUDWeb, the online versions of the phone software, was really bad at connecting for users that worked from home. But to be fair it could have been their internet connection.
  • Call quality has been an issue....if not properly set up. The phone system needs high internet speeds which is something Northfield doesn't have. We've seen diminished call quality when bandwidth is getting sucked up.
[My rating is] between a 7 and 8. The software and UI is really cool. But they still need to work out the kinks with their customer service, HUDWeb, and call quality. Unfortunately, this is the only VOIP I've used, but I think overall they're right there.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Fonality for telecom for a 12-person sales floor. Fonality provides call routing and distribution options to evenly distribute our calls among 3-12 agents working at any time.
  • Excellent pricing - the per-seat charge is about average, but many competitors are charging additional monthly fees to add additional call groups/queues. Verizon VCE wanted an additional $15/mo/call queue agent, which would've been an extra $180/mo for our small sales floor.
  • Customization - I was able to set up call routing to support my company's rather unique desires. We had a key system for many years and users were entrenched in that manual call routing. I was able to set up pushbutton blind transfers and call queues for each person.
  • The HUD system - I honestly thought it would go over like a fart in church given our employees' old-school-ness, but the entire sales floor uses the HUD even though we all have full-featured desk phones. We're able to redirect or steal calls as needed, log others in or out, see who is on the phone with whom, how many people are logged in, and how many calls are waiting to be answered.
  • Reliability - We switched after Verizon VCE's 3-day recurring outage in October '16. I've only had the system functioning for about 60 days, but in that time Fonality has only had one brief partial outage, which I believe was caused by Level 3 Communications. I'm talking 15 minutes or less... less time than it took to find the right department at Verizon and be told that their regional outage was caused by my system.
  • Bugginess - Some things just really need some tweaking. I had to get very creative with my call routing and hold music, because the in-queue announcements don't work right at all. For example, even set to 'play once' it would loop the 'you are the first caller' announcement over and over, and cause call drops. Or my caller-name ID, which shows the registered user's name on each line on outgoing calls, even though it's not set to such anywhere in the CP settings.
  • Support - I'll give them 50/50 on this. My experience with Verizon VCE was everyone playing hot potato with issues and saying it was the responsibility of another department, meaning several phone calls and lots of hold time. Fonality doesn't have that issue, I've never really been passed around or blown off. However, some of the 'offshore' CS reps are... wow. I spent about half a dozen emails back and forth with two of them, trying to figure out why queues I deleted from the CP randomly and consistently reappeared in the HUD. Most of those emails were spent trying to explain that no, my issue was NOT that I wanted to create those queues again in the CP.
Fonality is the best hosted solution I'm aware of for a small-to-medium, single location business. I'm not implying that it's unsuitable for a larger or multi-location business, it would appear from what I've seen that it should scale very capably, but I don't have experience with it in those situations. Likewise I haven't used a premises system, nor is the expense or risk (maintaining an onsite server for an absolutely critical part of a relatively small business) suited to my company, so I can't say what those may do better. What I do know is I was tossed into administering a system from one of the two largest telecom companies last year, and it was a nightmare from the word go, almost until the day we cancelled.
January 20, 2017

Fonality VOIP phones

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My Fonality system is used for basic phone calls and sales call tracking. I am also able to direct incoming calls to specific people for sales or service.
  • Technical support is very knowledgeable.
  • The web portal is very easy to navigate and make changes on the spot.
  • HUD integration is a very important feature to Fonality. I did not have that when I first purchased the system.
  • I run a Insurance sales office and would like to be able to log onto the Fonality site and track how many phone call are going out from my sales team and how many incoming calls are picked up by my support staff.
  • I have not been able to figure out how to use mobile HUD yet.
  • I would like to be able to log into the Fonality site using an app on my phone, preferably using Touch ID.
Fonality is great for people who work from home because you can program the outgoing call to show the office number as the caller ID. You can program the system to direct the phone call to any number.
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