Item: Google Hangouts (Classic)
Rating: 9
Author: Christopher Interisano

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Hangouts is being used by our organization to mainly host internal meetings and have quick calls with colleagues from other departments or managers to ask questions, host 1:1's and at times will be used as a back up to GoToMeeting if GoToMeeting is down or not working. It solves the issue of having to message back and forth and being able to hop on a quick call to sync internally.

Pros and Cons

Very reliable software which is extremely important for getting things done!
Easy to use and intuitive to set up.
Integrates with Google Calendar very well and makes it easy to sync internally.

Google Hangouts would be great if it had call analytics.
Google Hangouts seems a bit complicated if you are running a multiple person meeting.
Google Hangouts doesn't notify me at time when people are calling in, having this solved would be a benefit to me.

Return on Investment

Google Hangouts is essential for me when speaking with satellite offices since it saves so much time.
Google Hangouts lets me get the answers to questions I need way faster than instant messaging and adds to the value of each call due to screen share.
Google Hangouts does not have the same functionality as my other video conferencing software which makes me have to go back and forth between software.

Alternatives Considered

GoToMeeting

Google Hangouts is a much better tool for internal conferencing and can be a good back up when GoToMeeting is not working or is simply just down. I would never recommend Google Hangouts as a company's primary video conferencing software but if they could add a few more enterprise-level features I would love to get rid of our video conferencing software in replacement of Google Hangouts.

Support Rating

There is not much support with Google Hangouts as when your dealing with Google its unlikely that you are going to receive one on one support from their rep, however the platform is so reliable and easy to use that there is really no training or customer success that is needed when implementing at your company.

Key Insights

Do you think Google Hangouts (Classic) delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Google Hangouts (Classic)'s feature set?

Yes

Did Google Hangouts (Classic) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Google Hangouts (Classic) go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Google Hangouts (Classic) again?

Yes

Other Software Used

GoToMeeting, Zoom

Likelihood to Recommend

Google Hangouts is very well suited for almost any organization, whether you are a large company or a very small company due to the easy access of hopping on a video call with colleagues. Companies who have employees who are constantly running client or prospect meetings should look into more enterprise video conference software.

Google Hangouts is a great product

Overall Satisfaction with Google Hangouts