Item: GoTo Connect
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My company uses GoTo Connect (formerly Jive) as our sole phone provider. It is how we communicate internally, as well as with all of our clients. It allows us to have users with access to a phone system without being physically in the building. Prior to this, the only people who could send and receive calls to clients were people in the office, which was made difficult during Covid.

Pros and Cons

The support team is very helpful and friendly any time you have an issue or just a question.
The phone system is very reliable. We have been using it for about six months now, and we've had no downtime, and call quality has always been excellent.
The ability to set up detailed dial plans is very useful in helping us more accurately direct callers without people here needing to spend time interacting with people that they aren't going to be able to help.

I would like to see them add some way to better integrate the physical phones with the app itself so that you can be on the phone and do things like transfer calls by clicking something on the app instead of pressing buttons on the phone.
They could use better support documentation for some of the third-party phones that they offer. Tracking down the support documentation for those phones can be tricky, and the information in the documentation is not written as clearly as the documentation that GoTo Connect provides for its services.
I would love to see some additional reporting metrics offered as standard within the admin dashboard. The handful of metrics they offer are nice, but I would like some additional options.

Return on Investment

Switching to GoTo Connect (formerly Jive) from our old phone provider cut our monthly phone bill in half.
We are able to spend less time talking on the phone due to our dial plan filtering out people that we aren't able to talk to.
We have increased ways to communicate internally now that we are using something that goes beyond a simple land line connection.

Ease of Deployment

Throughout the whole setup and deployment process, I was on the phone constantly with their support team to get assistance with configuring all the relevant features of the system. Every time, not only was I able to get a person on the phone quickly, but they were always very helpful and friendly. They always made recommendations that improved on what I thought I was doing.

Call Quality

At this point, the total number of calls we've made and received has topped a few thousand, and to this point, we have not had any dropped calls or calls with significant interference. We have had a few moments where the audio quality dips slightly, but it has always been mild and brief.

Key Insights

Do you think GoTo Connect delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with GoTo Connect's feature set?

Yes

Did GoTo Connect live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of GoTo Connect go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy GoTo Connect again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

GoTo Connect (formerly Jive) is well suited for any business with more than one employee that needs to be able to communicate effectively. It is helpful if you have customers calling you with a wide variety of issues and you need an automated system to be able to direct them properly, or if you just want a phone system that will work well all the time. It is probably less well suited to companies that don't have anyone with much technical expertise, because setting everything up and maintaining/provisioning users do require a minimal level of competence. However, their support team is very good about walking you through any issues you have.

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability
Product Reputation

We needed to move from a local phone system to something in the cloud, as we were allowing many people to start working remotely, and our old system didn't have a way to make that work. I had used GoTo products at a previous job and I knew that they tended to function well and be easy to use.

Usability

It is a very simple system, in terms of usability. If the user is using a physical phone, it operates just like any traditional phone. Within the app, navigating around is pretty simple and straightforward. The only slight confusion people sometimes have is remembering to set the app back to use the physical phone instead of the softphone when they are working at their desk, but that is a mild inconvenience.

Business Processes Supported

It allows people to work remotely and still have access to their work line.
It allows people to use their cell phone as their work phone when needed.
It allows us to filter calls to the right department without having to have a person direct them manually.

Innovative Uses

We use it to track which of our clients tend to call us the most.
It's good to use as a metric for employee productivity.
It can be used as a tool to give clients access to audio information on demand, if your auto attendant setup is robust enough.

Tangible Impacts

First of all, the auto attendant is a reliable tool to direct calls without needing to get a person involved. The tracking metrics are also useful to see which of our clients tend to need the most attention, as well as to see which employees are spending the most amount of time helping people on the phone.

Likelihood to Renew

Honestly, it does all the things you would need a phone system to do, and it does it with pretty good reliability. The only thing that would prevent me from renewing when our contract is up is if we get offered a really good deal from a competitor, but I don't see that happening.

Product Differentiation

I'm honestly not sure if GoTo Connect offers a whole lot that isn't already standard for most of their competitors. The integration with Microsoft Teams is quite nice. Their customer support has also been really helpful on the handful of occasions that I've need to get into contact with them

Products Replaced

Yes - GoToConnect (formerly Jive) is replacing an old phone system that was run through a local phone company. It had some networked interoperability, but it didn't do much beyond allowing people to make and receive phone calls. With GoToConnect (formerly Jive), we finally have the ability for people to make and receive calls from outside of the physical office. Also, our phone bill was cut in half with the switch to GoToConnect (formerly Jive).

You should use GoTo Connect (formerly Jive)

Overall Satisfaction with GoTo Connect