
RingCentral is one of the world’s most popular call management services. With RingCentral Professional, you get even more features at an affordable price. Is RingCentral Professional the right choice for you?
- Features
- Pricing Packages
- The Good
- The Bad
RingCentral VoIP Features
RingCentral VoIP Call Management
Easy Setup Process: It takes only a minute or two to create your RingCentral Professional account and from there, it takes only seconds for your new number to arrive in your email inbox. Setup is a breeze.
Plenty of Advanced Features: Redirect calls to your desk phone or your mobile device and setup sophisticated IP-PBX with ease using RingCentral.
Directory Tree: Easily create a directory tree for your business
Call Queuing: All callers are automatically entered into a queue if no representatives are available.
Email Alerts: Receive an email alert with every voice mail.
RingCentral VoIP Calling
Call Attendants: Create an auto-attendant which handles calls when all service representatives are busy.
Hold Music: Add music that plays when callers are on hold.
Automated Greeting Messages: Employees can create greeting messages for each extension. Or, you can create a greeting message that answers frequently asked questions, redirects callers to appropriate extensions, or performs other commands.
Vanity Numbers: Users can choose vanity numbers to reflect a slogan, company name, or any other word.
Toll Free Numbers: Create a toll free 1-800 number for your company with RingCentral.
Use Existing Number: If you already have a dedicated business number and don’t want to change every business card and website directory, then RingCentral lets you transfer your old number to the service at no cost.
Mobile Support: RingCentral fully integrates with your mobile phone. You can redirect calls to your mobile phone automatically and use RingCentral apps to manage the calling system from your mobile device.
RingCentral VoIP Add-Ons
Additional Virtual Extensions: $2.99 per month
Additional Toll Free or Local Numbers: $4.99 per month
Additional Fax Numbers: $4.99 per month
Vanity Number: $30 one-time fee
RingCentral VoIP Other Features
Mobile Apps: RingCentral offers apps for all major mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, Androids, and Blackberries.
Online Faxing: All plans include online faxing, letting you send and receive faxes over email.
500 Total Minutes
4.9 cents per additional minute
2 Extensions
Online Faxing
RingCentral ProPlus
$19.99/mo
1000 Total Minutes
4.4 cents per additional minute
5 Extensions
Online Faxing
RingCentral ProPower
$24.99/mo
2000 Local/Long Distance Minutes
1000 Toll-Free Minutes
3.9 cents per additional minute
10 Extensions
Online Faxing
The Good About RingCentral VoIP
Save money with VoIP
RingCentral uses Voice over IP (VoIP) technology to simplify call management. VoIP helps cut costs and lets you call from anywhere with an internet connection. Before VoIP became popular, companies could pay hundreds or even thousands for good call management systems. Thanks to RingCentral Professional and VoIP technology, today’s users only need to pay a fraction of that price.
Easily Setup Department Extensions
RingCentral Professional has plenty of enterprise features that make it perfect for small and medium businesses as well as large corporations. You can pick an 800 number and set up department extensions, for example, and receive calls on your smartphone with free apps. If you want to direct customers to a certain employee who is away from the office, you can send them to that 800 number extension.
Multiple Mobile Apps Available
RingCentral has developed a number of surprisingly good apps for different mobile devices, including iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. Because all connections are made using VoIP, you can also use your iPad as a business phone – even if it’s just a Wi-Fi-only tablet. These apps are free to download and remarkably easy to use. They’ll even let you receive faxes on your mobile device for ultimate convenience.
Three Different Plans Available
RingCentral offers three different plans for your business, all of which include different features and minute rates. You can view detailed pricing information down below, but suffice to say the plans are good for small, medium, and large businesses. The “Pro” plan starts at $9.99 per month and includes 300 local, long distance, or toll free minutes. ProPlus, which tends to be the most popular plan, costs $19.99 per month and features 1000 minutes, while the largest plan, ProPower, costs $24.99 per month for 2000 local or long distance minutes and 1000 toll free minutes. All plans include online faxing.
Online Fax Support
If your business still uses a physical fax machine, then it’s time to start living in the 21st century with online faxing. Online faxing helps your business save a considerable amount of money on paper, ink, equipment repairs, and other overhead faxing costs. All faxes can be sent and received through your email. Since online faxing is included in RingCentral Professional, this is an extremely valuable advantage that can help your plan pay for itself in a matter of days.
Excellent Call Quality
One of the biggest reasons why people avoid switching to VoIP is the perceived lower call quality. Today, this simply isn’t true and VoIP communications come through loud and clear. RingCentral has tweaked its system to ensure people communicating across modems, DSL, broadband, and other connection options can all hear one another equally as clearly. With RingCentral, the call quality is superb.
Easy Setup Process
RingCentral has clearly spent some time optimizing its setup process because it’s ridiculously easy. You can register for the service in minutes and soon after that, you’ll receive your own phone number in your email inbox. You can also use your own existing telephone number, choose a vanity number, or request a toll free 1-800 number. Once you have your number, you can log into the online platform and begin creating extensions, call groups, call attendants, and more. The interface is generally quite easy to use and – most of the time – it’s also very responsive.
Lots of Useful Features
When it comes to features, RingCentral blows other call management services out of the water. RingCentral lets you add a virtual receptionist, for example, who will auto-attend your calls if no service reps are available. You can also establish hold music, message alerts, and more. Create a directory for your business and forward calls to mobile devices. There are a whole suite of features available and suffice to say that RingCentral has every call management feature you could need – especially when you subscribe to the higher-end plans.
Forward to Mobile Devices
This feature is so useful that it deserves an entire section to itself. With RingCentral, you can easily forward calls to your mobile device if you’re currently out of the office. Here’s how it works: you set up your call rules and attach your RingCentral number to your desk phone. If that desk phone isn’t answered after a certain period of time, then the call is redirected to your mobile device. If you don’t pick up the call on your mobile device, then the call is returned to the RingCentral voicemail to record the customer’s message. As complicated as this may seem, it’s remarkably easy to setup with RingCentral.
The Bad About RingCentral VoIP
Spotty Customer Service
RingCentral users have mixed reviews about the company’s customer service. Customer service representatives appear to be based outside the United States and customers can face long wait times during high-traffic periods. Users have also complained that tech support isn’t able to promptly fix random issues and bugs.
Minor UI Complaints
In general, the RingCentral user interface is quite good. However, there are times when it can slow down and develop issues. If there’s high network traffic, for example, then the platform becomes slow and sluggish. Some people also find the UI to be more of a hassle to use when managing over 10 users. Ultimately, it takes some time to get used to the interface, but ultimately does a good job of managing what you need to manage.
Our Verdict On RingCentral VoIP
No matter which pricing plan you choose, RingCentral is remarkably affordable. Smaller businesses are often satisfied with the $9.99 per month Pro plan, which includes 300 minutes, two extensions and online faxing support. You can redirect extensions to different employees or different departments depending on the needs of your business.
Businesses with larger needs can choose the ProPlus and ProPower plans, which also come with the benefit of dedicated fax numbers and dial-by-name directories.
Of course, you can also easily add numbers, extensions, and other add-ons to your plan for a few dollars per month. Adding a virtual extension costs $2.99, for example, while new toll-free or local numbers cost $4.99 per month.
If you’ve never used a call management system before, then I recommend downloading the Pro or ProPlus free trial. The free trial lets you experience the UI and figure out the system. It’s a gentle learning curve and shouldn’t take long to figure out. If you decide you like RingCentral over competing services like Vonage, then become a subscriber and start saving money.
Call management systems save your business time and money while displaying a professional attitude towards customers. No more dropped calls, no more unanswered customers, and no more missing important phone calls while you’re on-the-go. RingCentral uses modern technology to simplify your business.
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