Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services Compared and Reviewed by Crazy Egg

Out of the 18 products we reviewed, Nextiva is our favorite VoIP phone service provider. It is inexpensive, has hefty analytic features on offer, and provides three ways to get support if you have any problems. Nextiva also delivers unlimited domestic calling, professionally recorded voice greetings, and a crystal clear connection your callers will appreciate. 

Top VoIP and Phone Service Providers: Golden Eggs

We’ve selected three Golden Eggs—the best platforms for the widest range of users—from the dozen-and-a-half best VoIP and phone service providers we researched. 

Nextiva provides crystal-clear incoming and outgoing calls, an affordable entry-level plan, and is the simple, effective solution for all business types. Deploy your custom Nextiva service today.

RingCentral is perfect for medium, larger, and enterprise businesses with its unlimited scaling potential and international calling. Grab 14 days of free, full access on any plan you choose. 

Ooma is the small business solution for using your existing equipment, saving money, getting set up in under 20 minutes. Get unlimited calling and SMS messaging with Ooma today. 

VoIP Providers and Phone Services Review Process 

Before we get started, let’s talk about how we reviewed the providers on this list. We’ve simplified each service’s virtues based on the most common use cases for a VoIP phone service. This lets you easily scan for ones that deliver what’s important to your business. 

In our research of 18 providers, we’ve broken down VoIP phone services into six key use cases:

• Remote work
• Virtual phone numbers
• External communication
• Internal communication
• Call centers
• International calling

Why do we do it this way? Separating providers into the use cases they work best for saves you time as you go through the post. It highlights only the information you want to know about, because we feel no one should be forced to read through details they don’t need. 

You can quickly find the provider that will elevate your business to the standard your customers expect from you. 

Want to enhance your buying decision even more? Jump down to our section on what matters when reviewing VoIP providers and phone services. There you can unwrap each use case in greater detail and the features that matter most to them.   

The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services for Remote Work

Remote work is here to stay and good communication between your employees remains a priority. It doesn’t matter if they are in-house, working from their living room, or doing a little bit of both each week. These providers make sure your collaboration doesn’t suffer no matter what part of the world your workers are located. 

Nextiva

Setting up your organization for remote work, you want a provider that is simple to use. Nextiva makes implementing VoIP phone service a breeze, helped by guided step-by-step instructions in the admin portal. You don’t have to be an IT wizard in order to get Nextiva up and running. 

Reviewers constantly brag about how simple things are on admins and end users alike. Pull up the calling interface, analytics, reports, and more whether on desktop or on the mobile app. 

On Nextiva’s basic plan, you get unlimited voice and video calling so you don’t get blind sided with a bill you didn’t expect just because your employees are using it for all their collaboration needs. Beyond calling, your team can also benefit from team messaging, SMS and MMS texting, and screen sharing during video calls.

Nextiva also provides its own video conferencing and collaboration tool, called Cospace. Its features are especially helpful for remote teams looking to work together more efficiently. It includes screen sharing features, making it especially useful during video conferencing. Additionally, Nextiva has a well-designed app for both iOS and Android users, ensuring remote workers can connect to Nextiva from any device.

For a deeper dive into Nextiva, check out our full company review. 

RingCentral 

Remote workers tend to lean hard on mobile apps to stay in the loop. RingCentral has one of the best. You get all of the same functionality available on both your desktop and your phone. Make and receive calls, host meetings, or send group messages to your team while you’re on the go. 

RingCentral thrives in medium and larger businesses. Set up conference calls or video chats with up to 200 participants at one time or utilize the unlimited faxing on many RingCentral plans to send documents and materials from one far-flung work location to another. 

Just because you have a big company, it doesn’t mean RingCentral will punish you with a complicated implementation process. Over 80% of the reviews shared a positive experience when getting it set up and running from the admin portal.

You can find out more in our RingCentral review. 

Zoom

Zoom has become the name most of us know for video calling. But they offer VoIP phone services, too. So if you are already using Zoom for video conferencing they are an excellent and easy choice to expand your remote work technology to include voice calls and team messaging. 

Zoom is great for monitoring and assisting remote workers who make or receive external calls from their home offices. A barge-in feature lets you pop into a meeting and see what’s going on, while the whisper feature lets you communicate in private with an employee with no one on the call even noticing. 

This singular platform for video, chat, phone, and meetings also delivers one of the most user-friendly and functional mobile apps in this category. And Zoom’s calling platform is reliable on both voice and video so that your internal and external communications involving remote workers always maintain a professional level of quality.

Get all the details in our full review of Zoom. 

Mitel 

Let’s say you need a platform that accommodates in-office, remote, and mobile workers all. Mitel to the rescue. 

Their state-of-the-art technology lets you extend the quality of your in-house phone system to dispersed workers, whether they’re calling in from home or out in the field. This is perfect for an organization that has a lot of remote employees or handles field services.

Mitel’s MiVoice Business package leverages the power of the cloud to deliver messaging, calling, and collaboration platforms to all of your team members. Plus, workers don’t even have to download software to start using Mitel—they can work directly within their favorite browser using Mitel’s web-based portal. That makes it even easier to get remote workers looped into your Mitel system.

The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services for Virtual Phone Numbers

In today’s business world, using your cell phone number for business just won’t cut it. Get yourself a custom, localized contact number through a VoIP provider that also delivers virtual phone numbers. These providers below make that happen and offer tons of key features to boot. 

Nextiva

Nextiva lets you choose between using a local, toll-free, or vanity number. Plus, if you have a personal number, you can transfer that over in less than five minutes. As your company grows, the simplicity of swapping out or adding new numbers is something Nextiva does really well. 

You can select which devices receive calls from your virtual phone numbers, too. Make and receive calls with this number on any phone, whether it’s a typical deskphone, an IP phone, or cell phone.

This easy virtual number management is enhanced by features like automated voicemail transcriptions delivered to your inbox, call forwarding, and an auto-attendant for directing calls to the right team member. 

Learn more about what you get with Nextiva’s virtual phone numbers in our brand review.

RingCentral

RingCentral caters to businesses with high call volumes, so you don’t have to worry if thousands of calls are coming in at once. A barrage of customers looking to do business with you won’t crash the system. 

With RingCentral’s multiple features related to virtual phone numbers, you can easily cater to your customers. When you need to be more accessible to customers throughout the United States, having toll-free virtual numbers is important to serve customers. On the other hand, when you want to establish a local presence in a certain area, RingCentral can provide a virtual number with the right area code and prefix that gives customers confidence that you are focused locally.

What really sets RingCentral apart in regards to virtual phone numbers is just how suited the platform is for international calling. While other providers offer numbers outside of the U.S. or Canada, RingCentral blows the competition away in terms of selection. Choose from one of over 100 countries around the world to get a localized phone number in, from Argentina and Brazil to Turkey and Vietnam.

Establish a local presence nearly anywhere in the world, helped further by the reasonable and convenient international calling plans RingCentral also offers. Have your virtual number up in minutes and switch between using it for voice and video calling with the tap of a button. 

Learn more about what you get alongside that in our full RingCentral review

Google Voice

Users love Google Voice because it’s easy to set up and use, and it integrates with all of the Google Workspace features. Google Voice simplifies the process of managing both business and personal calls. You even can make and answer calls directly from Gmail when using Google Voice. Plus, there is a free version that allows you to hide your phone number so you can use your personal device for business. 

This lightweight solution makes it easy to acquire virtual numbers for many area codes in the United States. You can also give all of your employees their own number that can be used anywhere if you opt for one of Google Voice’s paid plans that support multiple users. It also gives you the option of merging multiple phone lines, simplifying management of your communications options.

It’s a very budget-friendly option even when you pay for it, starting at just $10 per month for up to 10 users. The simplicity of being able to add it on to your current Google Workspace account and immediately start enjoying the benefits of a virtual number is what many business owners find so enticing. 

You can learn more with our complete guide to how Google Voice works.

OpenPhone

If you are a solopreneur or startup, OpenPhone’s simple yet powerful platform will grab your attention. Their vast feature list for the most basic plan almost outshines how inexpensive it is in the first place. 

There’s too much to list here, but for $10 per month per user, every user gets their own local or toll-free phone number. You also get an auto-attendant, voicemail-to-text, and call recording. You can also share call and text histories with other members of your team. 

OpenPhone’s dashboard and user experience is fantastic, even for beginners. Plus, it integrates with your email service, Slack, and more. For any SMB owner, OpenPhone is definitely a solid option for acquiring virtual numbers for a small team. 

The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services for External Communication

When you’re communicating with your customers, clients, vendors, or anyone else, your VoIP service provider needs to deliver. Your customers and partners need to get the help they deserve from your team. These providers deliver by giving you the management and control you need to keep your external communications professional. 

Nextiva

With Nextiva’s cloud-based communication, keeping in touch with your customers has never been easier or sounded better. This is one of the most reliable providers around. If you have a traditional office environment in which you are accepting external calls from customers and other third parties, Nextiva excels.

You won’t have dropped calls, or any unexpected busy signals. When your customers are ready, you will be there. And you’ll be able to speak with them (or vendors, partners, shareholders, and other third parties) in the way that they prefer. Nextiva’s plans deliver voice and video calling, as well as texting, plus separate add-ons for call centers and live chat. 

And handling a ton of inbound calls is never a problem. Set up a multi-level auto attendant or Nextiva’s AI-powered IVR to direct incoming calls with laser precision, or set call flows the way you want through call queueing, screening, and routing. Plus, you can port your U.S. or Canada-based number over for free.

Learn more about all these external calling features and more in our Nextiva review.

RingCentral

RingCentral is a boon for organizations that have managers that need to monitor external calls and coach reps up to perform better on them. With advanced call handling tools like whisper and barge on select plans, managers can come to the rescue if a client or customer call is flailing or give the rep subtle guidance to close a deal.

This is a platform that contains a bevy of call management features. If your office or company is fielding and making a lot of voice calls, leverage RingCentral’s smart transferring, screening, parking, and logging tools to make sure every single one goes to plan. 

They also offer tons of integrations that can make dialing clients, customers, vendors, and others much easier, including RingCentral’s own auto dialer. And, if your business thrives on the power of your CRM, you can have your contacts front and center within your RingCentral dashboard by syncing the two platforms together.

Already have an elaborate phone system in place, but want to switch to RingCentral? No problem. You can port over up to 100 numbers at once, no matter if they’re landline, mobile, or toll-free.

Get all of the nitty-gritty details by reading our brand review. 

Ooma

Ooma is the favored platform for companies that still have most or all of their employees under one roof. It boasts a bevy of call management features in a system that allows you to use your own equipment or even add new desk phones through Ooma’s hardware on offer. And you can set up equipment yourself in less than 20 minutes.

You get all the key call management features, from virtual extensions for each of your team members and a virtual receptionist for directing calls to call parking, ring groups, and transfer and hold music. You even get extras that are super useful for your office space, like overhead paging and intercom support.

You get over 50 features out of the box with the Ooma’s Office Essentials plan, which many users have stated has saved them a good deal of money over the long haul (particularly when you compare it to some of the price points of the other big names in this space). 

For more on Ooma you can read the company review here. 

11Sight

If you have an inbound sales team that wants a unique way to let customers get in touch with you, you will love 11Sight. Their platform makes audio and video calls simple with a link you can place anywhere on your websites, social media profiles, or other web properties. Visitors just click that link to initiate a voice or video call with your team. 

While you don’t get the bonus features of other providers like team messaging or file sharing, that could be to your benefit. If you’re just looking for a platform for external communication with leads, prospects, and customers without any unnecessary collaboration features, you can get all that you need from 11Sight while paying far less than you would with, say, Nextiva or RingCentral.

11Sight is revered among marketers. Since any interested party can initiate a sales call in one click, this platform can cut down your sales cycle time in half. There are no downloads, appointments, or sign-ins to slow customers down. That’s further made possible by leveraging the additional call routing tools in 11Sight, choosing specific reps for calls or establishing ring groups that focus on specific sales funnels.  

The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services for Internal Communication

Business phone services are not all about taking incoming calls. You also need your team to collaborate amongst themselves, whether in the office or disperse around the country or globe. These employees will need to share files, message each other, and initiate huddles and meetings when they need to work together and get the job done. 

Nextiva

Being able to communicate clearly and cleanly within your business is what keeps things running smoothly. Nextiva allows for this with a ton of features. You get unlimited video chat and messages between teams, which includes private messaging groups, file sharing, and more collaborative features. 

Often, hopping on a video call and sharing your screen is much better than writing out a huge message to a teammate. With one click, managers can request new tasks from employees, project members can huddle on deliverables, or departments can hold regular meetings to outline their work for the day, week, month, or quarter.

You also get custom reports, voice analytics, and real-time statistics that show how your team is performing on any external calls they may field as well. One simple-to-use dashboard holds everything. 

Get the full scoop in our full Nextiva review.

RingCentral

RingCentral’s 360-degree communication platform boasts plenty of collaborative features to help with internal communication. Team messaging, file sharing, and video conferencing for up to 200 participants all come on their MVP plans, so it’s an easy way to knock out internal and external communication needs in one platform.

Mature organizations that are behind the times on modern collaborative technology will be thankful for how easy RingCentral is to set up and manage. Admins find it easy to implement at the outset and even easier to stay on top of, whether that entails adding new users or phone lines, managing available features, or conjuring metrics and reports.

That same ease of use extends to the end users of RingCentral, with an interface that’s friendly to the less tech-savvy folks in your organization. Plus, between the desktop apps, web portal, and mobile app, users and admins alike can wield RingCentral from anywhere they’re working.

For example, RingCentral helps your team save time and communicate more efficiently through its team messaging, where users can send a direct message to another team member, share documents, and collaborate on those documents. You can also quickly switch from one form of communication to another, such as answering a text from a client while in the middle of a video call. Just switch to the text option in RingCentral, send your message, and return to the video call with just a couple of clicks.

Get the full picture by reading our comprehensive brand review of RingCentral.

Microsoft Teams

If you already have a Microsoft 365 subscription you have access to Microsoft Teams. That’s a huge leg up in your decision-making process. What’s even better is that means you can use Teams’ internal communication and collaboration features at no additional charge. 

You get team messaging, video conferencing, and file sharing in a familiar, trusted setting. In addition, you can also add voice calling features, including forwarding, warm transfers, and transfers direct to voicemail. 

While it takes some work to make Teams handle calls outside your organization (you’ll need to integrate it with what existing telephony you have in your office or pay separately for Teams’ phone service), it’s a cinch to set it up for your internal communication needs. And, even if you’re not already subscribed to Microsoft 365, a standalone paid plan of Teams is much more affordable than most of the other names on this list.

Take a look out or Microsoft Teams company review right here. 

1-VoIP

1-VoIP is the best option for an office using traditional desk phones with infrequent calling needs. You pay by the minute, so it will get pricey with a lot of usage but really satisfy your budgetary needs if you don’t lean on it too much. 

You have access to conferencing calling features to help teams stay connected within the company, as well as the ability to integrate text messaging, so any remote or field workers can stay in the loop with ease, too. 1-VoIP also takes care of setting everything up to your liking for cloud-based PBX deployments. 

Be mindful of their pricing options, though. The entry-level plan starts at just under $15 per extension per month, but charges two cents per minute on any call. The next step up is more expensive per extension, but allows for unlimited monthly calling.

3CX

The risk of picking a provider you don’t like is a real concern. But 3CX helps you remove that risk with a 12-month free trial of any paid plan. 

They are rated the best provider for the hotel industry because of the internal communication service they provide. Large hotels need to provide room service, messages, and requests amongst staff, provide programmed wake up calls, and have conference calls with clients and stakeholders. And that is the tip of the iceberg.

And if you are a small business with under 10 employees, you can use 3CX for free. So, they might just be the best fit for those of you that have organizations which will stay small or that inhabit specialized industries like hospitality. 

Phone.com

If you are looking for a flexible and inexpensive plan that can be molded to exactly what you need, Phone.com is the way to go. That’s because this plan allows you to give more of your phone services to the employees who need it more often than others.  

Phone.com is also perfect for seasonal work, so if you are more busy during the holidays or other peak seasons, you don’t have to pay full price for services all year. Just bump up your plan at the appropriate time. Even if that just entails that your team tends to need to communicate with one another more during every other month, you can easily scale up and down to keep your budget and bottom line happy.

All plans include inbound call routing, call transferring and forwarding, and call schedules that provide special routing options for incoming calls. Phone.com is also the first provider that we’ve reviewed that gives you the option of a live receptionist for a monthly fee, which is great for fielding client, vendor, or stakeholder calls during those mad collaborative rushes.  

Read our full Phone.com review for more information.

The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services for Call Centers

Let’s face it, people hate spending time talking to call centers. So, if you have or manage one and are looking to improve your customer service rating, the providers below are the best options for you to start with.

Nextiva

Nextiva is everywhere. Their name is associated with quality and reliability. And many users and business reviews praise them as being one of the best phone systems in the industry. 

The robust feature set includes call groups, call forwarding, transferring, and recording, call pop-ups for delivering snippets about the caller’s info to your reps, and multi-level attendants. These are enhanced further by the dizzying array of integrations available, from CRMs and ERPs to marketing platforms and more.

But key to call centers is Nextiva’s barge feature. This is where other users can take a call intended for someone else or team leaders or managers can enter an ongoing call to provide a definitive answer, pitch, or piece of information to those on it. 

Ultimately, the Nextiva call center feature works nicely for even the busiest business departments that rely on calls to connect with customers, such as tech support and customer service centers. It focuses on ensuring that customers receive a high level of service, while giving team members the ability to operate efficiently.

Learn about all the other benefits of Nextiva from our full review.

RingCentral 

Medium and large enterprise call centers trust RingCentral’s dedicated call center plans. RingCentral is known for handling increased call volumes smoothly as you grow, placing no limits on how much you can leverage and scale your call center. 

RingCentral provides sophisticated call management features that other providers don’t include, with automations aplenty. 

You get two flavors of call recording: automated and on-demand. With the former, you can set any inbound or outbound call to be recorded and stored by individual user or department The latter gives you as either an end user or admin to record select calls when you deem fit. And if you want to coach up call center reps, track their progress over long periods of time, or keep records in case of disputes, you can store up to 100,000 business recordings per account. 

Find out more about RingCentral’s call center packages in our detailed review.

Dialpad

Dialpad is the best option if you want to weave the power of AI into how you run your call center. Get smart routing features alongside clutch tools for analyzing the efficacy of calls. 

The AI inherent to the Dialpad platform not only handles call flow, but does real-time call and meeting transcriptions (so no manual time wasted on doing that), call summaries (where it smartly pulls key nuggets from a call), real-time sentiment analysis, and even in-call recommendations for the next action to take.

These intelligent features make managing higher call volumes, reporting, and coaching your reps easier than ever before. Know more about how calls go, learn more about what goes right or wrong, and use everything Dialpad has to offer to make your call center run better.

Vonage

If you want to customize your phone plan for your call center, Vonage is one provider that makes that easy on you. You get a buffet of phone services to choose from and add to Vonage’s base plan; you’re just not stuck with preset plans and packages. 

While that does make pricing a little more confusing to understand—for example, call recording is a paid add-on, but it can be heavily customized itself—you have the freedom of tons of options to choose from based on what you want Vonage to do for your call center. 

On the base plan, Vonage delivers standard call management features like routing, queues, parking, and a virtual receptionist. You can also tap into helpful UCaaS and collaborative features like SMS texting and team chat. And, explore unique offerings within Vonage, like call announcements, call screening, and tying multiple devices to one extension.

For more on Vonage, check out our full company review. 

CallHippo

If you have an outbound call center or a collections agency, CallHippo is the way for you to crank out more calls, get more sales, recover debt, or get more offers in front of more people. 

That’s because you can send out voice messages to multiple people in the form of a call. It’s called voice broadcasting and it uses AI speech transcription and call script software to automatically whip up and disseminate your message. 

CallHippo also lets you get set up in under three minutes, no matter where you are in the world. And that’s no cheap setup. That’s a capable call center system with call forwarding, conferencing, transferring, private voicemail boxes, reporting, and analytics. And, if you pony up for any plan above CallHippo’s entry level one, you’ll get call recording for free, too. 

The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services for International Calling

RingCentral 

If you want to grab a few phone numbers in other countries, RingCentral is the provider for you. They allow you to acquire localized phone numbers in over 100 countries. This is great if your business is global and you need to build trust with customers all over the world. 

The best part about RingCentral is the freedom you get with the type of international plans available. They make it easy to purchase an affordable international calling plan to help lower the costs for you. Choose a pay-as-you-go setup (with great rates) for infrequent international calling or opt for a specialized calling plan that incorporates global calling into your monthly bill. 

Need to know more? Find all the details in our full RingCentral review.

Zoom

Zoom allows two convenient options for international calling. 

If you will be calling regularly, just add an extra package that gives you unlimited calling to 18 different countries. Or, opt for getting a local number in one of 40 different countries through Zoom which will allow you unlimited calling within that locality. 

What’s nice about getting that localized international number is the presence and trust you can build if your business is making serious inroads in that country. 

If you’re not sure if you will need international calling, Zoom will let you make calls that are charged by the minute. That can get a bit expensive if you do it too frequently, so be mindful of the rates and how they compare to Zoom’s international plans.

Learn all about Zoom in our company review. 

8×8

8×8 is a cloud-based VoIP provider that is easy to set up and doesn’t require any equipment. But the basic plan doesn’t include international calling. You’ll have to move up to the X2 plan, which allows you to call 14 different countries with no limits or restrictions. The top-tier plan raises the number of countries you can call to 48. 

8×8 prides themselves on reliability and offers some of the best call quality. In fact, several users confirmed that before switching to 8×8, calls were being dropped left and right. But now they are receiving much more stable call quality, even when calling the opposite side of the globe.

Plus, your quality doesn’t suffer depending on the device you are using. No matter if you use a hardline, mobile phone, or computer, your customers won’t be complaining they can’t hear you.  

For a deeper dive into 8×8 read the full company review.

GoTo Connect

If you need one platform that gives you tons of reliable ways to connect, then GoTo Connect is your saving grace. They are cloud-based so it doesn’t matter where you are in the world. You can reach your clients, customers, and teams with no issue. 

Its mid-tier and premium plans give you access to free calling to 52 countries. These plans also provide you with loads of communication and collaboration features. Your video calls, conferences, chats, and call management needs are ready on this sturdy and secure platform. 

Another bonus is users rave that, even with a poor internet connection, the mobile app works very well. That’s great for widely dispersed organizations that may be based in one country and have employees in another country calling customers, clients, vendors, or stakeholders in a third locale. 

Want more on GoTo Connect? Read our company review. 

Aircall

This modern VoIP service provider gives you an entirely custom plan that you can build from scratch to include unlimited international calling. 

You can set up your plan in seconds. There are only four simple steps. You don’t need  an IT degree or a professional tech wizard, either—Aircall handles it all.  

Aircall is perfect for high volume sales or support teams that work globally. Its seven worldwide data centers make sure phone connections are the strongest they can be no matter where your customers or team members are calling to or from. 

What Matters When Reviewing VoIP Providers and Phone Services

We understand all the anxiety you feel when having to pick new software and platforms for your business. So our research team spent an enormous amount of time dissecting features to remove any uncertainty about which ones matter most to the use cases of your business.

Inbound Call Handling

When a customer reaches out, they expect quick and straightforward connections with your team. And, they expect a clear connection so conversations happen without confusion. Callers want to be transferred to the right person the first time and your team members want to make sure they’re only getting the right calls sent to them. 

When It Matters Most:

• External communication – You want seamless call transferring, automated call attendants, and reception features that quickly get customers the help they need. 
• Internal communication – Calling between team members and departments should be easy because of features like easy extension dialing and call routing. 
• Call centers – It’s paramount to have an inbound call center services provider that can handle high call volume while always directing calls to the right rep at the right time. 

Outbound Call Efficiency

Making outbound calls can take a lot out of your employees. And this affects how efficient and accurate they are when it’s time to close a sale or connect with a vendor or client. So, having a provider that makes outbound calling easier gives your business an edge other teams lack. 

When It Matters Most:

• Call centers – Power features like auto dialers and progressive or predictive dialers can make reaching out to call lists en masse easy on your reps.

Call Recording and Transcription

If you want to improve your customer service, sales and marketing efforts, or lead generation, you need to know what you’re doing well and what needs work. Being able to record your calls and examine exactly what your reps are saying is an invaluable feature to have. 

When It Matters Most:

• Call centers – Recordings and transcriptions of calls are paramount to critiquing and training your reps, as well as having records in the case of any disputes. 

Easy Setup

This is the biggest concern for most business owners and call center managers. If the process to get started on a VoIP platform is complicated, how hard will using it be? We get it. Many of the providers we selected on this list make that as effortless as possible, but it’s always a sliding scale based on the complexity of the implementation and your own tech-savviness (as well as that of your team members). 

When It Matters Most:

• Remote work – Some providers specialize in creating remote working environments without hassle, while others assist remote workers through effective mobile apps. 
• Virtual phone numbers – Being able to add new numbers or port existing numbers should be simple and not laden with hidden costs or long waits. 
• Internal communication – Make sure a provider can easily implement all the features your team will use most to collaborate and stay connected. 

Collaboration

Features that let teams work together seamlessly (from anywhere) are crucial to an effective phone service. The specifics vary, depending on whether you’re leaning on your system for internal needs, external communications, or a bit of both.

When It Matters Most:

• Remote work – Look for the keys to keeping your team in the loops, such as teach chat, unlimited video calling for huddles and meetings, and file sharing. 
• Internal communication – You’re going to want the best rate for a full UCaaS package, one that encompasses everything from remote work tools and traditional voice calling to faxing, mobile apps, call management, and call flow tools.
• External communication – You’ll want the full array of features here, so that external parties can reach you and be reached in any form they prefer from video and voice to faxing and texting. 
• Call centers – Training and monitoring for quality are the things that help the most here, embodied in features like barge and whisper, as well as call recording and transcription. 

Keeping Your Number

Not every business wants to acquire a new or virtual number from their new VoIP phone service provider. Number porting should always be an option, though some providers make it easier or cheaper than others. 

When It Matters Most:

• Call centers – You’re going to lose a lot of trust if your help line or support center changes its number after customers have gotten used to dialing the old one. 
• External communication – Having a consistent number is what keeps the sales and recurring business coming in, just make sure internal transferring is a feature that’s offered and is easy to set up and manage. 

Worry-Free Reliability

This should be a given for all VoIP phone service providers, but it’s not always the case. Find a provider that offers the best security and reliability, backed by a strong SLA or guarantee.

When It Matters Most:

• External communication – Kind of obvious, of course, but any external communications with customers, clients, and other parties need stable connections and good call quality across voice and video.
• Call centers – The fastest way to get a bad reputation as a call center is to frustrate customers with calls that drop in the middle of resolution or where the quality is so poor that they just give up and hang up. 
• International calling – Why pay expensive international calling rates (or pay for a pricey separate plan) if calls you place to or receive from other countries are of terrible quality? 

Further Reading

Do you have a burning desire to learn more about business phone systems? Not sure if you know enough about virtual numbers or call center services? No sweat, we have a boatload of articles you can look at that explain all you need to know and more. They’re easy to read, too. Below you’ll find a master list of related articles so you can take a deep dive and become a pro on this category of products and services.