RingCentral
Reduce overhead costs with a virtual office assistant.
Summary
RingCentral, a popular provider of telephone communications tools, has taken the time to "do it right.” RingCentral offers virtual phone service- primarily for small businesses to make their operations run more smoothly. Their website is easy to navigate and contains not only a listing of features, but helpful screenshots. Pricing is reasonable and the system’s adaptability is unsurpassed.
RingCentral acts as a virtual receptionist- managing all of the calls and faxes that come through your office. This reduces overhead and allows employees to concentrate on more important work. In other words, RingCentral is a virtual call center manager, a PBX on steroids.
Recently, RingCentral added VoIP for their system. They call it “DigitalLine.” An adaptor comes free and competitive VoIP rates apply.
From the CEO to the newest employee, everyone will find RingCentral to be a valuable asset. Give your small businesses a stronger position in the marketplace with the resources of a larger company.
Pros
It is such a pleasure to write about a company who has a well-designed program, and who has carefully considered the user’s perspective and needs. Accolades to RingCentral!
- Keen sense of small business needs
- Consumer value at an affordable price
- Perfect for small businesses
- This project began development in 1993 and has evolved via feedback during several beta trials
- Rave reviews of new DigitalLine VoIP
- Extensive list of features and benefits
- Customer service via online live chat
Cons
- Not recommended for residential users
Calling Plans & Expense
RingCentral is offering a free 7-day trial. There is a generous savings to be had when you pay for service a year at a time, rather than monthly. Graduated plans enable a fledgling business to afford the service as easily as a larger one. In fact, they hope that by presenting the plans in four levels, businesses can afford to add on as they grow.
Choose betwen four different plans, depending on the needs of your business. The most noticeable difference between each is the number of long distance minutes. All but the Professional package share the extensive features indicated below.
- Professional package is $9.99 per month with a year’s contract, or $14.99 month-to-month. 100 minutes of long distance monthly.
- Business Plus is $24.99 per month with a year's contract, or $29.99 month-to-month. 500 minutes of long distance monthly.
- Business Power is $44.99 per month with a year's contract, or $49.99 month-to-month. 1000 minutes of long distance monthly.
- Business Premium is $79.99 per month with a year's contract, or $99.99 month-to-month. 2500 minutes of long distance monthly.
Features
RingCentral is jam-packed with modifiable features and is one of the comprehensive packages of its kind available. You can expect the following with your subscription:
- Integrates with MS Office for calling and faxing
- Click on a contact in your Outlook address book to ring their number
- Highlight any number, even on a webpage and click to connect
- Multiple phone number options- keep existing, new 800-number, vanity number
- PBX gives the service greater flexibility
- Fax-on-demand
- Dial-by-name directory
- Programmable according to: answering rules, forwarding rules, routing rules, call screening, transferring, text reply, message alerts, music or promotional “on-hold” backgrounds and personalized greetings
- Incoming/outgoing call logs
- Calling card capabilities
- DigitalLine VoIP add-on.
The list is so extensive it's impossible to share them all here. Here is a brief glimpse of the other innovative features you can expect.
- The “Find Me” feature will route your calls to as many as four different numbers.
- In a noisy environment? Use “Call Screen” to send the call to voicemail.
- The fax system can block spam numbers.
- The free SoftPhone feature allows you to record and store any conversation. Recorded conversations can even be emailed.
- Customers can click on a phone link on your Web Page, and be connected to your office.
Common Misspellings
Ring Central, RingsCentral, RungCentral, RingCentrall
Michele: I use RingCentral and for at least two weeks they were unable to send (cell) text notifications to Verizon users. As a small businessperson, their core market, I depend on these notifications. They blame Verizon for being unable to resolve this issue and tell you to contact Verizon to open a trouble ticket. Verizon told me they cannot open a ticket for a problem between two businesses and that the common problem with blocked messages is either with RingCentral's code or software. RingCental has to meet Verizon guidelines in their effort to fight fraud, hackers and viruses, not the other way around. I'm also unable to receive RC's email messages to my secure server which probably means they're on a spam list and another area I have to troubleshoot. And an additional problem are faxes I stored at RingCentral are now missing and their solution is for me to contact everyone and re-fax. Nightmare. Expensive hours wasted. Needless to say I'm looking for another service provider.
Mike: Michele: We love RingCentral! We use their Virtual Phone Service in conjunction with their DigitalLine VoIP and don't know what we would do without them. We learned about RingCentral from a PC Magazine article (they received Editors' Choice). And their support has been great too!
