In a Nutshell
pros
- Superior voice quality
- Mobile and desktop calling apps
- Affordable international calling rates
cons
- Some features that are standard elsewhere require upgrading
- Call recording is only on the advanced plan and 15 hrs/month max
Vonage Business Cloud for SMBs
For a small- or medium-sized business, any Vonage Business Cloud package will come with a standard set of features that will improve telecommunications capabilities without breaking the bank. These include: unlimited calling, bandwidth, and SMS messages, as well as 99.999% uptime and clear, premium voice quality which makes great use of Vonage’s massive telecommunications infrastructure. Every plan also comes with the VonageFlow team messaging feature, which means that even a small company with only a few VoIP lines can get all of its employees sharing files and communicating by group chat and voice or video calls.
Vonage Business Cloud Plans and Prices
Includes Mobile Plan plus: CRM integrations, Call recording, Amazon Chime, Multi-level auto attendant
* all prices listed are per phone line per month on the 1-4 lines plan. With each plan, as the number of phone lines increases the per line price decreases.
What’s included in each Vonage Business Cloud plan?
Mobile Plan
The entry-level mobile plan, starting at $19.99 per month per user, comes with a set number of features including unlimited calls and SMS, the Vonage Flow team messaging system, and desktop and mobile apps. It should be enough for a small company that doesn’t need features like auto attendant or video-conferencing, which are more suited to larger businesses with more employees and a higher volume of calls.
Premium Plan
If you’re only using 1-4 lines, moving from the mobile to premium plan will cost you an additional $10 per line per month. This is pricier, but it means you can take advantage of additional features like auto attendant and video conferencing. The premium plan also allows you to take advantage of all of Vonage’s business software integrations such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and G Suite.
Advanced Plan
The advanced plan, starting at $39.99 per month per user,And if you are running an Ecommerce store, the Vonage Advanced plan offers an AI-based chat support bot to help customers get the information they need to make a purchase.
Vonage Advanced also has call groups, so you can forward calls to up to 28 separate extensions at the same time or in sequence. A valuable tool if you deal with a large volume of customer calls that you need to send to multiple associates simultaneously.
You will also get Vonage visual voicemail. Now, this isn’t a hologram that pops up and reads you a voicemail, rather, it’s a service that transcribes your voicemails into text and then emails them to you—a great way to keep documentation of voice communications that you can easily refer to, or search through, later on.
Vonage Enterprise
For larger, enterprise-level companies, Vonage provides an extended, feature-rich plan that includes video conferencing and a long list of unified communications tools to help bigger operations create the telecommunications platform they need.
Vonage Enterprise VoIP Plans
Enterprise Basic Includes
- Local telephone number
- Unlimited calls & SMS
- Authentication
- Call return
- Call forwarding
- 3-way call
- Basic call logs
- Call trace
- Privacy
- Call number delivery
- Unlimited team messaging
- Vonage app center
Enterprise UC - Includes Enterprise Basic features plus
- Unlimited video conferencing for up to 100 participants
- Multi-level auto attendant
- CRM software integrations (Bullhorn, G-Suite, Hubspot, Office 365, Salesforce, Sugar CRM, Zendesk, Clio, Connectwise, JobDiva, Microsoft Dynamics, and Zoho)
- IP desk phone capability
Enterprise Plus - Includes Enterprise UC features plus
- Visual voicemail
- Anonymous call rejection
- Automatic call back
- Busy lamp field
- Call forwarding selective
- Customer admin portal
- Directed call pickup
- Unified messaging
- User portal
- Virtual numbers
- Vonage “Anywhere”
- Hoteling guest
- Hoteling host
- Portal call management
- Push to talk
- Last number redial
- Sequential ring
- Remote office
- Shared call appearance
- Simultaneous ring
- Call recording on-demand (15 hours)
*With local TN included per customer with purchase of at least one Enterprise Plus seat. Additional charges may apply for multiple hunt groups and auto-attendants.
What’s included in each Vonage Enterprise plan?
All Enterprise plans include a number of other features standard, including basic call logs, call forwarding, and 3-way calling.
The Enterprise Plus plan is the most extensive option. It is the only way to make use of a number of essential features such as auto attendant, hunt groups, a mobile connect softphone, and the mobile connect collaborate tool, which allows desktop sharing for up to 8 participants.
You can add a number of additional features to your enterprise plan, including conferencing for up to 300 associates, call recording, HD video conferencing, digital fax mail, speech-recognition based directory, and more.
Ease of Setup and Use
Setting up Vonage Business Cloud is fairly simple. If you buy Vonage pre-configured phones, either through Vonage or second hand, then you can use the plug-and-play set up and start pretty much straight away. You’ll be invited to schedule setup with a Vonage technician who guides new clients through the onboarding process. Before the remote startup appointment, Vonage will ask for some details about your network to help make it all run smoothly. If you use existing Vonage-compatible phones that aren’t branded Vonage phones, it will take a bit longer and might require an IT technician to reconfigure the phones to suit Vonage requirements.
Once you have the initial setup complete, Vonage Business Cloud administrators can continue to manage settings and options for all of the lines via the admin portal.
The admin portal is accessible both on the desktop and the mobile app via an intuitive dashboard, so administrators can adjust settings and check up on usage on the go. Regular users can also change their settings, default call forwarding options, and make other changes via both the desktop and mobile dashboard.
Customer Support
Vonage provides a high level of customer support through a US-based customer service team. You can get in touch 24/7 via phone or email as well as using the ticketed customer support system, although there's no live chat. The customer service staff are well trained and happy to help. Vonage also provides an extensive FAQ section for initial troubleshooting and the administrative portal on desktop and mobile permits round the clock changes to settings and configurations.
Vonage - In Its Own Words
A query sent out on the Vonage ticketed customer support system on a weekday morning was answered within seconds by a company representative who seemed eager to talk about the product. The rep was helpful, informative, and was able to quickly and thoroughly answer each question.
When asked what sets the company apart from the competition, the rep said that no matter which plan you use, Vonage provides “+40 powerful features for you to have a reliable business communication set-up for your customers.” In response to a query about the quality of the phone calls, the rep said “Vonage Business was built with this in mind so reliability and quality is our number one goal! We provide true digital sound through IP phones that are designed for cloud-hosted VoIP.”
He added that all plans on mobile are month-to-month with no contract.
The representative described Vonage as a company that specializes in small business solutions with “features designed to benefit different industries.”
About Vonage - The Company
Headquartered in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, Vonage was founded in 2001 as a residential telecommunications provider but today is focused on using its cloud-based telecoms solutions to help businesses “collaborate more productively and engage their customers more effectively across messaging, chat, social media, video, and voice."
In recent years, the company has won a number of industry awards, including:
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TMCnet’s 2018 product of the year award,
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The 2018 UC Today most innovative product award, and
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A 2018 Channel Partners Circle of Excellence award.
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Bottom Line
Vonage products are designed for the needs of growing businesses from small to large. Starting at an introductory level it provides high-quality phone services, inexpensive international phone call rates, and 40 business-friendly features. Its month-by-month payment plans make it possible for customers to leap into the Vonage Business Cloud without feeling locked in. Vonage has earned its place as a leader in business communications—with a wealth of industry awards to show for it—and is a solid choice for almost any business from small to large.
