As more small business owners look to cut costs and maximize productivity in the most complex time to be alive, RingCentral VoIP services have become the talk of the town. It’s one of the top VoIP providers on the market today and looks to stand the test of time. So, what makes RingCentral VoIP better than the competition, and how much can you expect to pay for their VoIP phone system?
We’re going to analyze the features that come with each plan. RingCentral has four plans that each add unique features and business VoIP capabilities. We’ll walk you through each level and wrap it up with a discussion on pricing so that you can make the right decision for your small business.
What Is VoIP?
If you haven’t used Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to make and receive calls before, you’re in for a treat! VoIP lets you make calls over the internet, and you can do this on any internet-connected device, including your mobile device or desktop computer. Obviously, this gives you some clear advantages, particularly flexibility and freedom.
But that’s just the first page of the epic book of VoIP. The internet allows you to do much more with your phone calls than you ever could with a traditional phone company. You can get useful insights from analytics about your calls, implement advanced call management systems with just a few clicks, and add new lines in seconds.
VoIP gives you the power to run your small business the way you want to without having to depend on the phone company. There’s a reason more people are switching to RingCentral office and opting for a business VoIP phone system. It’s cheaper, more powerful, and it’s easy to use.
How Does RingCentral Compare to Other VoIP Providers?
We’ve done some deep comparisons of the top VoIP providers for 2021, so go check those out if you’d like to contrast what RingCentral has to offer with other services. There are now tons of VoIP providers, which is good for you because it means you benefit from the increased competition on the market.
RingCentral is highly rated and has an impeccable track record for both uptime and customer service. Its closest competitor is Nextiva, a VoIP phone system provider that has very similar features and pricing. You could also compare options like Dialpad or 8×8 to find similar VoIP phone systems.
But no two VoIP systems are the same. RingCentral provides several features and perks that other companies don’t. We’ll be focusing strictly on the RingCentral Office phone system and leaving some of their other products for another day.
Features of RingCentral’s VoIP Phone Service
Like any VoIP phone service, RingCentral Office comes in several different flavors. Each tier unlocks additional features for your business phone system. You may not need all of those features, so the best thing to do is to compare the plans and look at what your business needs. Determine which features are right for you, and how much you’re willing to spend.
RingCentral offers four levels of VoIP service, namely their Essentials, Standard, Premium, and Ultimate plans. Each plan includes all of the features of the plans below it, so you’re never forced to choose between one set of features and another.
We’ll start with what you get with the Essentials plan and work our way up until we reach the Ultimate VoIP phone system.
Virtual Phone Numbers Galore
Like the ancient Chinese proverb says, your business is nothing without a phone number. When you have a business phone number you’re letting the world know that you’re professional and know how to keep your personal affairs separate from your business endeavors. The only thing more professional than one phone number is to have multiple business phone numbers.
That’s exactly what RingCentral Office Essentials gives you. Each user that you pay for will get their own virtual phone number. You can use these virtual phone numbers just like regular numbers, meaning that anyone can call them, and incoming calls are free. You can make outgoing calls from any device as long as you use the RingCentral app. There’s a mobile app and desktop version, so any device can be a phone!
If you need additional numbers, perhaps an international phone number for overseas customers, you can add them to your account at an additional monthly cost.
Unified Communications Platform
Phone numbers are great for your clients, but what about your employees? You don’t honestly expect your workers to call each other these days, do you? Well, RingCentral VoIP calls are just one way your workers can keep in touch.
RingCentral’s app gives you unlimited business SMS between your coworkers. You can even create messaging groups and employees can message one another privately to gossip about Karen during work hours. Within the app, you can access all of your communication tools, including phone calls, video calls (if you have the Standard plan), and business SMS, all under one roof.
Best of all, this feature isn’t limited to your paid users. Suppose you have an office of 15 people but only want to pay for four people to have virtual numbers and all the VoIP features. You can still invite the other 11 to use the unified communications platform as guests, who can then send messages and join calls made by your paid users.
Free Toll-Free Phone Numbers
Nothing makes you feel as good as getting something for free. Give your clients that warm, fuzzy sensation when they use your toll free numbers. RingCentral includes a free toll-free number with any account and gives you a certain amount of toll-free minutes depending on the plan. The essentials plan, admittedly, doesn’t give you much: only 100 minutes.
As you upgrade your plan, you’ll see that number rise to 1,000, 2,500, and 10,000 minutes depending on the plan you opt for. Not only do toll-free numbers make your business look like a big deal, but they also encourage customers to call. Just make sure they don’t waste all your toll-free minutes talking about their day: it’s not a therapy line.
Unlimited Calling on Any Device
We mentioned that incoming calls to your business phone numbers are free, but what about outgoing calls? RingCentral VoIP phone calls are completely free and unlimited within the US and Canada. If you need to call internationally, you can add on packages for specific countries or regions to get unlimited calls in those areas, too!
It doesn’t matter what device you use, either. Your mobile device can take calls as long as it has an internet connection. Likewise, you can use your computer to make calls using the desktop app. And if you absolutely refuse to install yet another app on your PC, you can just log into the RingCentral website and use their web browser software.
No more long-distance rates set by the phone company. No more wondering if this call will cost you more than it’ll earn you. You just get unlimited calling and unlimited business SMS to anyone in the US and Canada. What’s not to love?
Empower Your Small Business With Standard
The Essentials plan is only available to small business customers that have 20 users or less. What about those medium-sized businesses that have more employees that need VoIP service? Time to step up to the Standard plan.
The Standard plan adds several smaller features, like unlimited internet faxing, and opens up a world of possibilities with international numbers in over 100 countries. You’ll get more support from RingCentral as well. There are a few other features that deserve more attention.
Video Conferencing
These days it’s impossible to do business without some form of video conferencing. If you’re already paying another company, like Zoom, for video calls, consider switching to RingCentral to get everything from a single VoIP provider. Less is more, as they say.
With RingCentral’s standard plan, you can have up to 100 participants on your video calls. Meetings can last for up to 24 hours, so you can binge the entirety of Arrested Development together as a team.
If you’re having a bad hair day, you can also use audio conferencing as much as you’d like. These conference calls are a great way to keep the team in touch without the pressure of turning cameras on and worrying about whether your spouse will saunter into view behind you.
Software Integrations
One of the coolest features of a VoIP system is the ability to integrate your phone system with other software that you use. For example, let’s say that you keep all of your contacts organized in Google Contacts. You’d love to be able to call them with a single click, right?
Well, with integrations, that’s exactly what you can do. You can download plugins that work with web browsers like Chrome and connect your Google Drive account to your RingCentral VoIP account and now you can call your contacts in seconds. RingCentral integrates with other programs too, like Microsoft 365 or Slack.
More integrations become available with the Premium plan, but the ones you get with Standard are probably good enough for most small business customers.
RingCentral VoIP Premium
All of these features sound pretty nifty, but wouldn’t it be even better if you could just throw your desk phone into the trash and switch to an IP phone? Would you like to keep your extensions and handle calls between multiple offices? Are you looking for the best cloud communications technology to take your business to the next level?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then it’s time to go Premium. This tier of RingCentral VoIP phone service gives you features you probably didn’t even know existed. Aside from additions to your toll-free minutes, better team messaging, and extended online meetings, Premium gives you access to cloud-based calling features.
Call Management Features
If you’re considering the Premium plan, odds are your business has grown to the point where you need more powerful site admin and management. RingCentral knows this and has designed its cloud communications platform for just such a situation. You can configure call forwarding to route calls to the right location according to variables such as the area code of the caller.
You can even set up a multi-level auto-attendant that will answer calls for you and use call forwarding to send the call to the right person based on what your caller inputs in the menu. If you have two different locations that need different call management rules, you can do that with multi-site admin by just logging into your admin account.
You’ll also get quality of service reports so that you can analyze your call management and make adjustments accordingly. Show me a traditional phone system that can do that. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Advanced Call Features
As if being able to make and receive calls with no long-distance fees weren’t enough, RingCentral went ahead and added even more calling features to its Premium plan. Enjoy real-time analytics that listens to your calls and identifies trends so that you can optimize your call workflow. Automatic call recording is enabled for every call so that you can review them for quality assurance.
Call recording works by saving your calls in cloud-based storage, which RingCentral includes with its Premium plan. Be advised that your cloud storage is not unlimited at this level, so you may want to set up some rules to avoid accidentally filling up your cloud storage and paying overage fees. For instance, deleting any call after 30 days could be a good way to keep your storage bill at zero.
Business Phone System
Desk phones are so lame. They don’t do anything special, and most of them are clunky and confusing to use. Wouldn’t it be great to have a more modern, even futuristic phone with a touch screen and internet connectivity? VoIP phones like these exist, and you can swap out your desk phones with these powerful IP phone models when you use RingCentral Premium. All you need is an internet connection for each phone. Some work over Wi-Fi, while others are Ethernet only.
In either case, you can add them to your system and configure calls to your virtual phone number to go directly to your IP phone. Not only does this make switching to a VoIP phone service easier for older employees, but it can actually improve your office productivity. VoIP phones can provide useful contact information, notes about previous calls, and have handy call forwarding features at your fingertips. Instead of taping a list of extensions to the wall, you can simply tap an icon for a coworker and transfer a call in seconds.
Cloud Communications and Cloud PBX
These new and improved desk phones work by using what’s called a Cloud PBX. A PBX is a private branch exchange, which is how you currently get extensions from your phone company. They run a phone line to your building and then “branch” it into several lines within your “private” business, thus “exchanging” the call from a public network to a private one.
A cloud-based PBX does exactly the same thing, just online. When someone calls your virtual number, the Cloud PBX can route that call to wherever you want, even adding extensions so that your callers can reach the exact device they desire. You could have an extension for your mobile device, another for your desk phone, and still another for your tablet at your beach house.
Cloud communications are definitely the future of phone service. Every phone system will be on the cloud before long, so upgrade yours now.
Unlimited Call Recording With Ultimate
You’ve made your list and checked it twice, and you still feel like something is missing. You want the ultimate business communications experience. You don’t want to be limited by anything, not even your imagination or the laws of physics. RingCentral Ultimate is the plan for you.
This phone system has unlimited everything. You get so much cloud storage that the planet Venus gets jealous. All the team messaging and software integrations you could ever want. Video meetings with hundreds of participants. It’s all yours.
Pricing Comparison
You can have it all, but at what cost? RingCentral plans cost anywhere from $19.99 per user per month to $49.99 per user per month for the Ultimate plan. This includes the discount for paying annually.
If you add more users, the price does drop. However, this only happens after 100 users and at that point, you’re probably better off calling the RingCentral sales team and trying to negotiate better rates directly. For better business communications, you do need to be willing to spend some money, but you can definitely get a better deal as a bigger business.
Nevertheless, the RingCentral VoIP phone system is sure to save your business money compared to the phone company, and it’ll give you the tools to succeed in 2021.
