Is VoIP good for small business?
VoIP (or Voice over Internet Protocol) phone systems are perfect for small businesses. Don’t believe us? Just look at their history together.
Back in the day, small and mid-sized businesses didn’t have the budget and resources to buy, install, and manage the traditional on-premise business phone systems that big companies were using.
Because of this, they looked for alternatives that could give them the same benefits without going beyond their budget. One of the options they found was VoIP.
Bursting onto the scene in the 1990s, this technology lets people make long-distance and international calls at a much lower cost than making the calls through old-school phone networks.
Even the best VoIP phone systems are still more affordable than the cheapest traditional on-premise systems while matching (even outdoing!) these older, more expensive systems.
Suddenly, smaller companies could compete (and sometimes even win) against bigger companies—especially when it comes to communicating with customers.
What is VoIP and how can it benefit a business?
VoIP Definition
So how exactly does VoIP help smaller organizations communicate with customers better than big companies could?
First things first: let’s define what VoIP is.
Simply put, VoIP is the technology that lets you make and receive calls over the internet. You can use it from anywhere, whether you’re in a café, at home, or even away on a beach (as long as you have internet). You’re not tied to your desk the way you would be with regular landlines, which need the pre-installed copper wires that the public switched telephone network (PSTN) needs to work.
TL;DR - If you’re waiting for a call, you can’t go anywhere else when you’re using traditional phone lines. But that’s not a problem with Voice over IP.
When used for business, VoIP usually works with cloud PBX.
PBX is a phone technology that helps companies manage incoming phone calls by letting them send each call to the right person or department. Traditional (on-premise) PBX phone systems use physical phone lines that force you to stay in one location. Cloud PBX works via the internet—like VoIP does— so calls reach the right people, no matter where they're working.
Together, VoIP and cloud PBX form what businesses usually refer to as a VoIP phone system.
Benefits of a VoIP phone system to small businesses
What makes VoIP phone systems a perfect match to small businesses is the value it gives for your money.
This leads to a lot of cost-savings. For instance:
You don’t need to buy expensive hardware and equipment
If you’re working traditional on-premise phone systems, you need to buy expensive hardware and equipment (like multiple servers and PBX boxes). Worse, you have to hire experts to install, manage, and maintain them.
On-premise systems can get so expensive that only big corporations can afford to build one for their needs. A small business could try to build its own, but it would probably be so over budget that there would be no money left for anything else.
The good news is that you don’t have to build your own phone system. Modern VoIP phone systems are usually cloud-based. This means the whole service is hosted and managed by the provider in their own data center. From there, the system is delivered to your business through the internet. You don’t even have to worry about upgrades and updates—your VoIP provider takes care of them too.
You only pay for what you need
One of the biggest reasons why VoIP is good for small businesses is that you only pay for what you need.
- Per-user charges
VoIP providers usually charge customers on a monthly per-user plan, which means your monthly phone bill is based on how many VoIP users you have instead of all the minutes used by your entire company. - No surprise charges
Typically, there are no hidden costs in VoIP plans. With traditional systems, you’d think that you only need to worry about buying the hardware and software to run the system.
Surprise! In the long run, you get billed for firmware upgrades, replacement and upgrade of hardware parts, telecom charges (especially long-distance calls), and more.
With VoIP, you get a predictable monthly phone bill so it’s easier to plan your budget. You don’t have to worry about allocating budget to fix broken parts or wonder who made that five-hour long-distance call to Canada. (VoIP providers typically offer unlimited calling across the United States and Canada!) - No commitment
You’re not buying the VoIP phone system; you’re just subscribing to the service. This means you only pay for it as long as you’re using it. When you don’t need it anymore (or if you find a better alternative), you can simply cancel your subscription and move on.
You don’t have to use your personal mobile plans for business-related calls
Imagine you’re a real estate broker, a personal injury lawyer, or a sales executive who’s constantly out of the office.
If you’re not using VoIP, you won’t be able to make calls using your business phone number outside work because it’s tied to your office landline phone. So, you’re forced to use your personal cell phone number and your personal mobile plan gets charged.
If you’re using VoIP, you can use the VoIP provider’s softphone app to access your company phone number with either a laptop or a mobile device. There’s no need to use your own mobile minutes when you can use your official business phone number to call (or receive calls from) customers and clients.
You don’t need to pay extra for advanced features
Modern VoIP phone systems also give you call handling features that make it easier for you to communicate with customers.
With traditional landline phone systems, you have to pay extra for additional features. These include "advanced" landline features that are considered basic in modern VoIP systems, such as:
- caller ID
- call forwarding
- multiple caller options (three-way and conference calls)
- call screening and blocking
These features are usually included in your VoIP plans.
Then there are features that help small businesses project a more professional image by streamlining their call flow (basically the path that calls “travel” through your company’s PBX). Imagine having your incoming phone calls handled like this:
- An automated attendant starts with a pleasant professionally recorded greeting. Nothing says “big company” more than having your incoming calls answered like this.
- Callers are presented with a phone menu that lets them use their dialpad to find specific employees or departments. Based on the choice of the caller, their call will be sent to the right virtual extensions within your organization.
- These virtual phone extensions, like your business phone numbers, can also be accessed and used outside the office. This means that even if your employees are out of the office, calls can still be sent their way via their virtual extension.
- You can set custom messages or music-on-hold. This way, your customers won’t have to listen to dead air while they’re waiting for their calls to get picked up.
Bonus: You also don’t have to pay extra for other communication tools like video conferencing, business SMS, and virtual fax.
These are usually not included in traditional systems—you’d have to get a separate provider for each one, meaning more expenses. And you’re not even sure if they’re compatible with each other!
With a VoIP phone system, you get all the features you need from one platform, under one phone bill.
How much does VoIP service cost?
The best VoIP service for small businesses ultimately depends on what your business needs. Do you have employees who need to work outside the office? Do you have work-from-home people? Do you do a lot of long-distance or international calls? Maybe you don’t do many outbound calls but get a lot of incoming calls.
Those questions will dictate which VoIP service best serves your needs.
If you’re looking to VoIP, RingCentral is a solution that’s designed to help both big and small companies communicate more smoothly. The best thing? It fits seamlessly into how your business already operates.
What's the RingCentral VoIP phone system?
The RingCentral VoIP phone system is a secure and reliable cloud-based unified communications solution that includes enterprise-grade VoIP, cloud PBX, virtual faxing, business SMS, and online meetings, with over 50 communications and collaboration features.
Get started quickly with a new local or toll-free number or transfer your existing phone number to your new VoIP phone system. Curious about how it works? Take RingCentral for a spin via a free trial.
RingCentral MVP™* plans for your small business
PAY ANNUALLY AND SAVE UP TO 40%
Standard
- No limit on number of users
- Business phone numbers in over 100 countries
- Unlimited internet fax
- Unlimited audio conferencing
- Video meetings with up to 100 participants
- Up to 24-hour meeting duration
- Quality-of-service reports
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Popular integrations including
Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack,
and more - 24/7 support
Premium
Message, Video, Phone, Open API
- Automatic call recording
- Single Sign-on
- Multi-site admin and management
- Up to 8-digit extensions with site codes
- Hot desking
- Advanced call handling including whisper, barge, and more
- Video meetings with up to 200 participants
- Real-time analytics
- Popular CRM integrations with Salesforce, Zendesk, and more
- Industry-specific integrations with Canvas, Smarsh, and more
- Developer platform and custom integrations
Compare plans
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Most popular
Not available
Essentials
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Standard
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Best value
Premium
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UltimateContact sales Contact sales View Demo |
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Pricing
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Annually: $19.99/user/mo
Monthly: $29.99/user/mo |
Annually: $27.99/user/mo
Monthly: $37.99/user/mo |
Annually: $34.99/user/mo
Monthly: $44.99/user/mo |
Annually: $49.99/user/mo
Monthly: $59.99/user/mo |
Business phone or toll-free numbers
One phone number for calling, team messaging,
and video
meetings access.
Each user gets a dedicated phone number at no additional cost. Essentials
edition doesn't include video meetings.
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Toll-free
minutes
Inbound Toll-free
minutes
Included minute allotment varies by tier. Toll-free minutes
are pooled across the account, regardless of number of lines. Additional minutes available for purchase.
Learn
more
Included minute allotment varies by tier. Toll-free minutes
are pooled across the account, regardless of number of lines. Additional minutes available for purchase.
Learn
more
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Unlimited calls within the US/Canada**
Unlimited calling/phone calls within the US
and CA. Plus, choose from affordable and convenient international calling plans
that fit your business. Terms and conditions may apply.
Learn more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Enhanced Business SMS
Designed to meet latest carrier requirements and improve deliverability. Included SMS allotment
varies by tier. Additional SMS available for purchase. Available upon request.
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Voicemail-to-text
Automatically convert voicemail messages into text form so users can screen
messages easily and respond to the most important call first.
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Visual voicemail and voicemail-to-email
Access voicemail messages from your desk and
mobile phones, email, desktop app, and online account.
Learn
more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Team messaging
Collaborate more effectively with colleagues,
clients, and contractors with team messaging, task assignment, calendar sharing,
and more. Also, utilize out-of-the-box integrations with Jira, Asana, Box,
Google Drive, OneDrive, and more.
Learn
more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Document sharing
Access
documents and files stored on your computer or your Google Drive, Box, OneDrive,
and Dropbox accounts and easily share them with your team members.
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Call management and phone system
administration Sophisticated call management, enabling you
to configure your phone system across the entire company, regardless of location
or device. Optimize communication with custom admin and user configurations
online or using the mobile app.
Call management features include:
*Not available with Essentials.
Learn
more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Mobile apps for iOS and Android
Whether you're an Apple or Android user, you can use your smartphones and
tablets to make and receive calls, join and host meetings,
team message coworkers and partners, send and receive faxes and texts, set up
and join conferences, and configure phone system settings, notifications, and
voicemail.
Learn
more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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High-definition (HD) voice
To consistently deliver the highest HD quality possible, RingCentral utilizes
the Opus Interactive codec for audio and video, as well as the G.722 codec for
audio.
Learn more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Call log reports
Get a complete record of all your inbound and
outbound calls and faxes. View the name of the caller, the number or extension
dialed, as well as the time, date, and duration of the call.
Learn
more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Phone rental options: desk and
conference phones Rent any desk phone or conference phone for a
low monthly price.
Contact sales for details and pricing.
Learn
more
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Add Video Pro and Video Pro+ users
Administrators can add Video Pro and Video
Pro+ users from within MVP.
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Unlimited internet fax
Send and receive faxes from your computer, mobile device, Microsoft Outlook,
cloud storage providers (such as Dropbox), and more.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Unlimited audio conferencing
Host an
unlimited number of audio conference calls, with up to 1,000 attendees per
conference. Each user gets unique host and participant access codes.
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Video meetings and participants
Hold video meetings with screen sharing,
in-meeting public and private chat capabilities—anytime, anywhere, on any
device.
Maximum
number of participants varies by the video platform:
Premium with RingCentral Video (up to 200) Standard with RingCentral Video (up to 100) |
Available as an add-on
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Up to 100 people
per video meeting
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Up to 200 people
per video meeting
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Up to 200 people
per video meeting
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High-definition (HD) video
RingCentral delivers crystal-clear HD quality video and voice.
Learn more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Quality-of-service reports
Gain the ability to proactively review
overall RingCentral system health and diagnose quality issues impacting users. A
holistic overview of quality measured by location, endpoint, codec, ISP, and
more enables
easier monitoring and faster troubleshooting.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Popular integrations including Microsoft 365,
Google Workspace, Slack, and more
RingCentral offers the largest ecosystem of integration apps in the
communications and collaboration space to maximize productivity and efficiency.
Get integrations for bots, AI, analytics, archiving, automation, productivity,
and more.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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24/7 support
Unlimited chat and phone support.
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Multi-level auto attendant
Answer callers automatically with customized
greetings, and ensure every call is directed to the right employee or
department.
Learn
more
Auto-attendant is a virtual receptionist
service that greets your callers and routes them to employees, departments, or
to any phone in the world (i.e. an employee's mobile phone, an office deskphone,
or a virtual phone on the RingCentral app).
With the multi-level auto attendant feature, you can create rules to handle
incoming calls for multiple office locations or language selections. For
example:
“Press 1 for our New York office. 2 for Chicago office. 3 for Los Angeles
office.” OR
“Press 1 for English. Marque 2 para Español.”
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Professional implementation
Get the most out of RingCentral with a
portfolio of professional and personalized services, ranging from planning,
designing, and implementation to project management, ongoing support, and
consulting.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Call recording
Automatic call recording: Set your
RingCentral phone system to automatically record inbound and outbound calls for
individual users or inbound calls for departments.
On-demand call recording: Allows Users to
manually record phone calls anytime using an IP Phone provisioned with
RingCentral, Forwarding Number, or RingCentral Phone for Mobile.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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On-demand
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Automatic
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Automatic
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Compatible with RingCentral Rooms™ (add-on)
Turn any space into a conference room.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Compatible with RingCentral Room Connector (add-on)
Room Connector allows room conferencing systems on legacy hardware with SIP-based endpoints (third party endpoints) to connect and access video meetings on RingCentral.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Single Sign-on
Users can log in to RingCentral automatically with their corporate credentials.
Reduce the IT cost of assisting in password recovery and benefit from a central
authentication point that securely accesses your RingCentral service from any
device.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Multi-site admin and management
Get the flexibility to manage and support
your branch offices based on their unique operational needs.
Learn
more
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Up to 8-digit extensions with site codes
Simplified intra-site dialing for large multi-site customers.
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Hot desking
Allows users to log in to shared phones to access their own RingCentral
extensions, voicemail and greetings, and other features.
Hot desking lets employees share office desk phones while keeping their separate
extensions, greetings and voicemail access.
It enables companies to save costs of desk phones while still letting their employees remain productive. |
Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Advanced call handling including whisper, barge,
and more
Advanced call management controls (monitor,
whisper, barge, takeover) to allow authorized users to listen in on employee
calls with clients to monitor the conversation, provide coaching, and facilitate
discussion.
Other
features include overflow call queues, user groups, and role-based access
control with customized roles/permissions.
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Real-time analytics
Gain
real-time insights into your RingCentral system and gather business-relevant
data, alerts, and reporting metrics.
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Popular CRM integrations with Salesforce, Zendesk, and more
Bring the functions and features of
RingCentral MVP into your business apps such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Microsoft
Dynamics, ServiceNow, etc.
Learn more
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Industry-specific integrations with Canvas, Smarsh, and more
Bring the functions and features of
RingCentral MVP into your vertical's business apps such as Canvas, Smarsh, etc.
Learn more
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Developer platform and custom integrations
RingCentral APIs let you create your own
custom applications and seamlessly integrate business communications into your
key business processes, so you can automate workflows, drive efficiency, and
gain valuable
insight from communications data.
Visit
Developer Portal
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Included in plan
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Device status reports
Monitor
hard phone registration status globally and gain visibility into your devices'
history.
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Device status alerts
Set up
automated monitoring rules and receive notifications when devices are offline.
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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Unlimited storage***
Store an unlimited* amount of documents, spreadsheets, presentation files,
contracts,
invoices, images, videos, and recordings.
*Retention period applies.
Store an unlimited* amount of content within your RingCentral app. This could be
documents, spreadsheets, presentation files, contracts, invoices, images, or
videos that you send as attachments within messages; or these could be the
recordings of your video meetings.
*Retention period applies. |
Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Available as an add-on
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Included in plan
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The search for the world’s easiest meetings platform is over.
Our opportunities for connection have increased 5x, and in a mere 14 months we’ve achieved ROI of 35% cost savings with RingCentral.
Since we replaced the landline phones across our locations with RingCentral, we’re already seeing a cost saving of 20%.
RingCentral has dramatically improved our efficiency and customer service. We’ve added 10% to our bottom line, easily, and reduced employee stress levels!
