Let us start off by saying that we don’t feel that there is one “right” virtual phone system for everyone. With that said, we have rated the systems we have reviewed and provided an “editors pick”, however that does not mean that RingCentral should be the system that everyone picks as their virtual phone system.

Now, I know some of you may be saying… “WOW, how do I ever decide on the right virtual phone system for my business then?”   Well, you need to take into account the many variables of your current business situation, as well as your future goals and plans for your business.  For example, what importance does budget play in your decision?  Again, I’m sure you are asking, “Well isn’t budget important to everyone?”, and our answer would be “yes”, and “no”.  It’s important to most everyone to stay within a budget however, for some people, they are going to be willing and able to pay quite a bit more for a virtual phone system, if it has the one or two very key features that they know they absolutely must have in order to run their business both now and in the near future.  It may also be a case of wanting to know they are going with an industry leader, with a proven track record of stability, security, and reliability, such as what you get with VirtualPBX.  Again, paying more for that peace of mind, may be well worth it to many businesses.  You certainly can’t argue with that, and a provider like VirtualPBX will definately provide that, as well as some of the most advanced features available.

For some businesses however, they may want to try out a virtual phone system first to see if it really provides the features they need/want, is cost-justifiable, and it’s customer service lives up to their expectations.  For them, the lower cost, free trial/money back guarantee is going to be a deciding factor.

Many very small businesses, want to be very sure of what they are getting before committing to a product or service that they can’t get their investment back from.  With a month to month (make sure you don’t commit to a year long contract in this case) agreement, no activation fees, and a free trial or money back guarantee you can definitely “kick the tires” of a plan before making that long term commitment and being out any money.

And for yet others, it’s strictly the features that will drive their decision.  Maybe they absolutely need to have the “click to call” button functionality to integrate into their website, or they have a mid-sized call center that they must have the true ACD queuing enabled for.  These features will drive their decision in one direction or another.

So as you can see, there is no one right answer for every business.  What we have attempted to do is review and compare the plans of what we feel are the best providers in the space right now, and then provide our ratings and recommendations based on a few guidelines we’ll outline here:

• We feel that in the very small to small business market space it’s important that a provider not charge a setup/activation fee.  This kind of fee is largely going by the wayside and providers still clinging to charging these types of fees need to “let it go”.  It just doesn’t ring (yes, pun intended ) the right bells for the small business owner.
• Free trials or money back guarantees are much more likely to entice a small business owner or especially a very small business owner to “kick the tires” and hopefully stay with a provider of this type of service.  In today’s tight economy it’s especially hard for the very small and small business owner to justify money on new expenses, however we are convinced that once you try this type of service you will wonder how you ever managed without it.
• The customer service provided by the vendor, as well as the look & feel and information provided on their website is a good indicator of what you can expect from them going forward, and via their user interface.  If it’s poor before you buy, odd’s are it isn’t going to improve much after you are a paying customer.  If they don’t invest much effort in attracting users to their website, and provide little or sketchy information on their features, odds are their user interface for their product itself will not be alot better.
• Features. We feel that if a vendor is providing a feature rich product, at a reasonable cost, with a free trial, good customer service, no setup fee, and you steer clear of the year long pricing commitment, it is worth ranking high on our “kick the tires”, “give it a whirl”, “what do you have to lose?”, recommendation list.

In the end only you, as the decision maker for your business can make the final decision on which provider/plan best suites your needs.  However we hope that the information we have provided here, will help you along that decision path.

To your Business Success!