Need a VoIP phone service provider? I recommend Jive, AirCall, 8x8, or Dialpad. Avoid RingCentral

I spent 3½ years administering a RingCentral VoIP system of 15–20 lines. I would say they are ok. They are definitely feature-rich, with a decent mobile client and a partnership with Zoom for video conferencing. Coupled with the non-profit discount we negotiated, it was reasonably priced. However ease-of-use—both for the administration and the end users—was mediocre at best. And I spent far too long trying to work out all of the quality of service (QoS) issues with the network to ensure that calls were rock solid. Their technical support was underwhelming when it came to helping me troubleshoot and fix that.

But the number one reason why I recommend you go with another vendor* is because they are purposefully deceitful with their billing. Granted I had billing issues that I needed to contact them to resolve, including overcharges and fraudulent long distance. Unfortunately that seems to be par for the course with telecom companies. But they take it to the next level.

RingCentral adds an item to the bill called Compliance and Administrative Cost Recovery Fee. It is placed in the list of charges that include Emergency 911 Service Fee, Federal Universal Service Recovery Fee and State and Local Taxes. So you’d be forgiven for presuming this was of that ilk. However if you dig into the fine print, they make it quite clear: “The CRF is not a tax, nor is it mandated by any level of government or government agency.”

Now granted, this additional charge is not a lot of money. However just the fact that a company would deceive it’s customers by boosting profits by burying standard costs of doing business in with the mandated fees shows just what they think about their customers and acceptable business practices. This puts them squarely in the realm of telcom companies like Comcast, Charter, AT&T and Verizon. Comcast does this sort of thing and they are routinely crowned the Worst Company in America.

Unfortunately switching costs for your phone service are high, so unless they do something truly awful, my org will likely be locked into using them. But if you haven’t made the decision yet, or if you are small enough that you can switch without much pain, definitely check out Jive or a few other alternatives.

* I’ll say up front that this might just be a pet peeve overreaction on my part; use your own judgement.

Comments

[Mickelson]

Dave, thanks for the insight. I agree the fees across the entire industry can sometimes be high, but in fairness, this fee does seem to have been listed on all of the quotes, from the time before signing, as well as initial contract (in checking my files). I have also evaluated or utilized a few other cloud telephony systems in my tenure, and most other companies like 8x8, Jive, Mitel etc all charge for these. While the fees can be high, I've actually been pretty happy with RingCentral's service and rate of innovation, and have had far less problems with them than I have had with some of the others.