As a small business owner, deciding on your phone service is an important choice. If you’re looking at big-name providers, you’ve probably come across Ooma’s business phone service, Ooma Office.
This service uses the increasingly popular cloud-based VoIP technology. Instead of relying on traditional copper wires to send your calls, VoIP technology converts your voice into a digital signal.
But is the Ooma VoIP phone service really the best option for your business?
In this blog post, we're going to review the advantages and disadvantages of Ooma Office and how it compares to what we see as a much better option.
Advantages of Ooma VoIP
For the relatively low cost of 19.95/month per user, Ooma Office comes with 35+ call management features. Those features include things that increase flexibility and productivity like an automated virtual receptionist, call forwarding during device outages, voicemail transcription email attachments, and unlimited nationwide calling. Ooma Office also promises its customers that their phone system is easy to set up — 15 minutes or less.
Disadvantages of Ooma VoIP
Difficult to set-up
Of course, Ooma says it’s set-up is easy. But that may only be true if you and your team are familiar with this new technology and have a good deal of experience setting up VoIP phone systems. If not, that 15 minutes could turn into days or even weeks, since Ooma leaves it up to you to figure out how to complete time-consuming tasks like recording greetings, uploading them to the cloud, and retraining your employees to use all of the management features.
Expensive reliance on Internet
Like all VoIP phone systems, Ooma Office relies on an internet connection to function. This restricts your team’s mobility, allowing them to work and make calls only in places with a consistent, high-quality, and thus expensive internet connection. Plus, if the internet goes out for whatever reason, your phone system will stop working. Ooma offers a way to avoid this problem with Ooma Connect, but this service costs quite a bit extra.
Hidden fees
While the monthly service cost of $19.95/month/user may seem cheap, it can quickly become expensive when you’re scaling your business. Ooma will also likely get you to pay more when you’re signing up. For example, Ooma Connect, their backup internet service mentioned above, costs an additional $44.95/month. And if you want access to all of Ooma Office’s features, you’ll need to pay $24.95/month/user. You’ll also need to either buy an IP Phone or an analog converter that Ooma offers at prices ranging from $69.98-$229.98 plus taxes per unit.
Limited customer support
Relative to other VoIP providers, Ooma Office actually offers a lot of customer support options. They have video tutorials, articles, and a 24x7x365 customer support line. So, why are we listing it under the disadvantages? Because the videos and articles still require a high level of technical know-how and investment on the user’s part, and their customer support is often outsourced to workers abroad.
A Better Option
At Community Phone, you get all the benefits of Ooma VoIP — easy set-up, easy scaling — at equal or lower prices, without reliance on an internet connection, and with full mobility. In fact, we promise to make the process much easier: we set up the whole of your phone system for you, based on your preferences and instructions, so that you and your team don’t have to worry about setting-up and retraining and can instead simply call out.
Because we don’t rely on a web-based interface, there’s no learning curve with our phone system: your employees will be able to dial out from your business number on their phones from anywhere, just like they would place any call.
With 100% US-Based customer support, Community Phone is also available to take your questions over phone, email, or live-chat.
If you want to know more about our service, call our Business Division at (617)-466-6705, visit our business page, or get started with the form below.