The 6 Best VoIP Service Providers Right Now

The best VoIP service providers know what you need and deliver on their promises.

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a telephony technology that delivers immense cost savings and flexibility for organizations of all sizes. Global enterprises, SMBs, and startups worldwide are increasingly switching to VoIP to facilitate a new era of agility and affordability in business phone service.

In the early days of VoIP, some consumers reported quality concerns. However, the increased prevalence of this technology has facilitated enormous quality and satisfaction gains over the past few years.

Who are the Best VoIP Service Providers?

The following are the best VoIP solutions currently available. They are not in a ranked order, but merely listed here to help you decide if each is worthy of further investigation.

Dialpad

Best for: businesses that want a central communication hub are attracted to AI-infused communications tools.

Notable features:

• Real-time transcription and time-saving call and meeting synopses.
• Ai Contact Center with self-service Ai chatbots, and Ai CSAT,  a tool that analyzing customer calls to gauge satisfaction.
• Ai-powered sales intelligence suite that includes coaching, playbooks, and scorecards.

Customer review rating(s):

• SoftwareAdvice: 4.2 out of 5 stars, 529 reviews
• TrustPIlo: 4.4 out of 5 starts, 2k+ review

Positive review:

"Our experience has been excellent. We have really had nothing negative ever happen with it and I've shared it with tons of people. It's probably my current favorite phone service we use and we have a few, always looking for the next best thing."

Negative review:

"The first day we had to submit three support tickets because nothing was working properly. Within the first hour of having our number ported, we noticed we couldn't get call routing activated to forward all calls to our answering service, so the three employees of our firm had to man the phones while Dialpad figured out what to do."

8x8

Best for: mid-sized to large enterprises that regularly utilize cloud-based PBX and VoIP solutions.

Notable features:

• The Intelligent Customer Assistant is an AI-driven tool designed to empower your customers with self-service options.
• 8 x 8 Engage, a customer engagement platform that leverages AI, native data, and third-party data to give customer-facing as much context as possible. 
• 8 X 8 Frontdesk, a suite of tools for reception including advanced call handling, shared directory and presence, and one-click away-from-desk call diverting.

Customer review rating:

• TrustPilot: 2.0 out of 5 stars, 419 reviews
• GetVoIP: 4.3 out of 5 stars, 752 reviews

Positive review:

"8x8 is great! As a customer service representative taking 100's of calls from all over the world, our company relies on 8x8 to support our customers and it's always easy taking, making, and receiving calls every day. The application runs smoothly and is simple. Learning the backend of 8x8 can be tough with all of the applications and settings but their customer support team is always there to provide top notch support and guidance. Not only do they solve my problems, but they teach me how to fix things in the future. I am happy to use 8x8 everyday at my job and I recommend 8x8 for your business!"

Negative review:

"Just one day after signing up, my account was inexplicably frozen without any warning or clear reason. To make matters worse, when I contacted their support team, they couldn't even tell me when or if the verification process would be completed!

This has left my entire team in limbo, unable to work and causing significant disruption to our operations. It's shocking that a company supposedly specializing in business communications could be so careless and unresponsive. If you value your business and need reliable service, I strongly advise you to stay away from 8x8. This company is a joke and completely untrustworthy."

Nextiva

Best for: medium to large enterprises seeking a robust VoIP solution that's both intuitive and user-friendly.

Notable features:

• Unlimited voice, video calling, voicemail, and internet faxing capabilities.
• Calendar and Contacts integration with Google and Microsoft.
• Graphical call-flow builder that lets admins set up automatic call routing and interactive voice response (IVR) trees.

Customer review rating:

• TrustPilot: 4.7 out of 5 stars, 3,655 reviews
• GetApp: 4.6 out of 5 starts, 897 reviews

Positive review:

"I was very surprised at how friendly, professional and helpful the team members were with assisting me with making the purchase and the installation process. It was such an easy process and it was completed all within one phone call."

Negative review:

"Their approach to business appears to be: lure the customer in, demand a 3-year contract, hide the part about auto renewal, provide just average level service, hire less than competent support staff to handle customer complaints, and hope the customer doesn't become aware of the auto renewal gimmick before the end of the contract term."

RingCentral

Best for: small and mid-size businesses with high call volumes.

Notable features:

• Carrier-compliant multimedia messaging service (MMS) and short messaging service (SMS)
• AI-backed transcription and call analysis.
• Integrations for Slack, Microsoft 365, Salesforce and more.

Customer review rating:

• TrustPilot: 2.6 out of 5 stars, 960 reviews
• GetVoIP: 3.9 out of 5 stars, 571 reviews

Positive review:

"Excellent service, love the desktop application, as long as I have internet connection the phone system will work in my PC, when traveling, this is very convenient, and cheap. I don't use the desk phone but I know, from many of my co-workers, that this is a very good device as well."

Negative review:

"They are literally ghosting their customers, we had to try to contact them about 5 times in 14 days just to purchase a plan and they all the time with 4 different representative just got our information and didn't contact back. It shouldn't be this hard to purchase a product. This company is not worth your time."

Microsoft Teams Calling

Best for: companies that have already invested in Microsoft 365 and Teams and want to simplify business voice services.

Notable features:

• Detailed call quality metrics with deep insight into the system.

Customer review rating:

• Capterra: 4.5 out of 5 stars, 9.5k+ reviews
• TrustRadius: 4.3 out of 5 stars, 15k+ reviews

Positive review:

"I like how much capability the program offers. The features offered give you the ability to excel in team collaboration, communication, management and so much more, instead of needing multiple other programs that do the same thing."

Negative review:

"I hope I never have to use Teams again. I worked in an organization of over 100 people and everyone complained about Teams on a regular basis. It's glitchy, unreliable, and poorly developed. The UX is confusing and buttons do things that you would never guess they do. It takes a long time to get used to this wonky software."

NOTE: Atlantech Online offers Microsoft Teams Calling & Operator Connect services.

Atlantech Online

Best for: SMBs to enterprise business, as well as government entities of all sizes.

Notable features:

• Unified communications platform offering VoIP phone, video, and chat features so your employees can call, meet, and message in one application (vs. switching between several).
• Enhanced communication tools like auto-attendant, ACD groups, receptionist console, and voicemail transcription.
• Contact center platform with powerful efficiency features like skills-based routing, queue callback, IVR, real-time dashboards, and numerous CRM integrations.
• Multiple calling device options: headset connected to your computer or mobile device, phone handsets from Atlantech Online, or BYOD if it interops with our voice switch.
• Flexible service implementations: hook into our cloud PBX, or if you have your own PBX, we can deliver service via SIP, PRI, or analog.

Customer review rating:

• TrustPilot: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Positive reviews:

"The knowledge, professionalism and friendliness of the technician was above and beyond what I expected. He solved my problem and offered additional information to help in other areas of concern to me."

"We've been a client of Atlantech for a few years now and have had nothing but positive experiences. From the first call, to installation, to any subsequent issues that arose, Atlantec has been a steady, prompt, and trustworthy partner to our business. I would recommend their services wholeheartedly and without reservation."

Negative review (this is the most negative review listed):

"Very happy with our decision to rollout Teams Phone and Cloudfax with Atlantech as our partner. There were a few bumps along the way, as with any rollout. But as always, the Atlantech Online team was very responsive, agile, and quick to act."

Now we've covered who the best VoIP service providers are, let's talk about how to define your own needs and how to find the right VoIP provider for your company.

9 Factors for Finding the Ideal VoIP Service Provider

If your organization is considering an initial investment in VoIP or switching vendors, carefully qualifying prospective providers is critical. First, you and your internal team needed to be 100 percent aligned on what you need. 

But you also need to ask the right questions to properly vet vendors. Here's how we'd approach finding a new VoIP solution if we were in your shoes.

1. Clearly Define Your VoIP Needs

There are three types of commonly-implemented VoIP options:

1. Integrated access— leverage your IP network to carry your voice services. Phone calling becomes an application on the network, like email or file transfer. The benefits are cost savings, easier troubleshooting and greater flexibility.
2. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) trunking—the most common application of SIP is Internet telephony, where it allows voice and video calls over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. 
3. Private Branch Exchange (PBX)— PBX is the system that manages phone calls and phone services (such as voicemail). It may be hosted, on-premise, or a hybrid of the two. Hosted PBX offers cost savings, ease of use, and service flexibility.

NOTE: The right VoIP vendor should take the time to evaluate your businesses' needs, explain the pros and cons of your options, and help you decide which approach you need.

2. Do You Want Hosted VoIP?

• Hosted VoIP offers the benefit of outsourcing the maintenance of your phone system.
• Your vendor will manage the equipment installation and all updates which occur after installation, including routine updates to your system.
• IT personnel will have access to their VoIP system via a convenient, cloud-based portal that can be accessed remotely.
• Larger organizations: self-hosted VoIP allows the self-installation of a private branch exchange. This option can save costs, but will require a greater investment of time and personnel over the system's lifetime.

3. Ensure Providers Offer Redundancy

• It is critical to assess potential VoIP vendors for built-in redundancy in case of emergency.
• Ensure a prospective vendor offers "call continuity." Your employees' mobile numbers will be connected to their VoIP line, for seamless call forwarding if their Internet connection is ever lost.

4. Shop by Quality of Servie (QoS)

• VoIP is sensitive to your company's bandwidth and Internet connection quality. Insufficient Internet connectivity can result in call delays and poor call quality.
• Ensure that a prospective VoIP vendor guarantees quality of service (QoS), which will guarantee a high quality of calls with network traffic evaluations, designating sufficient bandwidth, and effectively prioritizing your company's traffic to protect call quality.

NOTE: A best practice that we see in the marketplace is to use your Internet service provider as your voice carrier, too. 

5. Inquire About Uptime

• Inquire about a company's uptime guarantees.
• Perhaps even more importantly, ask about their uptime record for the prior year or quarter.
• An uptime record that exceeds their customer guarantees can be a positive sign that they over deliver on a regular basis.

6. Verify Bandwidth

• Underestimating the bandwidth you need to maintain high-quality voice calling can result in poor end-user satisfaction with your VoIP vendor.
• Bandwidth calculations require an understanding of your company's total number of phone users and the number of concurrent calls you'll be placing on a regular basis.
• It also requires knowledge of how you are using the Internet. A good place to start is looking at your current Internet usage metrics.
• Ask your carrier to provide you such access, if you can. 

7. Obtain (and Verify) References

• Ask for references for clients in similar industries or with similar needs.
• Verify the experience of those clients.
• Check third-party reviews as well to get a more diverse viewpoint and find potential negatives.

8. Ensure They Offer SLAs

• Service-level agreements (SLAs) are a contract between a vendor and a client to ensure that expectations are met post-implementation.
• SLAs should address uptime, QoS, and bandwidth guarantees.
• Ensure that a VoIP vendor protects their buyers by offering SLAs as a routine part of any business agreement.

9. Define Support and Service Availability

• What can you expect if you're having VoIP issues after 5 p.m. on a weeknight? How about weekend difficulties?
• If you're checking a vendor's references, ask for more insight on the quality and reliability of their support. 

Finding the Best VoIP Provider

Your company's phone system is a critical component of your ability to deliver quality service to your clients. Without high-quality voice, you'll be unable to resolve complaints or exceed your customer's expectations.

Thoroughly interviewing the best VoIP service providers can ensure you experience adequate call quality, customer service, and uptime after your implementation.

To speak to one of Atlantech's staff experts about voice services for business, click here to start a conversation today!