Business Choice Awards 2022: Voice over IP (VoIP) Systems

Communication is an essential chemical element of conducting business, and Voice over IP has rapidly become the technology of selection for making and receiving voice calls. There are a lot of VoIP solutions, ranging up and down the scale of complexity and cost; some entreatment to single person, others to very small or even very large businesses.

This edition of the PCMag Business Choice Awards focuses on VoIP; we're here to tell yous which solutions your fellow PCMag readers rate the best. The Business Choice Awards extend the Readers' Choice Awards past garnering feedback nearly the hardware, software, and services our readers deploy, administer, maintain, and utilize in a business environs.

If you're the admin for your function's tech, or if y'all advise or manage people in such roles, then you know how critical it is to choose the correct products. The results of the PCMag Business Option Awards survey are invaluable when it comes fourth dimension to cull.

You lot can be part of Business Choice! Sign upwards for the Readers' Choice Survey mailing listing to receive invitations in the future.

Looking for expert opinion? Read The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services of 2022, plus The Best Business organization VoIP and Cloud PBX Services of 2022.

VoIP Services for Piece of work

There is a veritable cornucopia of business VoIP solutions out there ranging from browser plug-ins and mobile apps to digital PBXs that can host tens of thousands of concurrent calls. We had 211 companies (up from last year's 160) rated by readers in this year'due south Business Choice Awards for Best VoIP Solution. But 15 received enough votes to be considered for top honors, up from 10 last twelvemonth.

Our winner, for an unprecedented fourth year in a row, is ooma, with an overall satisfaction score of viii.9, which is up from the 8.8 it had the last 2 years, but non as expert equally that amazing 9.iv it earned in 2022.

This year also sees an amazing showing past Google Voice with an 8.8; it's not exactly the same kind of VoIP you lot become from others services in this survey, but it tin can handle things for free that people oft pay big bucks for on a hosted PBX. That it got a recent update after five years doesn't hurt.

At that place is likewise loftier-quality overall scores of viii.6 shared by many vendors that have never fabricated this list earlier: PhonePower, RCN, and Charter. All might exist worth a wait for your office phones. On the other stop of the scale, Comcast tenaciously comes in expressionless final with an overall score of 7.1, and improvement over last year's half dozen.vi.

Business Choice 2022 - VoIP- Overall scores

Reliability is perhaps the almost of import score for VoIP every bit voice advice is sensitive to dropped calls and poor performance. Ooma leads the style for the third twelvemonth in a row with a nine.one (upwards from last year's 8.8). Other standout performers in reliability include Google Voice (nine.0) and RCN (eight.8).

A very important measure of whatsoever service is the response to the critical question "How likely are you to recommend your VoIP solution to a colleague." Ooma over again dominates the likelihood to be recommended with a 9.1 (upwardly from the last two year'south nine.0), followed by new aspirant Google Voice with an 8.viii.

That same question is used to summate the Net Promoter Score, which separates the wheat from the chaff in VoIP services. Ooma destroys the competition for the third year in a row with an impressive 72 percent (up from last yr's 68 per centum and the previous year's 70 percentage), followed past new entrants PhonePower (59 percent) and Google Voice (56 percentage), and RCN at fifty percent. Comcast has the dubious stardom of having our but negative NPS at -5 percent (up from last year'due south -14 percent and the previous year'due south -13 percentage, and then there will be celebrating in Philadelphia tonight!), meaning that customers bodily steer their friends away from Comcast VoIP.

Google Vox enjoyed the lowest per centum of respondents requiring tech support at five percent. Skype came in second with 10 percent, an improvement over last yr's 12 percent. Otherwise best-in-class ooma had fifteen percent of respondents requiring tech back up (downwardly from 26 per centum last year and 21 per centum the year before). As far as tech back up quality goes, RCN sits on top with an 8.nine while our leader ooma recorded a 7.5, so there's room for our multi-year winner to amend. MagicJack once over again holds the bottom for tech support quality with a five.4, followed closely past Skype at 5.seven and perennial bad boy Comcast with a half-dozen.4.

Related Story See all of our survey results for VoIP Service.

WINNERS: Phonation over IP Services

Business Choice seal

ooma
In the iv years we've done this survey of VoIP services, ooma has never faltered in pulling in the all-time overall score. For utilise in an function, customers clearly love the equipment and service information technology provides.

Methodology

Nosotros email survey invitations to PCMag.com community members, specifically subscribers to our Readers' Choice Survey mailing listing. The surveys are hosted by SurveyMonkey, which also performs our data collection. This survey was in the field from Jan 30, 2022 to February 20, 2022.

Respondents were asked to rate their VoIP service using multiple questions about their overall satisfaction with the solution, every bit well as experiences with technical support within the by 12 months.

Because the goal of the survey is to understand how the email marketing solutions compare to 1 another and not how one respondent's experience compares to another'south, we apply the average of the email marketing solutions' rating, not the average of every respondent'south rating. In all cases, the overall ratings are not based on averages of other scores in the table; they are based on answers to the question, "Overall, how satisfied are yous with your VoIP provider?"

Scores not represented as a percentage are on a scale of 0 to 10 where x is the best.

Net Promoter Scores are based on the concept introduced by Fred Reichheld in his 2006 best seller, The Ultimate Question, that no other question can amend define the loyalty of a company's customers than "how probable is it that you lot would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?" This measure of brand loyalty is calculated by taking the pct of respondents who answered nine or ten (promoters) and subtracting the percent who answered 0 through 6 (detractors). (For more, read PCMag's Top Consumer Recommended Companies for 2022.)

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