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Ooma VS Google Voice: Which Software Is More Suitable?
Looking for a business phone system provider but don’t know which to choose? In this Ooma vs Google Voice debate, let's discuss which is better for your business!
Benard Kiplangat
Content Writer
Reading time: 8 minutes
With over 200 billion estimated corporate Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) subscribers, the phone system industry is surely booming as more demand rises.
More and more businesses are investing heavily in better communication systems, resulting in more VoIP software appearing in the market to fill this rising demand.
With so many business phone systems out there, how do you choose the best one for your business?
That said, let’s take a look at a comparison of two software: Ooma and Google Voice. Let’s dive right in!
Contents
What is Ooma
Ooma is a phone service provider that offers internet phone services to help you connect through phone calls, video calls, and messaging solutions.
Ooma is a cross-platform phone service that provides a complete unified communication as a service (UCaaS) solution for bigger businesses. The software also provides other services besides phone services, such as fixed wireless internet for businesses.
What is Google Voice
Google Voice is a cloud-based phone service that helps businesses stay connected through phone calls and text messages.
It is an easy-to-use business phone solution for all your voice calls and messaging needs across multiple platforms. With Google Voice, you can forward calls to any device, block spam calls, and transcribe voicemails to text automatically.
Ooma vs Google Voice
Although both Ooma and Google Voice are pretty similar on the surface, many differences set them apart. Here are factors we took into consideration when comparing between the two:
- Ease of use: If it is easy to use and doesn’t take a long time to set up
- Range of features: If it has the features needed to improve the call experience
- Billing options: If it provides flexible pricing strategies
- Integration options: If it provides integration options to automate workflow
- Customer service and support: If it provides efficient customer support, its support channels, help documents, and knowledge centers
- Uptime reliability: If the software is reliable while it’s in operation
Ease of use
Ease of use for any software is a crucial consideration to compare. More so, a phone system should be easier to use and straightforward to install and configure.
A software that anyone can install within 10 minutes is better than a software that requires a team of professionals and takes a week to set up before it’s ready to use.
In this Ooma vs Google debate, which software is easier to set up and use?
Although both are not complex, Ooma has the most user-friendly interface with a self-service visual flow design. With their drag-and-drop call design feature, even the most non-technical users will have no trouble designing customized call flows with no need for any coding knowledge.
✏️ Which is better: Ooma
Range of features
A VoIP phone system should give you a comprehensive list of features that you can tap into for a wider scope.
Although both Ooma and Google Voice offers several good VoIP features, Ooma has an extensive scope to support larger teams and businesses. Some features include, team messaging, call parking, and call routing.
Ooma also has better reporting and analytics features to access advanced reports and communication insights to improve your performance.
Google Voice offers a handful of great features for a mid-sized company that already depends on other G Suite apps such as Gmail. However, it lacks many features a VoIP phone system should have, such as call monitoring and caller ID.
Also, Google Voice does not offer unlimited calling to Mexico — so if you have customers there, Google Voice wouldn’t be a good option.
If you’re looking to scale up with your VoIP communication services, choose Ooma to boost your results and professionalism. Otherwise, Google Voice can be a suitable alternative for start-up teams.
✏️ Which is better: Ooma — especially if you’re a medium to large business
Billing options
Unique business needs demand unique solutions as many businesses vary in size, type, and demands.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for all these businesses, but there is a need for flexible pricing options to justify your business communication needs.
Google Voice is more affordable and offers more flexible pricing options compared to Ooma. Though it has more features, Ooma only has only two plans to choose from (Small Business and Enterprise), whereas Google Voice has a free plan and three other paid plans.
If you are a startup company with less than 10 users, the starter plan of $10 will be suitable for you. The base price for Ooma starts from $19.95. It is also noteworthy that some features like porting for Google Voice ($20 per number) are cheaper than Ooma’s pricing plan, which is $39.99.
✏️ Which is better: Google Voice
Integration options
Choosing software that can allow seamless integration with many other apps and services like CRM, SMS marketing software, and even calendars helps you to automate sales processes and reduce your reps’ workload.
Ooma provides over 50 application integrations and open APIs. As you might expect, Google Voice has an outstanding integration into the Google platforms like Google Meet, Calendar, and Gmail, which can be a tremendous advantage for businesses that depend heavily on them.
However, it doesn’t offer the range of third-party integrations that Ooma does, such as compatibility with Zendesk or Microsoft’s suite.
Ooma also offers solutions that support hybrid environments like SIP trunking, Microsoft Teams, POTs replacement, or even full UCaaS, depending on your needs.
✏️ Which is better: Ooma
Customer service and support
Technical issues can be a nuisance, but it is far worst if you can’t get help to resolve them quickly. And that’s where great customer support service is crucial.
While both Ooma and Google Voice have relatively fair online support resources, both vary in how they handle issues in case something goes wrong.
Ooma offers better customer support options than Google Voice. It offers live chat (24/7), setup assistant, phone support (5 am to 5 pm PT), online tools, and forums. On the other hand, Google Voice only offers online support (24/7) and a community forum.
As you would expect, Ooma leads by far. Most of the support tools for Google Voice include online forms and tools with no telephone support.
With Ooma, you will be more confident setting up and running your system as you are assured of support in case anything goes amiss.
✏️ Which is better: Ooma
Uptime reliability
Reliability is a critical factor to consider when you are choosing a VoIP phone system. Getting more downtimes can mean losing more business opportunities while increasing customer dissatisfaction.
Most phone service providers will share the guarantees of their services to be available. This availability is based on the percentage of time that the software will be available at any timeframe.
The uptime guarantee is often delivered through service-level agreements. Typical SLA should not just cover performance level reliability, but also response and issue resolution timeframe, monitoring processes, and steps for reporting issues.
Ooma has no SLA agreement, while Google Voice has a 99.9% uptime guarantee. Thus, the winner here is apparent.
✏️ Which is better: Google Voice
While there is a clear winner between the two, let’s take a look at another business phone system provider you can consider before we come to a conclusion.
What is Novocall
Novocall is a business phone system that supports call-driven lead generation efforts with features like click-to-call, an outbound dialer, and call tracking. With Novocall, you can purchase phone numbers and make calls to over 42 different countries at extremely low costs.
Let’s take a look at some reasons why Novocall is a viable option:
Suite of call management features
Novocall’s suite of call management features can boost your business performance and results. It is ideal for you if you rely on phone calls for your business operations.
With Novocall, you can enjoy an entire stack of call management features like inbound and outbound call automation, lead routing, call tracking, call forwarding, and more.
Inbound call automation through a click-to-call widget embedded onto your site allows your website visitors to schedule callbacks with you. From the widget, the lead information is captured and automatically logged into your CRM, where you can access them instantly.
Novocall also has capabilities for automated outbound calls to save you time dialing numbers for your cold calling campaigns. All you have to do is upload a list of your contacts, and the dialer will handle the rest.
Its call tracking feature allows you to trace calls back to its marketing source using Dynamic number insertion (DNI). It will automatically assign a unique phone number to each campaign so you can track multiple calls leading to the same campaign.
This provides you with deep insights about which campaign drove the most calls to your business and allows you to optimize top-performing campaigns.
Apart from these, Novocall also has other features such as lead routing, automated follow-ups, and call recording capabilities.
Full-fledged features at a low cost
Novocall’s Starter plan has much more value and costs just $19 per month per user, which is slightly lower than Ooma’s base rate.
Even at the most basic tier, you get most of the advanced features such as call forwarding, website widgets, and integration options with apps such as Google Analytics and Facebook.
Even with this basic plan, businesses can get the most value out of this plan. However, as you scale higher and your business calling needs to escalate, you may upgrade into a better plan with more additional features for $39 or a customizable plan.
Several integration options
Novocall has a wide range of integration options, like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Analytics. Novocall also integrates with Facebook Lead Ads so you can capture more leads easily on Facebook.
Not to forget Novocall’s integration with Zapier lets you connect with thousands of other apps. This integration gives you more freedom to automate your work every day.
Ease of use
Novocall’s intuitive interface and easy deployment options can save you hours and costs of setup and maintenance that are synonymous with many VoIP providers.
It is no wonder that many of Novocall’s customers reported the setup took less than 5 minutes to get the software running.
Take, for example, the click-to-call widget. The code is automatically generated for you and can be easily embedded in your website. This guarantees that even the most non-technical users with no prior coding experience can easily use the software to integrate into their system.
Best for international calling
Unlike many other VoIP phone systems, Novocall boasts low international calling rates. With Novocall, you can purchase phone numbers and make calls to over 42 different countries at extremely low costs.
If your business frequently makes calls outside of the country, Novocall is your ideal phone system.
Feature comparison table
Here’s a brief comparison between all 3 business phone system providers:
So which is better?
So, in this Ooma vs Google Voice debate, which software emerges the winner?
Although there’s a clear winner based on the factors we compared above, both software have their own strengths to give you better calling experiences.
If you have the budget for it, Ooma is definitely an option you’d want to go for. With its advanced calling features, it is a great option for you to get connected with your customers.
If you perform call-focused lead generation activities and you need a better alternative, Novocall is an ideal alternative. For a lower cost, your business can benefit a lot from advanced calling features to boost the results of your calls. 🤟
Get started with us today to see what Novocall can do for your business!
Benard Kiplangat
Ben is a content writer at Novocall.
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