Conclusion:
Phone.com’s Shared Minutes plan is an excellent value and one of the highest quality services we've reviewed. This plan costs $14.99 per month for 300 minutes and unlimited extensions. You can get even greater savings by paying annually. Phone.com's free trial lasts 30 days and includes 300 minutes. They offer Find Me/Follow Me (which sets forwarding rules) and an auto attendant (which is a custom menu that directs calls). They also offer voicemail alerts and voicemail-to-text transcription. You can store unlimited voicemails for 90 days. They let you send faxes online for free, but you must buy an additional line for $4.99 to receive faxes online (it's typically included for free). Phone.com offers good phone, email and live chat support 24/7.
Pricing
Phone.com’s Shared Minutes plan comes with 300 minutes and unlimited extensions. This plan costs $14.99 per month, which equals about five cents per minute, and falls within our Market Standard price range. Phone.com also offers monthly minute allowance upgrades at various levels, up to 10,000 additional minutes per month.
Phone Numbers
Phone.com provides a local, 800, 888, 877, 866, or vanity toll-free number with a monthly subscription. Porting an existing number into your PBX system is free with Phone.com. They also have international numbers in nearly 40 countries for an extra $4.88 or $12.88 a month, depending on the country.
Online Interface
Phone.com provides a setup wizard in order to help customize their high quality online interface. The online interface in a virtual PBX system allows you to set up all facets of your phone system in one easy-to-use web platform. The interface grants access to call logs and allows you to make a block call list for numbers you want to stop receiving calls from. Phone.com’s interface also lets you record calls and download these recordings to your computer. This service makes it easy to create an online address book by importing spreadsheets and other list documents saved as a CSV file. The call handling rules you are able to set through the interface include the ability to forward, forward to voicemail, go to menu, go to dial-by-name directory, disconnect and put on hold.
Voicemail
Phone.com allows you to store voicemails for up to 90 days. You can receive your voicemails by email or download them directly from the interface to your computer. The service also will let you convert the voicemails to text messages for an additional 25 cents per message for a human transcription or $1.50 a month for an automatic transcription.
Call Handling
Phone.com offers a Find Me/Follow Me handling system that redirects calls from one extension to another when the call is not answered, which meets our Market Standard for virtual PBX systems. While on a call, you can block or unblock a caller, transfer, record, and put a call on hold by simply using the numbers on your phone’s keypad. The provider also offers features such as call screening, which lets you see who is calling before you answer, and Do Not Disturb, which allows you to turn an extension off when you are out of the office or too busy to take calls. You can also set up an auto attendant, which lets people calling into your PBX decide which department they need to be routed to (e.g. 1 for sales, 2 for customer service, etc.). Additionally, Phone.com gives you the ability to set how long someone sits in the call queue before they are redirected to a voicemail box.
Phone.com also gives you the ability to make calls from outside of the U.S. through your PBX system. Phone.com’s audio is clear and loud with no static. A unique feature of this service is that it works with softphones, which are software programs that let you use a computer as a phone.
Conference Calling, Internet Faxing, and Mobile Apps
Although many virtual PBX services bill conference calls on your monthly minutes, Phone.com offers free conference calling with moderator features and allows a maximum of 500 people to be on a conference call at once. The moderator features come with a reference guide for keypad shortcuts. Phone.com’s virtual PBX service includes the ability to send faxes online, but you must buy an additional phone line for $4.88 to receive faxes, which is not typical. They also offer a mobile app for Androids, BlackBerries, and iPhones, however you must pay an additional one-time fee of $3.88 to set-up an iPhone extension. This mobile app will allow you to access and use your PBX account without charging you for cell phone minutes or PBX minutes, as it uses only your data plan’s memory.
Customer Support
Phone.com’s customer support is exceptional, offering an attentive and knowledgeable staff. Their phone support is available 24/7, and their FAQs, tutorials, and online forums are accessible to all users.
