6 Best Auto-attendant Phone Systems 2020

Automated attendant phone services are able to greet and route callers to their desired extension, voicemail boxes, and more without human intervention. Advanced features include professionally recording greetings for your attendant. We examined the leading auto-attendant systems on the market and evaluated them based on pricing, features, and customer support channels.

Top 6 Auto-attendant Phone Systems 2020

Which Auto-attendant Phone System Is Right for You?

How We Evaluated Automated Phone Systems

Automated attendants, which are a feature of several voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone systems, make it easy to greet and route callers without any of your human employees being involved. Configuring and deploying the attendant should be a painless task for users of all skill levels. Solutions should also be affordable and backed by reliable customer support.

Therefore, we evaluated the top automated answering services based on:

• Price: Systems should be priced at a level that small businesses can afford.
• Features: We looked at the range of features included with each solution, including customized greetings and hold music.
• Ease of use: Services should be easy to set up and use for workers of all technical skill levels. However, to help you get started, we have compiled a downloadable guide that will walk you through the steps required to set up a VoIP phone system.
• Customer support: We evaluated each provider’s online and live customer support.

Based on this criteria, we recommend Nextiva for any business user in the market for a phone system with an automated attendant. It offers a great balance of features and affordability, but most important, its more advanced packages offer a free, professionally recorded voice greeting for your attendant. This can go a long way in making your organization look more established.

Nextiva: Best Overall Auto-attendant Phone System

Nextiva is a popular VoIP business phone system provider featuring an automated phone system as well as unlimited domestic calling and mobile apps. In addition, Nextiva offers competitively priced service plans from $35 per user, per month, best-in-class customer support, and a robust set of features like conferencing and unlimited calls, making it the best overall auto-attendant phone service for the money.

Nextiva Pricing

Prices for Nextiva’s service plans for solopreneurs and small teams are competitively priced at $35 to $55 per user, per month for teams of one to four. Nextiva also offers plans as low as $20 per user, per month. However, those are designed for teams of 100 or more and require a prepaid yearly agreement.

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Nextiva Tiered Plans

*Pricing is on a monthly basis

Basic

The Basic plan starts at $35 per user, per month for one to four users but can go as low as $20 with the volume discount if you have more than 100 users. The plan comes with the auto-attendant feature for answering calls, unlimited calling, voicemail-to-email, virtual faxing, and hold music as well as guaranteed 24/7 uptime and 100% in-house customer service.

Unlike Pro or Enterprise, this plan doesn’t provide access to the mobile app or provide you with a professionally recorded greeting for your callers. It’s also missing SMS and messaging offered in Vonage’s first-level package. It also lacks a professionally recorded or scripted voice greeting. This plan is best if you’re looking for a top-rated business phone system with automated answering, call routing, and message taking.

Pro

The Pro plan has everything in the Basic tier as well as access to the conference bridge for conference calling and the mobile app for easier management of your system. Unlike the Basic level, Pro allows you to have one professionally recorded greeting for your automated phone system menu. It also doesn’t offer two local or toll-free phone numbers like Phone.com’s mid-level plan.

For businesses with one to four users, the plan costs $38 per user, per month, but the price drops as low as $25 per user if your business has more than 100 employees. This makes this the best auto-attendant plan if you’re looking to add a more personal touch to your greetings and an easy, integrated way to hold conference calls with your team.

Enterprise

The most expensive option is the Office Enterprise Plan. It includes everything in the Office Pro plan along with access to call recording and a voice analytics module that provides visualizations on call data such as total calls, total talk time, and call locations. For businesses with one to four users, the plan costs $55 per user, per month but drops as low as $30 for businesses with more than 100 employees.

Unlike the Pro plan, Enterprise includes three professionally recorded greetings along with access to call recording. This is the ideal plan for businesses that want to completely customize their automated phone system for their business and leverage the strength of Nextiva’s complete platform.

What Nextiva Is Missing

Nextiva’s pricing, while competitive and affordable, can be a bit confusing at first. Although a contract isn’t required to use the service and the auto-attendant feature, the prices shown on the website are for businesses with 100 or more employees that also commit to a three-year contract. We feel the pricing should be made clearer for monthly billing accounts, like what is offered by Grasshopper.

What Users Think About Nextiva

The majority of customers are happy with Nextiva’s level of customer service and how easy it is to set up the service. Customers are also happy with the reliability of the platform. For a more in-depth look at what customers think, visit our Nextiva user reviews page.

Grasshopper: Best Virtual Phone System With Auto-attendant

Grasshopper is a virtual phone system starting at $26 per user, per month, and features an auto-attendant that can route incoming calls to preconfigured extensions. Additionally, it allows users to switch between a personal and business number on a mobile phone and display a business number when making outgoing calls. Grasshopper is best for solopreneurs and small business owners looking for a separate business line they can access on their mobile or personal phone.

Grasshopper Pricing

Grasshopper offers three well-priced service plans, all of which include the automated phone system and the full suite of features. The Solo plan costs $26 per month, which is less than a comprehensive VoIP phone system. The Partner plan runs $44 per month and the Small Business plan costs $89 per month.

Each plan provides a certain number of phone numbers and extensions:

• $26 per month: One phone number and three extensions
• $44 per month: Three phone numbers and six extensions
• $80 per month: Five phone numbers and unlimited extensions

Grasshopper Features

Grasshopper offers a surprising number of features, making it our top pick as a virtual phone system. With just your mobile phone, you can forward calls with the auto-attendant, customize your greetings, configure your business hours, initiate conference calls, and even get a toll-free number to present yourself more professionally.

Grasshopper features include:

Customized Greetings

Grasshopper presents your callers with an automated welcome. You can then customize greetings for your different extensions or the greetings your callers will hear if they call outside of your regular business hours. You can also choose to have a professional recording created for a fee of $75 through Grasshopper’s voice studio. This is lacking compared to Nextiva, which offers packages bundled with a free voice greeting.

Voicemail-to-Text & Email

Every voicemail you receive is automatically transcribed. Grasshopper provides notifications and details about the message through an email message and the mobile app, allowing you to sort through recorded voicemails easily and prioritize the most relevant messages for your business. Unlike Phone.com, voicemail transcription is available with all plans.

Call Forwarding & Extensions

You’ll get a varying number of extensions depending on the service plan you select. Through Grasshopper’s web portal, you can configure your cell phone, home phone, or employees’ phones as extensions to receive calls that are forwarded by the automated phone system. This is a terrific way to keep your employees connected and receive calls through your business number.

Additional Features

Grasshopper offers call blasting for an additional $10 per month. If you have multiple forwarding numbers on an extension, you can choose to have all those numbers ring simultaneously to reduce wait times for your callers. Grasshopper also offers an integrated fax service so users can receive faxes that are converted to PDF documents and delivered by email.

What Grasshopper Is Missing

Unlike RingCentral and other systems that offer full business phone systems, Grasshopper works as a call forwarding system. That means it lacks features like call recording, integrations with productivity programs like Microsoft Office and Gmail, and the ability to send faxes.

What Users Think About Grasshopper

Businesses love the simplicity of Grasshopper and how well it works with existing devices. In a world where convenience is extremely valuable, those who use Grasshopper appreciate the lack of equipment needed to be set up and how straightforward the pricing options are structured. For more detailed customer reviews, visit our Grasshopper user reviews page.

RingCentral: Best Auto-attendant for High Call Volumes

RingCentral is a leading VoIP and business phone system featuring an auto-attendant, internet faxing, call forwarding, and flexible pricing with an annual contract starting at $24.99 per user, per month for two to 19 users. Its volume discounts, generous toll-free minutes, and advanced integrations make it best for larger businesses and call centers needing 50 or more lines or those needing a multilevel auto-attendant and robust business phone system.

RingCentral Pricing

RingCentral’s monthly pricing is structured into three plans ranging from $24.99 to $44.99, which is on par with other VoIP systems with similar business phone features. All plans contain the auto-attendant feature and also offer a 15-day trial for you to try the service at no cost to you.

RingCentral Tiered Features

*Pricing is on a monthly basis

Office Standard

The Office Standard package comes with 1,000 toll-free minutes for $34.99 per user, per month, with no limit to the number of lines you can have. If your business has more than 100 users, the price drops to $32.99 per month, and $29.99 per month if you have more than 1,000 users.

This level also has internet fax and a multilevel auto-attendant with several call routing features, including the ability to direct calls to multiple locations or external phone numbers. The volume discount makes it the best for businesses with larger teams that also want the benefits of a multilevel auto-attendant.

Office Premium

Office Premium is RingCentral’s most popular package; it includes everything in the Office Standard package and 2,500 toll-free minutes for $34.99 per user, per month. Additional features include video meetings for up to 100 people, automated call recording, and integration with Salesforce and other customer relationship management (CRM) programs.

Unlike RingCentral’s lower-tier plans, the Office Premium plan provides integration with sales and productivity tools like Salesforce and Zendesk. However, it is a bit more expensive than other solutions on our list. This is the best automated phone system plan for businesses with a larger team that heavily use sales and productivity tools and need support for regular conference calls.

Office Ultimate

Office Ultimate is RingCentral’s most expensive package at $49.99 per user, per month, and it contains everything in the Premium package. Although there aren’t any new features at this level, the Ultimate plan supports video meetings for up to 200 people, twice the amount of the Premium plan, and it provides 10,000 toll-free minutes.

If your business has a large team and relies heavily on video conferencing, this is the best auto-attendant choice for you. This plan also lacks a professionally recorded voice greeting, which comes with the top-level version of Nextiva. Although it’s one of the most expensive service plans on our list, the large number of toll-free minutes supports high call volumes and is ideal if you run a call center or provide a lot of phone support to customers.

What RingCentral Is Missing

RingCentral isn’t ideal for the solopreneur or startups. All the features, such as Salesforce integration, automatic call recording, call logs and reporting, custom app development and deployment, and others might be a little too complex for a small business in the very early stages. If you are looking for a more affordable system that you can add features to, than Vonage might better suit your needs.

What Users Think About RingCentral

Businesses that use RingCentral feel would agree that it is an excellent cloud phone system for business. Getting to try the system before purchasing with RingCentral’s 15-day trial period is also a favorite among business owners as they shopped for a business phone system. For a more in-depth summary of user feedback, visit our RingCentral user reviews page.

Vonage: Best Auto-attendant Service With a la Carte Plans

Vonage is a VoIP provider with plans starting at $19.99 for one to four users; it includes an auto-attendant phone system, video conferencing, voicemail-to-email, and call forwarding capabilities. While it offers tiered pricing, you can choose options from an a la carte menu of add-ons to customize your service plan’s features for each user, making it the best choice if you need the flexibility to modify your plan’s features and price based on individual user needs.

Vonage Pricing

Like other solutions on our list, Vonage’s pricing is structured into three competitive plans ranging from $19.99 to $39.99 for one to four users, with a 14-day free trial. All plans provide access to the auto-attendant feature, and a volume discount is available depending on the number of users.

Add-on features include:

• Company-wide call recording: $49.99 per month
• Visual voicemail: $4.99 per month
• Toll-tree number: $4.99 per extension, per month

Vonage Tiered Features

*Pricing is for one to four users and decreases as more users are added

Mobile

The Mobile plan is Vonage’s starter package. It includes an auto-attendant, unlimited calls, and SMS messaging, as well as mobile apps to give users a choice of communicating through a mobile device or desktop. For one to four users, the cost is $19.99 per month. However, if you have five to 19 users, the cost is 17.99 per month and you’ll pay only $14.99 per month if you have between 20 and 99 users.

This level is missing support for video conferencing, chat, and file sharing, like the Premium or Advanced plan. It also lacks a free local and toll-free phone number offered by Nextiva’s first-level price plan. This plan is a good choice for remote teams and any business that doesn’t need a desk phone.

Premium

The Premium plan offers the same automated phone system and mobility options as the Mobile plan, along with the benefit of conferencing, chat, and file sharing for up to 100 users. For one to four users, the cost is $29.99 per month. If you have five to 19 users, the cost will be $29.99 per month, and $24.99 per month if you have between 20 and 99 users.

Although this level doesn’t offer faxing as Nextiva’s mid-level service plans does, this is a good choice for traditional office environments that make calls, hold video conferences, and need file-sharing capabilities to work together as a team. If your team also relies heavily on a CRM to keep track of all activities, this plan offers integration with Salesforce, Zoho, and many other popular CRMs—a clear advantage over the Mobile plan.

Advanced

The Advanced plan features Vonage’s Orange-Glove Setup, which provides a dedicated team of experts that guides you through the setup process. For one to four users, the cost is $39.99 per month. If you have five to 19 users, the cost will be $37.99 per month, and the cost is $34.99 per month if you have between 20 and 99 users.

This is the ideal plan for businesses that need to leverage all the standard features that Vonage has to offer or those that might need regular hands-on assistance from Vonage. However, this level doesn’t offer conferencing for additional users and retains the 100-attendee limit included in the Premium plan.

What Vonage Is Missing

Vonage offers a powerful set of telephony features at an affordable price. However, it could be too expensive for some smaller companies, especially if they have a low call volume and don’t need unlimited minutes. Phone.com offers affordable pricing plans with bundles of minutes, which makes it great for teams that want to save money.

What Users Think About Vonage

Those who used Vonage were mostly satisfied with the call quality and flexible plans. However, long wait times for customer support and the added cost for some add-ons that come standard with other providers has led people to leave negative feedback about the provider. For a more in-depth look at what customers think about Vonage, visit our Vonage user reviews page.

Phone.com: Best Vanity Phone Number Provider With an Auto-attendant

Phone.com is a VoIP and vanity phone number provider featuring an auto-attendant as part of its lower-cost service plans. It offers customized toll-free and local numbers as well as business phone system features like call forwarding and on-hold music. With plans as low as $12.99 per month, Phone.com is best for businesses wanting a customized vanity phone number (like 1-800-FLOWERS) as well as an economical answering solution.

Phone.com Pricing

Phone.com offers three pay-per-minute plans with pricing that starts at $12.99 per month, which is significantly lower than phone systems with unlimited minutes. The mid-level plan is $19.99 per month, and the premium tier $39.99 per month. All plans include an auto-attendant, monthly minutes, SMS messaging, and unlimited user extensions.

For unlimited calling, the prices are:

• Base: $29.99 with one local or toll-free number
• Plus: $37.99 with two local or toll-free numbers
• Pro: $59.99 with three local or toll-free numbers

Phone.com Features

Phone.com includes a set of standard call features with all of its price packages, including an automated phone system, call forwarding, hold music, and caller ID, making it our top pick as a vanity phone number provider. For an additional price, premium features such as call recording and integration with CRMs like Salesforce can be added to your service.

Phone.com features include:

Customized Greeting

Users can customize greetings with Phone.com, recording your own welcome messages and menu options for your callers. Greetings can contain important information about your company like business hours and address, or walk callers through a menu of call routing options to quickly connect to the person they’re trying to reach.

Voicemail-to-Email

The voicemail-to-email feature automatically transcribes voicemails and sends them to you via email or text message. Unlike providers like Nextiva, Phone.com takes this feature even further with the optional add-on of 25 cents per voicemail for human transcription, and your messages will be transcribed by a real, live person.

Call Forwarding & Extensions

Call forwarding comes standard with Phone.com so you can forward calls to your home, mobile phone, or another number easily. You can also create separate incoming call extensions for departments or employees without adding additional phone lines. Similar to Grasshopper, this gives you a cost-effective way of having multiple users within your business receive calls on your main phone number.

Additional Features

Phone.com has built-in support for faxing, so you can send and receive faxes with your automated phone system. High definition (HD) audio conferencing is also available, along with group short message service (SMS) to send and receive text messages over any local Phone.com number.

What Phone.com Is Missing

A potential drawback to Phone.com is the additional cost for features like call recording and analytics that come standard with our best automated phone system providers like Nextiva and RingCentral. It also lacks unlimited international calling to many countries around the world. If you have an overseas business presence, then you may want to consider 8×8 instead, as it allows unlimited calling to up to 47 countries.

What Users Think About Phone.com

Businesses that use Phone.com are pleased with the affordability of the service as the flexible calling plans allow them to add features as needed. Those who provide negative reviews are disappointed with the quality of customer support, long wait times, and delayed responses. For a more in-depth look at customer comments, visit our Phone.com user reviews page.

8×8: Best Auto-attendant Phone System for International Calling

8×8 is a low-cost VoIP provider that offers auto-attendant capabilities for as low as $25 per user, per month, along with a complete phone system. What sets 8×8 apart is its international calling capabilities, which include unlimited calling to 14 to 47 different countries based on the plan you select. This is best if your small business has a lot of customers or vendors outside of the United States.

8×8 Pricing

8×8’s pricing is broken down into three calling plans: the X2 for $25 per user, per month, the X3 for $35 per user, per month, and the X5 for $55 per user, per month. All plans include an auto-attendant and unlimited calling to a number of countries based on the plan you select.

8×8 Tiered Features

X2

The X2 package features an automated phone system and all standard calling features, provides unlimited calling in 14 countries and 1GB of media storage for $25 per user, per month. Additional features include audio and video conferencing for up to 100 participants, unlimited faxing, and SMS texting.

This level lacks advanced analytics offered in the next tier and voicemail-to-email transcription featured with Nextiva’s Basic plan. However, it is a cost-conscious choice that includes the most necessary features without breaking the bank. If the company is looking to expand team communication across borders, this option will get the job done.

X3

The X3 package includes everything in the X2 package, plus unlimited calling to 32 countries. This package starts at $35 per user, per month and includes 5GB of media storage. Unlike the X2, with this package, you also get an operator switchboard that helps a growing business supplement the automated phone system and achieve a more professional appearance.

This tier is missing the advanced analytics offered at the premium level and integration with businesses apps offered by other providers. However, it’s a good choice for businesses with a global workforce that needs to keep communications synchronized.

X5

The X5 package costs $55 per user, per month. It includes all of the features in the X3 package plus unlimited calling to 47 countries and 10GB of media storage. Where this package truly shines is with the addition of the interactive voice response (IVR) phone answering system that allows callers to progress through the phone system using voice prompts or keypad presses.

Advanced contact center, service quality, and supervisor analytics as well as tools for monitoring agent live calls round out this plan. This makes it the ideal package for a business with an international reach that wants deeper insight into agent performance and a wider global calling range.

What 8×8 Is Missing

8×8’s auto-attendant doesn’t inform callers of estimated wait time or what number caller they are on the list, a missing feature that may be important to businesses with a high call volume. 8×8 also lacks 24/7 live chat or customer service, which is offered by our best auto-attendant phone system provider, Nextiva.

What Users Think of 8×8

Businesses that use 8×8 report they are satisfied with the cost of the service and the customer support. However, users say they are unhappy with the reliability of the service. For a more in-depth summary of customer feedback, visit our 8×8 user reviews page.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is an auto-attendant?

Automated attendants answer all of your incoming calls. When the system picks up, they play a short greeting and then route the caller to a preconfigured phone, extension, or voicemail inbox. Most auto-attendants include functionality such as prerecorded messages and the ability to play hold music while the caller waits to be connected. Multilevel auto-attendants offer even more features, such as interactive voice response (IVR) and routing to multiple phones at once.

Most of these automated attendants come as part of a voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) system. These internet-based phone services send calls as data over the internet as opposed to the traditional copper landline network.

What are the benefits of an auto-attendant?

Auto-attendant phone systems have numerous benefits. They improve the customer experience by quickly directing calls to the right person to assist them, decrease hold time, and reduce the number of times a caller is transferred throughout the system. They are also helpful in a business environment by freeing up the time workers spend answering and transferring calls. Some companies even save money by eliminating the need for a receptionist altogether.

Who should have an auto-attendant?

Auto-attendants are right for nearly every type of business. Solopreneurs, consultants, and freelancers rely on them to handle calls when they can’t answer personally. Small- to medium-sized businesses use them to automatically provide frequently requested information to callers such as location or hours of operation. Since automated phone systems can easily greet and route a large volume of calls, they’re a great tool for call centers and large companies.

Can I change my auto-attendant for off-hours & weekends?

Yes. Most leading systems allow you to change your voice menu options based on time and day. You can therefore have your attendant forward callers to voicemail when your office is closed.

Bottom Line

Auto-attendants were once only available to businesses that could afford more sophisticated and costly business phone systems. Now, automated phone systems are much more affordable, and you can choose from a wide variety of providers to better match your business’ needs. They offer a variety of features like voicemail-to-text, custom greetings, and call forwarding.

Businesses that want an automated phone system with the best balance of phone system features, pricing, and customer support should check out Nextiva. Along with the auto-attendant, it offers service plans that will be within your budget, call routing, voicemail-to-email, faxing, and all the features most small businesses need to stay competitive. Visit Nextiva’s website today.

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