Voice and communications

One of the established hosted platforms, covering calling, messaging, and video from a single system with desk phones, desktop apps, and mobile all reaching the same extension. Broad enough to suit most general offices, with call flows that can be built without specialist help. A reasonable default when nothing about the business demands something narrower.

Hosted voice with customer-interaction tooling built alongside it, so calls, messages, and contact history sit together rather than in separate systems. Aimed at businesses where the phone is a sales or service channel rather than an internal convenience. Overlaps a CRM at the edges, which is either a saving or a duplication depending on what you already run.

Combines a standard phone system with contact-centre capability on the same platform, so a business can start with extensions and add queues later without changing supplier. Its international calling coverage is unusually broad, which matters if staff or customers are outside the US. The single platform is the argument; it competes with buying voice and contact centre separately.

Best known for meetings, and also sells a full phone system that shares the same app. The case for it is almost entirely about consolidation: if a business already runs its meetings in Zoom, putting extensions there too means one app and one bill. If it does not, the phone product competes on its own merits against platforms that started as phone systems.

A contact-centre platform rather than an office phone system — built for queues, routing rules, agent scripting, and reporting on how calls were handled. Makes sense once enough people spend enough of the day taking calls that how those calls are distributed becomes a management question. Considerable overkill for a business that simply needs extensions.

Contact centre with more weight behind the automation and analytics — transcription, quality scoring, and routing driven by more than queue position. Suits operations where call handling is measured and improved rather than just performed. Like other platforms in this bracket, the value depends entirely on someone owning the reporting.

Puts voice, chat, and messaging inside the applications people already have open, particularly Microsoft and Dynamics. The intent is that nobody switches to a separate phone app to make or log a call. Most relevant where a business already runs its work inside those tools and wants the phone to be part of them.

Connects an existing phone service to Microsoft Teams so staff can make and take outside calls from the Teams app, keeping the current numbers and carrier. Useful where a business is committed to Teams but not ready to abandon a phone contract or a working system. A bridge rather than a replacement, which is precisely the point.

Delivers carrier calling into Teams as a service, so Teams becomes the phone system rather than a client attached to one. Removes the separate voice platform entirely for businesses that live in Teams all day. The decision hinges on whether you want Teams to be the phone system, which is a bigger question than it first appears.

Links a phone platform to the ticketing and management tools a support desk already runs, so an inbound call surfaces the caller's record and logs itself against a ticket. Built for teams handling repeat callers whose history matters. Narrow by design, and valuable exactly where that description fits.

Enables text messaging on business numbers, including landlines, so customers can text the number already on the van or the website. Conversations sit in a shared inbox rather than on someone's personal phone, which keeps a record and survives that person leaving. Increasingly expected in trades, clinics, and anywhere appointments get confirmed.

Meetings, messaging, and calling from Cisco, most often found where the organisation already has Cisco networking or a long-standing relationship. Well established in larger and more regulated environments. For a small business with no existing Cisco footprint, it usually competes without an obvious advantage.

Sends and receives fax through email and a web interface, with no line and no machine. Still genuinely required in parts of healthcare, law, and logistics where a counterparty will not accept anything else. Almost always cheaper than keeping an analogue line alive purely to serve one dwindling obligation.