The system is simple to get up and running, and the online portal is easy to navigate. The phone system is extremely reliable, offers several service plans and includes excellent customer support. Nextiva also has a wealth of valuable calling, collaboration, and mobile features and tools.
Nextiva Pricing
Nextiva has three service plans for both its business phone and CRM services. You can bundle the two together, or if you only want its business phone service or its CRM, you can purchase them individually. Each plan's price varies depending on the number of employees using the system and whether you sign a 12-, 24- or 36-month contract.
The phone service, on its own, ranges from $20 to $45 per user, per month. The cost of only the CRM ranges from $15 to $45 per user. However, you do save money when bundling the two. The representatives we spoke to said for a business with 20 employees that wants the two services packaged together, one can expect to pay about $55 per user, per month, or about $40 per user, per month when signing a long-term contract.
If you need desk phones, Nextiva offers a wide selection. Their desk and conference phones range from $70 to $625. Phone rentals are an option too.
Features
Nextiva's phone service offers just about every calling, collaboration, and mobile feature and tool a small business needs in a phone system. All of the service plans include unlimited local and long-distance calling, unlimited online faxing, a multilevel automated attendant, customizable music on hold, HD video and voice, and the option to receive voicemails via email and text messages.
Upgraded plans offer team messaging, private group messaging, screen sharing, SMS service, voice analytics and unlimited video calling.
One standout feature that isn't offered by many business phone systems is the caller AI tool. This uses artificial intelligence to provide users with instant information on the person whom they are speaking with. This includes information on the customer's journey, their value and what their experience score is.
Nextiva's mobile app, available on iOS and Android devices, lets employees make and receive phone calls on their business lines, make video calls, chat via instant message with co-workers, access the company directory, and update and modify call settings. In addition, you can start calls on a desk phone and move them to a mobile phone, and vice versa.
Nextiva has conference calling built into its phone system. With the conference bridge feature, which is included at no extra charge, each employee can hold their own conference call. The number of participants on each call depends on the service plan you use. The Basic plan only supports four callers, while the Professional plan lets you have 40, and an unlimited number of callers can attend with the Enterprise plan.
The CRM solution offers its own set of valuable sales and service features and tools. The system allows you to store an unlimited number of accounts and contacts. You are also able to see a single unified view of each customer and their overall experience.
Other CRM features include contact management tools, workflow automation, email case routing, account alerts, sales and service reports, and custom reports.
When looking at the specific sales CRM features, there are customizable Kanban sales pipelines, leads and pipeline management, product catalogs, time triggers on pipeline stages, canned responses and custom sales views.
When you combine all of what Nextiva offers in terms of both its phone service and CRM, you will be hard-pressed to find a unified communication system that provides you with more in one platform.
Nextiva Pros
The Nextiva Business Communication Suite is a cloud-hosted VoIP phone system that doesn't require any equipment or hardware. All it needs is a high-speed internet connection and IP phones. Since this is a cloud-hosted system, you don't need an IT team to install or maintain it; Nextiva handles all maintenance and upgrades.
The entire system is run and configured through Nextiva's online portal. This portal lets you add employees to the system, assign phone numbers and user IDs, record automated greetings, create call-queue routes and priorities, and designate which features each employee can access.
Employees can also access the system online. They can log in to set their preferences, change settings, conduct video conferences with screen sharing, and chat with co-workers.
If you are an established business and want to keep your current phone numbers, you have that option with Nextiva. For an extra fee, you can transfer local or toll-free numbers over to Nextiva after you sign up for the service. This process typically takes two to four weeks.
Nextiva is an extremely reliable phone service. The company has a reported uptime of 99.999%. It has several fully redundant data centers worldwide to ensure customers never lose service.
Nextiva Cons
One potential downside to Nextiva is that if you are using the Basic plan, you can only host conference calls with up to four participants. If you plan on holding calls with more participants, you will need to either upgrade to the Professional plan or spend money on a dedicated conference call service.
We were also a little disappointed with the live chat service we received. We tested it on multiple occasions, asking the same set of questions each time. While the agents are some of the most responsive we have ever encountered on live chat, we often got different answers to our questions. We would have felt more comfortable knowing that all of their agents are on the same page.
Customer Support
Despite the lack of consistency we had with the live chat service, overall, we were impressed with the customer support Nextiva provides. To determine the level of service a typical customer would receive, we contacted the company multiple times by phone, email and live chat, posing as a new business owner interested in phone systems.
During our phone interactions, the Nextiva representatives could not have given us a clearer understanding of what the company offers. They spent as much time as we needed explaining how the system works, its features, uptime stats and pricing. In some instances, representatives took the time to demonstrate the different features. For example, one rep toggled back and forth between a regular connection and an HD connection to show us how much clearer the sound was, and put us on hold so we could hear the on-hold music and announcements.
We especially liked that the representatives didn't pressure us to make a quick decision on purchasing the service. They were always respectful of our needs and timelines. We didn't always receive that level of respect from other services we investigated.
After some of our calls, we followed up by email to see the type of response we'd get. Each time, a rep promptly responded with detailed answers to our questions and an offer for another call if we needed additional information.
The entire support team is U.S.-based and available by phone, email and live chat. In addition, the Nextiva website is filled with helpful support materials.