Brightlio Blog

Brightlio is a proud Vonage reseller. Vonage is a communications company focusing on unified communications, contact centers, and programmable communications APIs.  Together, these form what Vonage calls the “world’s most flexible cloud communications platform.” 

Vonage has focused on voice communications since its founding in 1998.  Their original focus was phone service for the consumer market. Vonage pivoted to the business-to-business market in 2013 and successfully built an excellent portfolio of business communication products.  Vonage was acquired by Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications giant, in July of 2022, providing global scale and greater R&D resources. 

Vonage’s primary business telephony solutions are Unified Communications and Contact Center, as outlined in this article.  If you would like to learn more about Vonage or would like a price quote, Brightlio would love to assist as your Vonage reseller of choice. 

Unified Communications 

Vonage’s Unified Communications, or UCaaS, solutions unify voice, messaging, meetings and video into a single business communications platform.  Vonage’s UCaaS solution is Vonage Business Center or VBC.  Telephony, with crystal clear voice quality and 99.999% reliability hosted from redundant global data centers, is the heart of the VBC platform.

Rather than having an on-premise PBX, clients access Vonage’s cloud PBXs through their internet connection.  This eliminates the need to purchase and maintain costly PBX infrastructure and allows customers to leverage Vonage’s global scale for improved reliability and faster deployment. 

Clients can leverage several Vonage compatible phones for their desk handsets.  Vonage compatible phones include handsets from leading vendors like Polycom, Panasonic, Cisco, Grandstream, Yealink, and more. Vonage-compatible headsets are available from Jabra, Plantronics, and Discover.

Also, Vonage allows customers to leverage their desktop and mobile applications rather than a traditional handset, providing clients with the power of a conventional desk phone on their computer or mobile device.  The VBC mobile and desktop apps unify calling, messaging, conferencing, and business applications into a unified platform.  Customers can utilize their laptop’s built-in speaker, or Vonage compatible headsets, for calling.  Additionally, the VBC desktop application is compatible with both Mac and PC. 

The Vonage UCaaS VBC platform has over 50 voice and unified communications features.  SMS and multi-media messages are sent from the Vonage Business Communications Desktop and Mobile Apps using the Vonage Business Communications phone number.

With Vonage Meetings, customers can schedule meetings and webinars for up to 200 attendees.  Meetings can be initiated from the desktop and mobile app, and invitations are integrated with Outlook and Google calendars.  Guests can conveniently join meetings via the web browser without a software download. 

Contact Center 

Customers can enhance the power of Vonage’s VBC solution with the addition of Vonage’s Contact Center (VCC) platform.  VCC is an AI-powered omnichannel experience that allows users to monitor customer satisfaction and sales closely.  Customer communications via phone, chat, and instant messaging are routed to the customer’s CRM.  Conversations can quickly be escalated from chat to voice or video call for quicker customer resolution.  Dashboards and call recording provide visibility into the customer experience, allowing for better training and tracking of KPIs.  The Vonage Conversation Analyzer helps track and quality control customer calls. 

Chat functionality can combine AI-driven conversation bots with customer support associates for an efficient customer service experience.  The chat experience can work in conjunction with websites, social media messaging applications, and social ads to turn these channels into customer conversations.  The VCC platform integrates with CRM systems, most notably Salesforce, for a single dashboard to view the customer contact experience. 

Vonage SmartWAN 

Quality of Service (QoS) and prioritization of voice and data traffic become more critical with a cloud communications system and a distributed workforce.  Vonage’s SmartWAN SD-WAN solution provides the quality and control customers require for a voice and video collaboration product.  SmartWAN uses software to prioritize traffic, prevent congestion and maximize Quality of Service (QoS).  Customers can set QoS controls to prioritize traffic.

SmartWAN will also prioritize traffic based on application, with over 2,000 application routes currently recognized.  Users can access detailed performance statistics and alerts via Vonage’s SD-WAN portal. This makes SmartWAN a compelling solution for multi-site SD-WAN deployments.

Traffic is routed and prioritized over private circuits, commercial broadband lines, and LTE/4G/5G connections.  Additionally, SmartWAN provides failover between connection types to prevent downtime. 

SmartWAN also functions as an application layer firewall, allowing customers to replace firewalls and routers with the Vonage service in some use cases. 

What sets Vonage apart? 

Vonage offers a quality product at a competitive price, coupled with excellent customer support on a global scale.  In addition, partnerships and integrations with Microsoft Teams and Salesforce.com are critical differentiators for Vonage. 

Microsoft Teams Integration 

An elegant integration with Microsoft Teams is a strong selling point for Vonage.  Vonage’s VBC platform integrates with Teams, allowing customers to access PBX features through Teams with superior call quality and 99.999% reliability.  Calls, Teams messages, and SMS / MMS messages integrate into the Teams platform for more efficient communication.  Employees can use the Teams desktop or mobile application to initiate and receive calls.  Vonage’s VBC also integrates with the presence functionality in Teams so that employees can reach out to one another in the most efficient manner. 

Vonage’s Contact Center integrates Teams within the agent desktop and allows for single sign-on for VCC and Teams.  Agents can leverage presence, messaging, and click-to-call functionality to quickly reach the right person to assist the customer, leading to improved customer satisfaction and higher first-call resolution.

Vonage’s Agent Connect pairs with Microsoft Teams direct routing improving Teams reliability. 

Salesforce.com Integration 

Vonage is the ideal choice for customers using Salesforce.com’s CRM.

Vonage’s Salesforce phone integration is built into the browser for automated call logging, click-to-dial, call tagging, notes, and inbound/outbound screen pops.  Vonage’s Conversion Analyzer call transcription solution allows lead scoring, sales training, and reporting inside Salesforce.  Contact Center analytics also live in Salesforce, giving clients a single tool to manage contact center KPIs and customer satisfaction scores. 

The ubiquity of Salesforce makes Vonage’s elegant integration a fantastic feature for many businesses.  Other CRM integrations include HubSpot, Zoho, SugarCRM, and Microsoft Dynamics. A full list of integrations can be found in the Vonage App Center.

Vonage Pricing and Service Tiers

How much is Vonage per month? Let’s explore their service tiers. Vonage offers three unified communications pricing tiers to choose from: Mobile, Premium, and Advanced. Please note, as a Vonage reseller, Brightlio may be able to offer addition discounts.

Vonage Unified Communications Pricing Tiers

The Mobile tier starts at $19.99 per month per line. It includes:

• Mobile and desktop UCaaS applications
• Unlimited calling and SMS
• Access to the Vonage App Center with a growling list of third-party integrations
• Unlimited Team Messaging

The Premium tier starts at $29.99 per month per line. It includes the Mobile plan features, plus:

• Unlimited meetings for up to 100 participants
• Multi-level auto attendant
• CRM integration with your choice of Bullhorn, G-Suite, Hubsport, Office 365, Salesforce, Sugar CRM, Zendesk, Clio, Connectwise, JobDiva, Microsoft Dynamics, and Zoho.

Finally, the Advanced tier starts at $39.99 per month per line. It includes the Premium plan features, plus:

• On-demand call recording (15 hours)
• Call group
• Visual voicemail

Vonage allows for call groups for $4.99 per month per call group. A call group allows incoming calls to ring up to 28 extensions either simultaneously or in sequence.

Vonage runs frequent promotions, that discount tiers by up to 30%. By working with Brightlio, you are assured access to the best discounts and promotions currently available with Vonage. A call group voicemail can also be configured to capture missed incoming calls.

Vonage Contact Center Pricing Tiers

Vonage offers two tiers in their Contact Center Suite: Priority and Premium. Priority includes:

• Announcement place in queue
• Analytics, reporting, and dashboards
• Screen pops and call recording
• Disaster recovery / emergency call routing
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) with skills based routing and SLA optimizer
• Post call quality rating
• Priority call handling and personal queues
• Single sign-on (SSO)
• Contextual notifications
• Ominchannel dialer integrated with your CRM

The Premium tier includes the Priority services, plus:

• Dynamic and multilingual announcements
• Queued callback
• Whisper coaching for contact center agents
• Post call surveys
• APIs for agent availability, authentication, user admin, and reporting

There are also additional contact center features that can be added as options. Vonage’s contact center pricing is based on a custom quotation. As your Vonage reseller, Brightlio can work with you to design the optimal contact center solution for your needs and budget.

Vonage Supported Phones

Vonage does not make their own phone hardware. Instead, they partner with leading IP phone manufacturers, allowing you to pick the best handsets for your needs and budget. Vonage’s preferred phone manufacturers are Polycom, Yealink, Grandstream, and Panasonic. If you are replacing a legacyon premise Cisco CallManager with Vonage, Vonage’s services are also compatible with some Cisco models.

Vonage offers a full list of supported phones on its website.

Vonage Competitors

Vonage’s competitors include Dialpad, RingCentral, 8×8, and more. Brightlio created a detailed comparison between Vonage and RingCentral that outlines the differences between each solution. Major selling points for Vonage over its competitors are the tight integration with Salesforce.com’s CRM, and the integrated SD-WAN capabilities.

Brightlio – Your Vonage Reseller 

Brightlio is a proud Vonage reseller and partner.  We offer expert guidance on selecting the right UCaaS solution for your needs and budget.  Additionally, we provide Vonage-compatible phones and Vonage-compatible headsets in various models. 

Vonage pricing starts as low as $13.99 per line per month via a Vonage promotion.  The team at Brightlio would welcome the opportunity to find the right unified communications and contact center solution for your business.  There is never a cost for quotes or solution designs.  Start with Brightlio today!