Dialpad Review

Why Dialpad Is Best for Voice Intelligence

Every Dialpad Connect subscription comes with powerful AI tools and easy-to-understand analytics, making it our top pick for voice intelligence. Unlike Dialpad alternatives, which may rely on third-party LLMs, DialpadGPT is an in-house language model that’s been trained on more than 7 billion minutes of business conversations. It’s possible this makes it less prone to inaccuracies or hallucinations. 

Although several VoIP services provide AI features, Dialpad is the only AI-powered business phone system offering a company dictionary. We loved that we could enter company, competitor and industry-specific jargon or acronyms to improve transcription accuracy and better track keywords in conversations. Plus, the searchable call and meeting AI Recaps help small businesses generate insights about customer pain points, upsell opportunities and competitors.

Employees receive a complete view of current and previous caller conversations within the Dialpad apps through built-in AI and integrated CRM tools. Source: Dialpad

Dialpad also provides real-time analytics and out-of-the-box reports to help companies understand call content, volumes and platform usage. We found the heat maps easy to understand and valuable for determining staffing. At the same time, the voice and digital session histories highlighted various metrics and trends, from call durations to keyword usage. 

While rivals like RingCentral and Zoom have AI-driven messaging tools, Dialpad prioritizes voice data, making it a better option for companies looking for cost-effective call and video meeting voice intelligence. When paid annually, the $15 per user cost for the entry-level Dialpad Connect subscription delivers excellent value. This includes its core AI capabilities, text messaging, video meetings with up to 150 participants and calendar integrations. 

Usability

Dialpad’s AI-powered tools play a big role in making this communication application easy to use. Some of its competitors, like Ooma and Nextiva, have incredibly easy and fast implementation processes with features, such as drag-and-drop call flow builders. But Dialpad impresses after the setup process with its ability to transcribe notes and provide follow-up emails at every subscription level.

We like that this platform also delivers great phone system insights. The wide variety of call metrics can be used to improve efficiency in customer support, foster friendly competition in a sales setting and enhance the customer experience.

Business owners and administrators can set up their call routing through Dialpad’s online dashboard and even enable interactive voice response (IVR) to allow callers to reply via voice instead of through their dial pads. Source: Dialpad

Users can access all of the system’s communications data and features through a web browser, desktop app or mobile app, allowing the flexibility to work from an office, at home or on the road. Although Dialpad may have a slightly higher learning curve than some of the other user-friendly business phone systems we evaluated, its automated features can offer exceptional productivity over time. This sets Dialpad apart from competitors. [See our review of Ooma to learn why it’s the best business phone system for ease of use and small businesses.]

Dialpad Features

Dialpad includes more than a dozen essential business phone system features with all of its phone plans. It also provides team messaging, SMS, MMS and video conferencing capabilities. However, whereas many companies present their AI tools like top-tier products, Dialpad sees many of its automated transcription and meeting follow-up tools as essential features worth including with every plan.

Company Dictionary

Although Dialpad Ai learns from every conversation, small businesses can speed up this process by adding unlimited keywords to their company dictionary. This bespoke feature comes with all Dialpad Connect subscriptions and can help professionals track how often customers mention competitors in conversations or request specific products. 

Add industry- or brand-specific terms to your company dictionary to improve transcription accuracy.  Source: Dialpad

Dialpad Ai

Not all business phone systems provide voice caller intelligence on entry-tier plans. That’s why we appreciate that Dialpad Ai comes with all subscriptions. It transcribes conversations in real-time and delivers editable, sharable and searchable summaries of your phone calls and video meetings. We love that professionals can add manual notes during a call or easily toggle Dialpad Ai off from the call screen for sensitive or personal conversations. 

Since all Dialpad Connect plans include shared calendar app integrations (Microsoft, Apple and Google), employees can create events right from Ai Action Items. 

Teams can edit call and meeting recaps to improve readability before sharing them with executives. Source: Dialpad

Real-Time Analytics and Reporting

All of Dialpad’s business communications solutions include call analytics, logs and conversation histories to help you make informed decisions quickly. It covers the basics, like missed and abandoned calls, along with details about how callers interact with your IVR system or mentions of keywords signifying different tones.  

Pro and Enterprise plans allow small businesses to schedule reports to monitor call metrics or recordings daily, weekly or virtually any custom frequency. We liked how data was presented in easy-to-understand charts and heat maps so you can visualize volume and performance to identify improvement opportunities.  

Use Dialpad reports and filters to understand call volume by department or keyword and identify ways to improve customer service or sales. Source: Dialpad

Real-time Assist Speech Coaching

Automated speech coaching can ensure sales and customer support teams communicate effectively. It can also help your team members communicate clearly with one another on internal calls.

This feature displays suggestions during calls when a user speaks too quickly and begins to dominate the conversation. The software can help speakers develop more confidence and avoid fillers such as “um,” “like” and “you know.” This voice intelligence function ensures everyone on your team is emphasizing professional phone etiquette during every conversation.

Intelligent Call Routing

Auto attendants, known as virtual receptionists, are standard features in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business phone services. However, we appreciate that Dialpad Connect includes a multilevel auto attendant with all subscriptions, which allows small businesses to set up multiple layers of call routing, whereas a single auto attendant only offers one menu level. Additionally, all Dialpad users can access IVR workflows and templates and use automatic speech recognition to capture caller responses.  

Configure your IVR system quickly using a customizable IVR template with media files for various segments. Source: Dialpad 

Dialpad Costs

Dialpad Connect pricing starts at $27 per user monthly (or $15 monthly with annual prepayment). When paid yearly, Dialpad costs less than many business phone systems, including RingEX and Nextiva. With the inclusion of advanced AI-powered tools and intelligent call routing, Dialpad’s value far exceeds that of many entry-level plans. 

Each business user receives one local business phone number, and Dialpad offers additional local or international phone numbers on Pro and Enterprise plans. However, the VoIP provider has a 100-seat minimum for the Enterprise package, meaning you must purchase 100 or more licenses to access this level. Likewise, Pro requires three seats. 

*Companies must register with The Campaign Registry (TCR) to receive 250 free outgoing SMS/MMS messages per user monthly.

Dialpad Connect provides several add-ons, including conference room lines, international, local or toll-free numbers, and internet fax lines. Typically, VoIP providers offer virtual faxing on the base or mid-tier plan, but Dialpad requires businesses to purchase a separate phone number (fax license). If certain employees call internationally, you can add unlimited calling to more than 65 countries. However, pricing starts at $20 monthly, and Dialpad sets minute restrictions. 

Small businesses looking to scale their data and analytics can add features like Business Intelligence, Ai CSAT or Coaching Teams. After purchasing Dialpad plans, you can select these add-on licenses through your portal without calling Dialpad.

Dialpad Setup

Like most cloud-based business phone systems, Dialpad is easy to implement and does not require support from an IT professional. Assigning business phone numbers and mapping out your call flow are usually the most difficult aspects of modern business phone systems, but Dialpad’s interface does a decent job of walking you through each step to ensure calls are routed to the right team at the right time. New users can also book a free 30-minute onboarding session right from the Dialpad app.

Dialpad walks new users through the setup with a helpful task list and available onboarding support from within the app. Source: Dialpad

For some small businesses, the basic setup process takes only a few minutes. However, getting comfortable with some of the more advanced features, like the intelligent IVR system, may require a small adjustment period that adds to the learning curve for Dialpad. 

Dialpad Customer Service

Dialpad’s customer support hours and contact methods vary depending on the plan you select. Entry-level Standard subscribers get multilingual web and chat support, and when your business is new or very small, this level of support might be all you need. Pro subscribers receive 24/7 live agent support, including phone assistance, but you might not need all the features that Pro offers. For Enterprise subscribers, Dialpad adds priority routing, a dedicated account manager, a dedicated support number and a 99.9-percent uptime SLA.

Professional implementation is available for an additional cost, and some Pro users may qualify for a dedicated account manager upon request. All subscribers get access to Dialpad’s community forum and online knowledge base with resources that include templates, checklists, playbooks, guides, reports, research and product-focused content to demonstrate the platform’s potential.

Dialpad Drawbacks

Dialpad’s seat minimums and office location maximums can hamper your ability to choose the ideal communications features and pricing for long-term growth. Sales- and customer service-oriented teams will likely need the Pro plan, which may have seat minimums that disqualify especially small teams. Other teams, though, will fare great with the entry-level Standard package. To learn more about a provider that lets you mix and match plans to create the most cost-effective package with the features you need, check out our Nextiva review. 

Dialpad’s customer support hours are limited to weekdays if you sign up for the Standard plan. This limitation, combined with a lack of phone support for entry-level users, may make troubleshooting difficult for some companies. On the other hand, for small teams that operate on the usual 9-to-5 schedule, Standard-level support should be all you need. Then again, Nextiva and Ooma offer 24/7 support with their entry-level and top-tier plans alike.

Methodology

In searching for the top business phone systems, we investigated more than a dozen platforms. We researched and analyzed each offering, participated in demos whenever possible, and tried free and paid plans. We evaluated each solution based on its tools and features, pricing, limitations, ease of use, setup process and customer service options. We determined that Dialpad is the best business phone system for voice intelligence thanks to the AI-powered call and voicemail transcription feature that’s available with all service plans, as well as the platform’s AI-driven analytics and coaching functions.

Overall Value

We recommend Dialpad for …

• Companies that want to track sales and customer support conversations to understand their audience, products and approach.
• Small businesses and startups looking to save time by automatically summarizing action items for faster post-call or meeting follow up.
• Business leaders and managers that need straightforward voice intelligence and charting tools to improve call flows, schedules and caller experiences.

We don’t recommend Dialpad for …

• Organizations with fewer than 100 employees that need dial-by-extension, SSO integrations or unlimited ring groups.
• Fully remote teams looking for robust collaborative tools and industry-specific integrations. 
• Small businesses that want virtual faxing included with the subscription price.