Dialpad Review

Why Dialpad Is Best for Voice Intelligence

While many competitors, including RingCentral’s RingEX, are adding voice intelligence features, they’ve been a core part of Dialpad’s offering for some time. We appreciate that Dialpad includes many of its most useful AI-assisted productivity features with every business communications plan it offers. As an AI-focused phone solution, Dialpad excels with time-saving tools and real-time coaching that help users make the most of every sales opportunity, customer service conversation and internal meeting with the whole team or just a few people. 

[Read related: RingCentral RingEX Business Phone System Review]

The transcription service included as a standard feature can capture everything mentioned during calls and track action items. If a co-worker misses a meeting or a manager wants an accurate recap, Dialpad can provide a brief AI summary with action times or a complete summary with chat logs, meeting recordings and transcripts. 

Dialpad also provides real-time analytics and reporting with easy-to-understand heat maps that highlight the days and hours of the week when you need to adjust your staffing or break schedules. However, new or small businesses, solopreneurs and business-to-business (B2B) companies may benefit from these features less than large, established or business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.

The latter group may like that Dialpad’s reporting tool can also track ongoing calls, average speed to answer and agent availability. With leaderboards, managers can quickly evaluate the call quality and consumer sentiment to identify which employees are performing the best and who needs more support. Although the competition is starting to catch up, Dialpad still sets itself apart from its peers when delivering business voice intelligence at an affordable price.

Easily share meeting recaps with co-workers and stakeholders. Source: Dialpad

Usability

Dialpad’s AI-powered tools play a big role in making this communication application easy to use. While some competitors, like Ooma and Nextiva, have incredibly easy and fast implementation processes with features such as drag-and-drop call flow builders, 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 a customer support setting, insert friendly competition in a sales setting, and improve the customer experience in even the smallest business settings.

Administrators can install or connect integrations from within the app and control which applications users can access. 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.

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 limited 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.

Dialpad’s interface makes it easy to adjust call flows at a moment’s notice with helpful pre-built options to direct calls the appropriate way. Source: Dialpad

AI Voice

We appreciate that AI Voice, one of Dialpad’s built-in AI features, is available with all subscription levels. This tool goes beyond standard transcription, acting as a digital assistant to take notes and track action items during calls. At the end of your calls, you’ll receive a summary in your inbox with action items, recordings and a transcript of the conversation. You can easily reference past communications at any time with the transcription search function. With an upgraded AI Meeting plan, the same voice intelligence tools are available for video conferencing.

Real-Time Analytics and Reporting

All of Dialpad’s business communications solutions are built with call analytics and real-time metrics to help you make informed decisions quickly. Dialpad provides historical data for missed and abandoned calls to quantify lost opportunities and help shift resources appropriately based on the key performance indicators that matter most. 

The program also dives deeper, studying agent availability, average speed to call, and consumer sentiment. You can customize your interactive virtual menu to see which menu options are used most and thus optimize the caller experience. Data is presented in easy-to-understand dashboards and heat maps so you can identify areas for improvement. These features, though, are primarily intended for sales-focused roles and teams. If this description doesn’t fit your team, inquire about plans that include only AI and the basics.

Dialpad offers many reporting and analytics dashboard options. 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.

100-Percent Uptime SLA

Most Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business phone services advertise uptimes that exceed 99.9 percent, but Dialpad goes one step further with its 100-percent uptime SLA. The vendor utilizes data centers around the world and runs on Google’s cloud platform to ensure your communications are never interrupted for scheduled maintenance. Enterprise subscribers even get access to an SLA to back up Dialpad’s commitment to providing uninterrupted service.

Dialpad Costs

Dialpad maintains one of the lowest entry-level prices for an all-in-one communications platform with unlimited domestic calling. When you consider the inclusion of a few advanced AI-powered tools, Dialpad’s value far exceeds that of most other basic plans. 

Other potential Dialpad costs include a few paid add-ons, like local numbers for $5 per month, internet fax for $10 per month, toll-free numbers for $15 per month and room license fees for $34 per month. The per-user pricing below reflects annual billing with a savings of nearly 30 percent compared with a monthly plan.

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 real-time assist speech coaching, 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 weekday 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 100-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. Learn more in our full Ooma review.

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 …

• Small and new businesses that are searching for an affordable way to integrate an advanced AI tool into their daily communications.
• Businesses where employees spend a great deal of time on the phone.
• Businesses that may eventually grow to include large sales and customer support teams.

We don’t recommend Dialpad for …

• Businesses that rely heavily on video meetings.
• Large businesses that regularly conduct video conferences with more than 10 participants.
• Businesses that are not permitted to record conversations for security or privacy reasons.