Aircall Review

Why Aircall Is Best for Sales and Support

For small businesses with high volumes of sales and service calls, the best business phone system combines dedicated tools to help sales teams reach revenue goals and intelligent contact center features to help customer support teams provide five-star service. Aircall is one of the few providers we’ve reviewed that equally balance sales and service features across all subscription levels. Although we think Aircall is too feature-rich for the very newest and smallest businesses, any small business that makes lots of sales and support calls will flourish with it.

Aircall includes over 100 integrations, API access and a power dialer that can automatically trigger sales calls in rapid succession. On the support side, features such as intelligent call routing can connect incoming callers with the best available support specialist for a specific technical issue or problem. 

Aircall’s cloud-based phone system is built on Amazon Web Services with global data centers, providing its customers with 99.95 percent uptime and dynamic carrier switching for highly reliable service. While Aircall is more expensive than most unified communications tools we reviewed, it could lead to net savings for businesses that are moving away from a separate contact center plan for their customer support teams.

Aircall makes it easy to find and install software applications in 16 popular business categories, including AI and transcription, customer relationship management and sales automation. Source: Aircall

Usability

Although Aircall is not the most user-friendly or intuitive phone system we’ve reviewed, it’s far from difficult to use and manage. Easier options do exist if you need just basic phone functionality as a solopreneur, or as the owner of a new or small business with minimal call volume. A great example of such an option is Grasshopper, as outlined in our Grasshopper review.

As a basic call-routing tool, Aircall is easy to set up and adjust down the line. The “smartflow editor” provides clear options for directing incoming calls, consistently pointing administrators to logical options for call distribution. 

However, the platform could benefit from more templates to guide new users toward an efficient system on day one. When you click a new feature or area of your dashboard for the first time, you’re generally greeted by an online tour that walks you through each section’s capabilities and highlights different areas for navigation. 

Aircall does a nice job of showing new users how to navigate new features and tools. Source: Aircall

Aircall’s desktop app mirrors its mobile experience instead of its web browser experience, which feels like a missed opportunity for users. Although Aircall’s desktop version makes it easy to make, receive and manage calls directly from a Mac or PC, it’s missing the types of data visualizations and customer information dashboards we expect from a complete desktop application. For the most complete user experience, you’ll want to access Aircall through a web browser.

Aircall Features

Aircall includes dozens of basic and advanced call-routing features at every subscription level, but the service differentiates itself with its unique mix of desirable sales and support features. Below are some of the features we liked most in our test of Aircall. 

As you consider these features, keep in mind that mom-and-pop shops, and new or very small businesses, might not benefit from all of them. Well, at least for now — these features could be useful when your business grows, and Aircall’s basic features completely suit all types of users.

Conversation Center

The conversation center is a centralized customer and communications data hub. It provides a filterable log of all calls and voicemails, with instant access to company call recordings and transcripts. Managers can use this feature to review inbound and outbound calls efficiently. 

AI-powered call summaries with key topic recognition and talk-to-listen ratios make it easy to identify coaching opportunities and improve customer outcomes. Source: Aircall

Automated key topic recognition makes it easy to search through calls to identify the most important coaching or training opportunities in sales and support settings. The talk-to-listen ratio is useful for objectively assessing speaker dynamics and caller engagement levels for every interaction. 

Integrations

All Aircall subscribers get access to an ample library of more than 100 free software integrations that are ready to install with one click. The web browser dashboard makes it easy to find and install popular integrations, including Zendesk, Shopify, Slack, Zapier, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics and many others. Even if your business is currently using just a few software platforms, you’ll appreciate the efficiency that comes with integrating Aircall with these applications.

Although initiating the installation takes only one click from within the app, many of the available tools require more advanced configuration to sync properly. Some integrations, like Salesforce Service Cloud and Sales Cloud, are restricted to Professional and Custom plan subscribers. Access to Aircall’s API developer support is available only to Custom plan subscribers. 

Power Dialer

Available to Professional and Custom subscribers, the power dialer reduces manual data entry for CRM systems and helps sales reps initiate more calls. The software can automatically identify business phone numbers on a prospect’s website, update them in Salesforce or other CRM software, and add them to a call queue. 

Once a call is initiated, the screen is populated with relevant customer data from your CRM software to provide immediate context for every call. According to Aircall, the power dialer can save sales reps two minutes per phone call. However, businesses must adhere to all applicable federal and state guidelines when using automated dialing systems such as autodialers and power dialers.

Insight Cards

Although many business phone platforms can pull CRM data for context, we think the combination of available integrations and information presentation makes Aircall’s insight cards especially useful. When the phone rings, you’re presented with valuable insights about the caller, such as the deal size, account owner, last order amount and delivery status. 

Insight cards can pull data from your systems to provide agents with immediate context in sales and support settings. Source: Aircall

With an accurate snapshot of the caller’s details, sales and support agents can immediately resolve issues with personalized service. When combined with Aircall’s public API, developers can create any number of contextual insight displays for agents who make and receive calls.

Aircall Costs

Aircall is among the most expensive business phone systems we’ve reviewed, perhaps immediately putting it out of reach for new or very small businesses. At $30 per license per month, the entry-level plan costs much more than most providers’ plans and requires a minimum of three seats per account, immediately disqualifying it for use among solopreneurs. However, it does include features such as call recording and voicemail transcription, which are typically reserved for higher-tier plans.

Aircall offers two core add-on packages for AI and analytics. For $9 per license, the conversation intelligence tool Aircall AI provides AI-generated call summaries, key topic recognition, talk-to-listen ratios, transcription text search and CRM logging.

For $15 per license, the analytics add-on expands your dashboard with a small suite of tools. It includes advanced filters, unlimited history, heat mapping and the ability to drill deeper into structured data around specific key performance indicators, like unanswered calls, outbound activity and talk time. These features are highly useful for sales and customer support teams, but less so for mom-and-pop shops or boutique agencies that just need a phone number for communication basics.

Aircall Setup

As with most cloud-based phone systems, Aircall is fairly easy to implement and manage for small businesses without in-house IT staff. If it’s your first time implementing a phone system, we recommend taking advantage of Aircall’s group onboarding sessions to learn more about this product category’s capabilities and how to use them effectively with this software. 

However, the installation process should be smooth and fast for anyone who’s familiar with business phone features such as an interactive voice response (IVR) menu. Getting the system up and running can take as little as a few minutes for a small business, but optimization and implementation for larger companies will require far more time.

Small businesses that are selecting a new phone number can start making and receiving calls in a few minutes. Source: Aircall

Once you log in with your credentials, you can immediately select a new number (the more common option for those new to business phone systems) or begin the porting process with Aircall and your previous service provider or carrier. The call flow builder is easy to understand, thanks to an intuitive design and preconfigured settings to send incoming calls to specific numbers, extensions, voicemail or an IVR with highly flexible time rules. Tasks such as creating new teams and users and installing new integrations are straightforward, with in-app help to guide you.

Aircall Customer Service

Aircall’s standard customer support includes help center access, email support, phone support and access to large group onboarding sessions. However, the company’s product page does  not list its support hours, and its app directs users to fill out a contact form or chat with a bot to initiate a service request. When every second counts in ramping up your small business, these obstacles to getting customer support can be a dealbreaker.

Chat support is available in English 24 hours a day Monday through Friday. With a starting license fee of $30 per month, we would expect Aircall to provide the same 24/7 support that companies such as RingCentral and Nextiva include at a lower rate.

Some support features and availability vary by plan in addition to the number of user licenses you purchase. For example, you’ll need to buy a minimum of 15 Professional or Custom licenses to qualify for a dedicated account manager or personalized onboarding sessions. However, all Aircall Custom license holders receive personalized customer support. 

Aircall offers a robust online self-help center that includes a small library of short training videos and useful product webinars. These videos adequately cover most of the basics, including navigating the dashboard, building an IVR and installing software integrations.  

Aircall Drawbacks

Businesses that require people to wear multiple hats stand to benefit the most from a product like Aircall that supports sales and service equally well. However, Aircall’s seat minimums are a serious disadvantage for smaller businesses. While some shoppers won’t have to think twice about the three-seat minimum requirements for the Essential or Professional plan, the top-tier Custom plan’s 25-seat minimum keeps this plan out of reach for many small businesses. 

Startups and businesses with fewer than 25 employees may want to consider 8×8, Ooma and OpenPhone, all of which support small and growing teams well. 

[Read related: 8×8 Business Phone System Review]

Aircall costs more than most of its unified communications competitors. At $30 per license per month, the company’s Essentials plan costs twice as much as the entry-level plans from Dialpad and OpenPhone, and it’s about 50 percent more expensive than starter plans from Ooma and RingCentral. 

At $50 per license per month, the middle-tier Professional plan is the most expensive we’ve seen from a unified communications product. Aircall does not list pricing for its top-tier Custom plan, which is common among competitors with similar enterprise-level plans. Some companies, including 8×8 and GoTo Connect, don’t provide any public pricing.

[Read related: Dialpad Review]

Methodology

To find the top business phone systems, we researched and analyzed more than a dozen solutions on the market. These investigations included thorough evaluations conducted through paid and free trial accounts. We also participated in vendor demos whenever possible. For each product, we examined the features, ease of use, implementation process, integrations, costs and customer service options. We selected Aircall as the best business phone system for sales and support teams because of its simple setup with one-click integrations and a unique combination of advanced features to help improve customer outcomes and drive more revenue.

Overall Value

We recommend Aircall for …

• Businesses with high volumes of incoming phone calls.
• Businesses that want to eliminate a call center plan without losing all call center features.
• Businesses that place an equal value on their sales and customer support teams.

We don’t recommend Aircall for …

• Very small and brand-new businesses.
• Cost-conscious businesses with few regular phone calls.
• Strictly business-to-business-focused companies.