3CX Live Chat Reviews

• Hot Desking
• Call Queues
• Wallboard
• Call Metrics
• Call Recording
• Easy to maintain

The hot desking made it easier to use a smaller space with multiple shifts and then provide call metrics for all the agents belonging to the queue.

Major changes between versions cause features to move in the tree. The major releases come before any significant minor releases, causing you to upgrade and relearn. They went from version 12 to 15 so quickly that if you do not upgrade, you lose support. During one upgrade, we lost conferencing that took several months to add back in the new version. Also, with the 3CX website, when you use Google, it displays results without letting you know which version it applies to. There is nothing more frustrating then trying to find a solution and finding out the article is not for the version you are using. I wish they would catalog their knowledge base better.

I have used it for four years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues with the 3CX system, only with a client's existing wiring.

We have not encountered any stability issues; runs smooth on Win7 Pro 64bit i7 with 16GB RAM.

We have not encountered any scalability issues; scales just fine.

All of our customer service was through the 3CX vendor Blue Marble Communications. They were excellent throughout the entire process.

We did not need tech support, really, as the vendor handled the complex portions.

We previously used Avaya. I was familiar with Avaya Partner and Magix systems, and they served us well. The cost associated with purchasing and maintaining a Avaya system was significantly more.

The vendor handled initial setup and trained us on how to use; we, as the client's IT management handled the tweaking.

Blue Marble Communications was the vendor and also the service provider. I myself and the rest of the staff agree that they were extremely knowledgeable and knew how to translate what the client was saying into technical terms and vice versa.

The monthly savings on service alone pays for the system in 8 months or less. If you factor in time and manpower, along with the new features that helped productivity, I would value the ROI at less than 3 months.

Pricing for 3CX and phones are reasonable and much less than Avaya and Mitel.

On-premise was significantly less than a hosted solution by Vonage, Comcast or 8x8. We liked the fact of having the choice based upon the client use. I truly believe you have to evaluate the use case scenario, then choose the solution. This is the crucial part in working with the vendor and the client to determine the best ultimate outcome. Vendors have previous case study experience and can relate to the customer and offer insights from similar customers.

We use this solution in our office and also recommend it to our IT managed customers when the time comes. I really enjoy using the same system for different scenarios. It helps me understand what it can do. Sometimes a client needs a solution that afterwards we use in house, too. Overall, it is a fun system to play with.

When I started at the company where I work now they had a software-driven voice-over IP solution or a PBX solution. That was the reason I wanted to move to 3CX, it is a better all-rounder solution. The older system that was on the servers was not able to extend out to the field for the sales reps, nobody outside could access it because there were no Apps. The 3CX was a good choice based on the fact that there is an application available and the reps can start to use it. I can then transfer calls if it comes through to head office. It is a better-unified communication solution. This was the main use that I had for 3CX Live Chat.

My entire organization is spread out across Australia and with the use of 3CX Live Chat I can access the system through the application on the go from any mobile connection. The employees can use the system and I can transfer calls to my representatives out in the field and we can chat with them.

Another feature that I did enjoy that we started to adopt is the customer service help options into our websites. The communication comes through on the desktop as a chat and whichever service agent is available picks up that chat and can reply to customers directly on the website. This has enhanced our customer service relations. It added another channel that clients can get a hold of us and chat directly with our agents. We have benefitted from the use of 3CX Live Chat.

The most valuable features of 3CX Live Chat are the mobile phone and desktop application which allows outside-of-office mobility, it is very user-friendly, helpful, and easy to use. On the back end, it is simple to use and navigate. They have put a lot of thought into the management side of it. In the back end, it can handle everything from a central position or central point. There are a lot of features that I do enjoy.

The dashboards and interface of the solution are very good, they have covered most of the main features needed for our needs.

Support for more desktop phones as a standard would be helpful. They are heavy on Yealink phones and when moving from legacy systems we find it a bit cumbersome to add those phones on to 3CX and then auto-provisioning becomes quite a task

I have been using 3CX Live Chat for approximately two years.

I have not had issues with the stability of 3CX Live Chat. However, since we are relying on a third party for communication, for example, the internet service provider to supply the connection, I do find it difficult to try and convince end-users and management that if there is an issue that it might not be the application itself; it is most likely the internet connection. If you have line quality issues or network quality issues this could be the cause of the problem but when users have call drops or poor-quality calls they just see it as a holistic solution and say, "Oh, it's a bad system". There are a lot of factors to consider before discrediting the solution.

If there is no internet connection the solution will not work fully. For example, when you are dialing out your outbound and inbound calls will not function. However, certain features will still operate, for example, you can still chat and have internal network calls.

We have approximately 50 users using this solution in my organization.

The target market for this solution is small to medium-sized companies.

I have not used technical support but online there is extensive information for any help topic someone would need. 

The initial setup was easy.

We have purchased an annual license to use 3CX Live Chat. There are different options available, you can pay monthly or yearly. I am completely satisfied with the pricing of 3CX Live Chat, it is cheaper than competitors and it is a better solution.

My advice to those wanting to implement the solution is to make sure they have a decent internet service provider. 3CX Live Chat works amazing and having a good connection will allow the best experience while using the solution. 

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate 3CX Live Chat a nine out of ten.

Feature/Functionality matches up to any competitive solution.The fact that you have "Standard" or "Professional" as your purchasing options makes the decision simple.  And, when you choose one or the other, there are no other "Ala Carte" options. You get what you get. No "extras" that end up being tacked on at the end of the sales cycle. The 3CX Phone System system simply works. The "hybrid" capabilities between Analog, SIP and PRI/MPLS are a great way to introduce either redundancy, least cost call routing and to provide for future changes/expansion/growth.

We regularly find that the ease of use, combined with the feature functionality, the "intuitiveness" of the product and the cost of the solution often times "sells itself"

Would be great to see the ability to break office hours down beyond single days.  For example, we have clients that have standing meetings on Monday from 11:00a to 12:00p.

We have been implementing the 3CX Phone System for 7 Years now. We are the largest 3CX Partner in the Midwest and in 2015 reached the top partner level of Platinum.

We have never encountered deployment issues that were not resolved beyond the initial implementation or rollout time period.

The only time stability comes into question is when MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS are not met. There have been no issues with stability with the product itself when installed correctly.

We've had no issues with scalability.

We have found the ROI to be as little as a couple months, but typically no more than 22 months for most, if not all of our clients. Our clients average ROI is 9 months.

Buy what you need for the next few years. You do not want to limit yourself to what you need today, then need to upgrade the license count within a year or two. The upgrade path would suggest purchasing the upgrade up front will cost much less.  For example, a 16SC License can be purchased today, and to upgrade later to a 32SC License will cost the initial purchase of the 16SC License, AND 80% of the 32SC License.

Version 15 Released July 1, 2016.

Ask us if it is right for you! 

Kinetix

mwarmbier@kinetixinc.com

The ease of deployment, scalability/flexibility of it running on Windows. The biggest aspect that I really like about this product is the flexibility of it being on Windows. That means whatever you need to script, automate, backup, or virtualize with Windows, it can be done. This means a lot more control for the administrator, as opposed to a ‘black box’ type of system, where it’s proprietary.

It has allowed for more flexibility and easier deployment/operation for more of our technicians, who might not otherwise have specialized in voice training. It is quite an intuitive system to deploy. It can be as simple as you need, as well as complex as you need. Because it’s quite easy to deploy and operate, it has allowed us better disaster recovery options for our clients. We’ve had some clients that have had to evacuate from local wildfires, which has allowed us to be able to move their system onto a temporary VM server in our data centre and still allowed them to make and receive calls, allowing their business to continue to function. We’ve also had to rapidly deploy the phone system for a local hotel, whose aging phone system finally bit the dust, and getting in the special board, meant thousands of dollars to re-invest into their old system. This allowed them the opportunity for a new, scalable system. Because 3CX is a software system and not entirely hardware, it allowed us to rapidly get the hotel online to a functional state, all within software. As we could get the hardware parts in, we restored more functions to the main operations to get back to normal.

Support. They have global offices and it would really make a huge difference if they were 24/7. Just as much as it is also a benefit that you don’t have to rely on a ‘black box’ solution and have the flexibility of different products to mix and match your solution, it’s also a downfall that you have multiple product vendors to put together the entire solution. It means you’re engaging with all the vendors and jumping from one, to the next, in order to fully troubleshoot your system.

It’s been a solid two to three years since I first started with 3CX deployments.

Over the period of deploying it, I’ve come to quite enjoy all the functionality that’s possible with it, and it’s so easy to setup. You still need a bit of voice experience and network expertise, but that’s my background, so it was quite easy for me to jump into.

So far, I haven’t run into any stability issues.

Not in the least. This product is quite scalable.

Support could be better, especially when you have an emergency and need assistance. They only work certain shifts, not 24/7. They have a great product and make setting up a phone system a breeze compared to some of the big brand systems. Though, the big brands have the benefit that they make all their own hardware, which means they can support the entire solution, not just the core system.

I come from deploying large brand system vendors, and am quite used to their high quality, 24/7 support. When you put in an urgent ticket, you get a warm handoff from dispatch to a tech within 10-15 mins max! This does not exist yet with 3CX. If they ramped up their support, it would add that much more value to their product.

Yes, we did use Cisco’s small business UC5xx line of products, up until a few years ago, then they decided to drop their entire small business line of products. This line of products fit quite well at that time with our customer base and was a sweet spot for the cost. Once they dropped production/support/warranty on this small business line, their new lowest product was the BE6k which was quite costly and didn’t fit in with a lot of our customers’ budgets. So we were forced to look into other options, and 3CX became our go to small business and even scalable for large businesses. There’s just so many features, simpler licensing, and a much easier way to deploy and implement solutions on 3CX.

With 3CX, it didn’t take long to get to know it. Of course, with any new product, there’s a bit of a learning curve, getting to know the way to set things up, where all the settings are, etc. But once you really dig into it and use it, you can’t imagine going back or what there ever was before.

The pricing and especially the licensing is way simpler and easier to understand instead of the larger brands which tend to be so complicated that you almost need to seem to be certified in understanding their licensing models. Not with 3CX. It’s just straight forward.

Yes, we definitely had a look in a few other products like FortiVoice and Ubiquiti. Now there’s Meraki Voice products too, but right now, we’ve taken a liking to 3CX.

Review the training material to familiarize yourself with 3CX’s interface, download and setup the free version and really get to know it. Or I believe they even have a trial or sometimes give away a standard license. I think you’ll quite like it and find it a breeze to setup a system. If you’re technical, you can even automate a lot of the setup and deploy it even faster with a standard template.

We use the solution for two things. One is internal communication or the telephones, and the other is B2B business-to-business solution, which is for video or IP for our distributors and the clients.

Prior to using this solution, there were difficulties with communication between the client and the distributor and our sales team, marketing team. That was improved after deployment of this solution. Because we integrated this voice solution with the video solution, we allow our distributor, our client, customers to log in to our portal to directly interact with our salespersons.

The most valuable solution is a committed server, which is integrated with the telephone. So the integration between the video and voice is the most valuable solution. 

The analytics need to have a granular depth on how the customer details and the data sends information through this medium. That manual data needs to be analyzed and that analyzation should be there in the solution.

I have been using this solution for the last five years.

The solution is very stable.

Only one technician needs to maintain the field components, such as telephones and all, and one engineer who needs to deploy for maintenance of the head-end system.

Scalability is perfect, meaning there is no prepping to do. You can scale the solution as per your requirement in the future as well.

There is no break point at the scalability level. Almost 1,000 to 1,200 users are using this solution in our organization.

In the future, if business grows, it would be increased at least 5% year on.

I received support from the OEM, and there is an ease of support for the customer.

At that time, there was no such solution in the market. There was a analog system, which is difficult to integrate with other systems and it is a monochrome solution. It's for single functionality only; there would be no multiple functionalities under the software. It was the analog technology earlier.

The initial setup of this solution is straightforward.

It only takes three to four days to deploy it. I deployed it myself.

Earlier the solution was perpetual; now OEM has made it a subscription-based solution. The customer has to pay on a quarterly basis, not yearly basis, as per the agreement signed with the OEM.

There is no add-on costing on the standard fees.

Yes, we compared other OEMs as well, along with this 3CX. We found this one was economical, along with bright features compared to the competitor.

I would advise going with the subscription-based model. It will be economical, as well as scalable in the future. It will be saving on a lot of under utilized resources. A customer can subscribe for more channels, or they can reduce the subscription. There is flexibility now that customers can benefit from. 

I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

We are a payment solution company and we use 3CX Live Chat for our organization communications.

Our organization has benefited from using 3CX Live Chat.

3CX Live Chat is the best communication solution for our company.

I have been using 3CX Live Chat for approximately one year.

We have not had any bugs or glitches, the solution is stable.

We have approximately 40 people in my organization using the solution.

We have plans to increase usage in the solution.

We have not had the need to use technical support.

We have used other solutions in the past, such as our local phone provider, but 3CX Live Chat is the best.

The solution was simple to install, but the configuration was not as simple. The full installation process took a few days.

We did the implementation of the solution with a large team.

Our company has saved a lot of money from using 3CX Live Chat. We do not need the local phone company or mobile phones anymore. We only use the 3CX Live Chat software on our desktops or other devices.

The price of the solution is reasonable. There are a few license options and we are using an enterprise license.

I rate 3CX Live Chat a ten out of ten.

Built natively for and runs great on Windows 7/10/Server 2008/Server 2012. Utilize SIP trunks for ISP failover scenarios - we have one customer that has a backup wireless link that fails over seamlessly. Very powerful queuing and call control options. Windows and Mobile softphone apps work great.

We would like to see continued improvements in the 3CX phone mobile apps, such as allowing for deletion of multiple voicemails, shared parking control, and disabling softphone mode. We would also like to see voicemail deletions sync between Exchange mailboxes and 3CX. Lastly, I'd like to see voicemail to text transcription.

We had no issues deploying it.

We have had no stability issues.

It's scaled to our needs without issue.

3CX technical support is top notch and the best of any vendor I've encountered so far. They are based out of Cypress but are always available during normal US business hours and actually answer the phone whenever I've called.

Also, user forums are active and they are constantly improving the software through end user Ideas.

We used Televantage which was years ahead of its time and also ran on Windows. However, they were purchased by Vertical and it hasn't been able to keep up in my humble opinion.

Very straightforward, with a simple menu driven installer and web based management console.

There are standard and pro editions, owned or monthly subscription licensing options, hosted or on-premise installation. This makes it super cost-effective.

We looked at Shoretel, Vertical, Mitel, NEC, and Asterisk. 3CX made the most sense for us and our small business customer base.

Download and run the trial to try it out yourself on any Windows 7 Pro or better computer. You can use a SIP trunk for testing, which is super easy to setup from Flowroute, Vitelity, etc. 3CX is very flexible and almost anything can be accomplished with it.

The organization had many clients, and It was easy to manage user groups and ring groups, and the queuing feature. So, when a customer calls and asks for an incident or complaint, it's really easy to manage.

The dashboard and the reporting feature are somewhat better because the reporting features are used in several instances. One of our clients, a healthcare system provider, needed to know the incoming and outgoing calls and how they will be attended to by their staff. With the reporting feature, you can get all the incoming and outgoing call details.

3CX Live Chat is easy to manage and is a very customizable platform.

It is a stable solution.

The initial setup is straightforward.

Specifically in version 16, we had some issues with call parking. It was not easy to add or remove the users to a parking group in a simple way. We would need to change the users of the parking group, which is somewhat hard.

Once we establish the system and do the initial configuration, some configurations will be fixed. However, if we need to change those configurations, the option is to do a reinstallation. Otherwise, we cannot do anything.

We would need the support team to do the reinstallation manually and perform system changes as well. So, if there are missed configurations during the initial steps, then to resolve that we need to reinstall the system or contact 3CX support. The support would be based on system agreements between the company and 3CX.

The 3CX system has an auto-provisioning system for desk phones, but there are a limited set of models that are supported. It is very easy to configure IP phones, but the supported systems are somewhat low. Yealink phones are supported, but some other brands are not supported.

I would like them to include other models or other vendor's phones to work with the auto-provisioning mode. Otherwise, if that model does not support auto-provisioning, we would need to configure that phone manually. However, if it's auto-provisioning, we could just use the URL, and that will reset the phone, and it will configure it by itself.

I used this solution for around five to six months.

For some clients, we deployed 3CX Live Chat on-premises, and for other clients, on the cloud.

It's a reliable solution. When we deployed it in the cloud, either in their cloud or our own cloud platform, it was more reliable.

When it's deployed on-premises, it's somewhat reliable but may affect other factors.

With regard to scalability, some of the plans need to be done before you go with the initial steps. The main thing is the extension amount.

If you currently have two who use it, but then you have 25 or 30 employees that need extensions, then initially you can use the tool to get extensions. However, when the company grows and the employee count increases by 100s or 1000s, it will be somewhat hard. Once defined in the initial step, the extension and limit count cannot be changed. It will be somewhat hard to scale because you need to plan for the future way ahead of time.

We had around 30 to 40 users. They included network engineers, the manager of the network team, system engineers, HR employees, and the chairman of the company.

I'd give technical support a rating of four on a scale from one to five with one being the lowest and five being the highest. Most of the time, they came back to us once we raised the ticket, but I'm not giving them a five because even though they responded in a quick manner, sometimes their response was not related to the question that was raised.

The installation is straightforward, but the only thing is that they use jargon during user configuration that may not be familiar to someone joining from another voice system.

The initial installation took about two hours. The configuration can take longer, about one or two weeks depending on the client, the client provider, and also the client's internal team.

The maintenance was done by the network team, which included four engineers and one manager.

We used a yearly license depending on the customer's requirements.

I did not handle the pricing, but I think the customers were happy with it because we did not get any complaints related to it.

If you are a new entrant to the voice network field, it would be better for you to get some knowledge before implementing the system. With 3CX, they have their own learning materials related to their product.

If you are implementing this system for the production teams, then it would be better to have thorough discussions with those teams about the required factors before installation.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this solution at eight.