In the Eastern Management Group’s new 2020 PBX study, Sangoma ranked highest in customer satisfaction out of 33 unified communications providers evaluated. Xorcom and Dialpad also turned in blue-ribbon performances.
In its latest annual global satisfaction research, the Eastern Management Group collected data from thousands of IT manager customers. Each rated their company's unified communications provider on 12 measurements covering product, vendor experience, and customer delight. The findings are in our "
2020 Premises and Hosted PBX Customer Satisfaction" report.
Sangoma’s Strong Satisfaction Scores
Customers rate Sangoma the best of 33 vendors in the customer satisfaction measurements of technology and product, purchase experience, installation, and overall satisfaction. When asked if they would recommend Sangoma to a friend, customers gave Sangoma the highest rating — four out of four stars.
Sangoma UC Portfolio
Sangoma has a broad communications portfolio, including UC, VoIP phones, session border controllers, communications platform as a service, and SIP trunking. The UC lineup consists of on-prem, cloud, and virtualized systems, under the Switchvox banner.
- UCaaS — Switchvox Cloud is a fully-featured UC solution designed for SMBs. Premium features, including presence, messaging, conferencing, and mobility, are included with a basic package, all for about $20 per seat. This low price per seat compares handsomely in Eastern Management Group price models that show premium features from many well-known UCaaS vendors can add $6 per month more, or about 30%, to the price per seat. Here, Sangoma seems to be at an advantage.
- Premises — The Switchvox UC Phone System includes the same features listed for the cloud version, again at no additional cost. Applications like collaboration, mobility, chat, video chat, quick dial, status, and presence, are free.
Sangoma UC systems are not just for SMBs, which the Eastern Management Group classifies as systems up to 300 seats. Our survey shows that 16% of all Sangoma system purchases are made by customers with more than 300 seats, and most of them — 10 of the 16% — exceed 500 seats.
Eastern Management Group’s survey shows both premises PBX and cloud each account for substantial numbers of Sangoma’s UC deployments.
Our research shows Sangoma UC systems are well distributed across the 20 vertical markets we track. A large number are in healthcare, retail, education, finance, professional services, personal services, and government.
Behind the Curtain
Acquisitions play an essential role at Sangoma. The addition of Digium, VoIP Supply, VoIP Innovations, and other companies has added depth to the business.
Financially, Sangoma performs well. Annual revenue for FY 2019 was $109 million, 91% higher than the prior year, according to the company’s annual report. Gross margins exceeded 60% of revenue for the year, and EBITDA was $12 million.
Sangoma’s R&D expenditure, exceeding 17% of revenue, has likely been a contributor to Sangoma’s customer satisfaction measurement scores. Sangoma is a growing company that, in our satisfaction survey, gets deserved customer recognition.
Rounding Out Top 3
As noted above, Xorcom and Dialpad also faired well in our customer satisfaction research.
This is not the first year Xorcom has been at the top of more than one customer satisfaction measurement in the Eastern Management Group’s yearly survey. In 2020, Xorcom rated number one in support, moving up from the number two spot last year. Training could be part of the reason Xorcom scores well here. All you need to do is review the syllabus of Xorcom’s 35 section free course on the “Basics of CompletePBX 5” to see the company’s exceptionalism at work.
Like Sangoma, Xorcom receives the four star maximum for our Recommend-To-A-Friend rating. Xorcom customers include brands like 3M, Verifone, and many hotels like Hilton.
Xorcom’s total satisfaction scores earned the company a spot in Eastern Management Group’s top five PBX vendors for 2020.
As for Dialpad, out of 33 competitors in the study, it rated number one for innovation, as well as for value. In each category, Dialpad received four stars out of a possible four.
Innovation and value can be seen intersecting on Dialpad’s website home page. The company’s website boasts that if COVID-19 is disrupting your business, Dialpad will help and here’s how: Dialpad Talk Pro and UberConference Business are free to help keep customers connected. That’s compelling innovation and value.
Look under the hood of Dialpad’s technology, and it’s full of AI tools. AI will coach a customer’s salesforce and contact center agents. Dialpad calls these applications dialpadSell and dialpadSupport. I haven’t seen this type of tool available elsewhere.
Final Thoughts
Despite the growth of PBX competition, Eastern Management Group’s 2020 customer satisfaction measurement scores, for all vendors combined, improved by four percent over 2019. It’s a remarkable achievement for a capable group of providers.
