Spent the last 2-3 hours doing a "free" trial of RingCentral and wanted to share my experience. Ended up canceling same day.
Utterly disappointed and frustrated. Somewhere in the middle of the trial two Excedrin were consumed.
What I didn't like:
1) Deceptive free trial period and billing practices.
Their "Standard" MVP Plan (Message, Video, Phone) is currently listed at a discounted price of $20.99/user/month on their website (normally $27.99). I clicked the "Try Free" button to proceed to sign up and the following was explicitly displayed to me during that process:
Annual Total (post trial)
$251.91
Today’s total (trial period)
$0.00
You will NOT be charged if you cancel prior to 06/14/2022. After your trial period, your credit card will be charged a combination of annual and one-time charges totalling $251.91 to RingCentral, Inc.
If you are not convinced within 15 days, simply cancel
Emphasis added.
I have notifications enabled with my business credit card so that if it's used in a transaction in which the card wasn't present/swipped/scanned, I receive an automatic email notifying me of this. It's for security really and what it effectively means is that I get an email every time that card is charged in an online transaction.
Immediately after completing the sign up process, I received an automated email from my credit card company notifying me that I had been charged $341.51 by RingCentral, and also an email from RingCentral a few seconds later notifying me of the same. No trial period for me it seems.
Also, $83.97 of taxes and fees were tacked on. I might have been okay with this if they had been transparent and upfront about the surcharge, however they weren't and I feel this is deceptive.
2) Lots of friction with the account activation process.
I couldn't use either of my numbers to authenticate and sign up because RingCentral deemed they were both VOIPs. They were right about one, a Google Voice number. The second is my cell phone number, which is hosted by a major carrier. It didn't matter to RingCentral.
I ended up having to call a family member. Used their number and they put their phone on speaker so I could hear the authentication code.
A bit ridiculous IMO.
3) Bulky and unintuitive interface, unhelpful tutorials, lack of resources to setup the platform and auto attendant.
I don't think I've spun my wheels as much as I did over the past few hours than I have since I was a first year associate. Maybe to get the full value of out this system you either need to spend hundreds (or thousands) on a specialist to set everything up, or you need to spend hours of trial and error. I don't want to spend that kind of money as the benefit is dwarfed by the cost, nor do I have time to figure out the platform myself.
The resources leave a lot to be desired and are unhelpful. The first half of each 2-3 minute "tutorial" video is an intro with generic graphics, and they're voiced by slow speaking Brits.
What would be really helpful is a 20-30 video that walks through all the features and how to setup a basic account, but I guess that's too much to ask.
The search continues. I'm now just looking for a bolt-on video conferencing and screenshare platform. No unified platform. As I'm likely going to transition to TaxDome in a month or two, I'm trying to keep my sanity and as much stability as I can.