Senior Writer: Priya Naha
Reading Time: 7 MinutesPublished : February 26, 2024Struggling to manage parent-teacher communication and institutional administrative tasks? VoIP phone systems for schools can help.
With VoIP systems, institutions have improved call handling by 67%, enhanced message management by 63%, and increased remote working by 57%.
To help you leverage such lucrative benefits, we have curated this guide on the top 7 VoIP systems for schools with features, advantages and disadvantages, and pricing. Let’s get started!
What is a Phone System for Schools and Colleges?
A phone system for schools and colleges is a set of multiple interconnected phone lines for the staff to handle phone calls using their desired devices. Such systems provide each staff member with a distinct phone connection loaded with tons of features.
This not only makes administration at schools more efficient but also ensures seamless communication among students, staff, and parents. What’s more, school phone systems have access control features to safeguard school data against intruders.
Schools relying on traditional systems for communication experience high calling expenses, inefficient staff-parent-student communication, and hampered collaboration. VoIP phone systems such as DialerHQ can change that with internet-driven communication, edgy communication tools, and advanced collaboration features.
Which Phone System is the Best for Schools and Colleges?
Individuals, colleges, schools, and businesses often rely on Private Branch Exchange (PBX), Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
- However, you must remember that traditional phone systems like POTS and Private Branch Exchange (PBX) are slightly obsolete when compared to robust VoIP systems and offer no advanced features. Such outdated technology of traditional phone systems interrupts communication.
- In today’s remote learning era, traditional systems with attached hardware may drop phone calls, hamper learning, and introduce miscommunication due to bugs or service outages. Also, such hardware is prone to outages due to bad weather or wear and tear.
On the flip side, VoIP phone systems for schools solve all of these problems as they run on an internet connection, making it an advanced choice among other systems.
Apart from cutting-edge technology, VoIP systems are affordable as they require no additional hardware and involve monthly pricing plans.
In fact, businesses save an average of 30-50% when they adopt VoIP. Not just that, VoIP systems are customizable as per your institution’s needs and scalable with just a plan upgrade.
Why Do Schools and Colleges Need Cloud-Based Phone Systems?
Do you run a school or college? If yes, you’d be aware of the influx of calls institutions receive every day. Managing all the calls with a traditional phone system is exhausting and overwhelming.
That’s why schools need robust and best VoIP phone systems. It solves the management problem with its advanced capabilities and features. On top of that, the best VoIP phone systems bring in a plethora of benefits for educational institutions. Let’s explore them in detail –
1. Cost-effectiveness
Cloud-based phone systems like DialerHQ offer calling facilities at affordable rates and pricing plans. Moreover, VoIP can help you save 50-75% of overall phone costs on average.
Unlike a traditional landline phone system, it doesn’t require any additional hardware or equipment to operate, adding to the cost-effectiveness.
2. Enhanced communication experience
Trusted VoIP phone systems like DialerHQ are loaded with advanced features like CRM integration, IVR, and automatic call distribution. These features improve the overall communication experience among teachers, parents, and students.
3. High flexibility
VoIP phone systems are known for their unparalleled flexibility. You can access them from your desired location at your convenient time.
How? It operates over the internet, so as long as your device has internet, you can work remotely without any interruptions or information loss.
4. Great scalability
As your institution expands, your student number grows. To manage the growing number, you need more staff. Virtual phone systems scale with your institution. For that, you just need to add more users to your system with a few clicks on the dashboard.
5. Robust security
94% of businesses have experienced improved security after adopting a cloud phone system.
Cloud-based phone systems have built-in security features like multiple security encryptions and two-factor authentication to eliminate security threats. Such security features ensure that no hacker ever can intercept your conversations or get access to sensitive information.
Comparison of Top 7 VoIP Phone Systems for Schools and Colleges
| Brand Name | Key Features | Pricing | Free Trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| DialerHQ |
|
| 10 Days |
| Callhippo |
|
| 10 Days |
| KrispCall |
|
| 14 Days |
| Nextiva |
|
| 10 Days |
| RingCentral |
|
| 14 Days |
| CloudTalk |
|
| 14 Days |
| Goto Connect |
|
| 14 Days |
Top 7 VoIP Phone Systems for Schools and Colleges
The market is flooded with VoIP phone systems for schools and colleges, making it difficult for institutions to make the right choice. To help you out, we have curated this buyer’s guide on VoIP phone systems. Let’s dive in –
1. DialerHQ
DialerHQ is an intelligent VoIP phone system for schools and colleges that facilitates seamless communication and improved collaboration among school administration, parents, and students. It has a cutting-edge feature stack that facilitates smooth communication for educational institutions.
- Shared inbox
- Custom greetings
- Call center analytics
- Smart call forwarding
- Forward all inbound calls to the relevant staff member as per pre-set rules to never miss a call and ensure high caller satisfaction.
- Have your entire staff on the same call via call conferencing for efficient collaboration.
- Connect with the staff in real-time and provide them with the right solution so they can provide quicker and more contextual resolution to students or parents.
- The free trial has limited features.
- Advanced features are slightly difficult to navigate.
Pricing
As an enterprise-specific solution, DialerHQ caters exclusively to large teams or organizations. Connect with the DialerHQ sales team at [email protected] for personalized quotes, or start a free trial for first-hand experience.
2. CallHippo
CallHippo is one of the most reputable VoIP phone systems for schools that just takes 3 minutes to set up and start using. CallHippo can be utilized by schools and educational institutes to improve the communication process. To implement it, just get a phone number, add staff members, and make calls.
- Call queuing
- Voice broadcasting
- Dashboards and reporting
- Call transfer
- Place your inbound calls in a line when staff is busy for efficient management and improved caller satisfaction.
- Record all inbound and outbound calls to spot inefficiencies and improve staff performance.
- Monitor live parent-staff-student calls and barge in when necessary to ensure timely query resolution.
- Call quality is not satisfactory sometimes.
- Customer support might take long to respond at times.
Pricing
Starter: $18/user/month
Professional: $30/user/month
Ultimate: $42/user/month
3. KrispCall
KrispCall is a phone system for schools that allows school administration to cater to all communication channels in a unified dashboard. It offers affordable plans for all schools, great security to safeguard student data, and advanced features for easy administration.
- Click-to-call widget
- Intelligent call routing
- Contact tags
- Live call monitoring
- Share a single number with all your staff members for better call handling.
- Offers pristine call quality, leading to uninterrupted voice calls among staff and parents.
- Integrates with your existing tools to better streamline school operations and boost staff productivity.
- Doesn’t offer in-depth reports or analytics.
- Has a call duration limit, after which it automatically cuts the call.
Pricing
Essential: $12/user/month
Standard: $32/user/month
Enterprise: Contact sales
4. Nextiva
Nextiva is a powerful school VoIP phone system that allows you to unify all staff-student-parent collaboration, calling, and messaging via NextivaONE. It lets students connect with classmates in a common messaging platform.
- IVR auto attendant
- Extension dialing
- On-demand and scheduled video calls
- Calendar integrations
- Pull an important call from desktop to phone to avoid cutting it when stepping out of the college premises.
- Know the essential elements of the incoming parent or student phone call in advance to prioritize the calls better.
- Let callers use their natural language to explain their reason for calling with advanced IVR to improve the overall parent or student experience.
- Experiences service outages sometimes.
- The interface is somewhat confusing.
Pricing
Essential: $18.95/user/month
Professional: $22.95/user/month
Enterprise: $32.95/user/month
5. RingCentral
RingCentral is a complete VoIP phone system for school and college communication solutions that combines all elements of a phone system. Its AI features are all you need for better school administration and efficient parent or student call handling.
- Automatic noise cancellation
- Live call transcriptions
- Post call summaries
- Call flow editor
- Generate comprehensive post-call recap automatically, saving time, enhancing staff productivity, and ensuring data accuracy.
- Send campus-wide updates or alerts via two-way SMS/MMS for streamlined real-time communication.
- Enable teachers to protect their personal numbers when making phone or video calls, enhancing security.
- The platform lags even during stable networks and the internet connection.
- Offers limited customizations.
Pricing
Core: $20/user/month
Advanced: $25/user/month
Ultra: $35/user/month
6. CloudTalk
CloudTalk is a cloud-based phone system for schools that lets you deliver the best support to parents and students with its amazing features. It integrates with 35+ software, ensuring centralized access to information for school staff and the administrative team.
- Call recording
- Call back
- Automatic call distribution
- Call notes
- Works equally well and syncs up on both mobile phone and computer, supporting remote working for staff.
- Automatically re-dials unanswered phone calls to ensure a successful connection with all staff, parents, and students.
- Distributes inbound calls based on pre-set rules to ensure callers reach the most qualified staff member, improving customer service.
- Logs you out occasionally, leading to missed calls.
- Customer support has a long response time.
Pricing
Starter: $25/month
Essential: $30/month
Expert: $50/month
Custom: Contact sales
7. GoTo Connect
GoTo is one of those unparalleled VoIP phone systems for schools that enable you to build great workflows so all calls are directed to the right staff member. This hosted VoIP for private schools ensures simple staff-parent call management and administration.
- Screen sharing
- Virtual meetings
- Call management
- Auto attendant
- Has an extremely intuitive user interface for efficient school administration and staff-parent call management.
- Gives access to all features on the mobile, ensuring convenience and productivity while your staff is on the go.
- Share your screen with your staff for easy collaboration and clear communication regarding presentations and documents.
- Doesn’t offer skill-based routing.
- The web platform freezes sometimes.
Pricing
Basic: $27/user/month
Standard: $32/user/month
Premium: $43/user/month
Things to Consider While Choosing a Phone System for Schools and Colleges
Choosing the right phone system for your educational institution (school or college) is critical to ensuring interruption-free communication, collaboration, and information sharing.
That’s why it’s non-negotiable to make a wise choice. Here are the major things to consider –
1. Advanced features
Your chosen school system must have all the features you need for seamless communication and collaboration. Some of them are auto broadcasting, call routing, video conferencing, and call recording.
2. Affordability
The right VoIP solutions for schools perfectly fit your budget and align with your business needs. For that, explore and compare pricing plans of different systems.
3. Customer support availability
Ideally, VoIP phone solutions must provide 24/7 customer support. Not only that, customer support must have short response times in case of service outages, security issues, or any system malfunction.
4. Security
When choosing your phone service provider, always make sure that it has encryption and security features to safeguard user data privacy and avoid unauthorized access.
5. User interface
Choose a VoIP phone system with an easy interface so your staff doesn’t struggle to navigate its functionality and features.
6. Scalability
Don’t select a VoIP system before ensuring that the system is capable of catering to the school’s growing needs. Your system must allow you to purchase advanced features on demand, add more users, or shift to a higher bundle tier.
7. Compatibility
Before finalizing your VoIP system, you must check whether it is compatible with your existing education applications, or you’ll have to build a new infrastructure. This way, you can avoid post-purchase cost spikes or surprises.
8. User reviews
To be sure of a particular system’s service quality, read the reviews posted by users on software rating platforms like SoftwareSuggest, Capterra, or G2.
Wrapping Up
VoIP solutions for schools facilitate seamless and affordable staff-student communication in schools and colleges across multiple channels. Such systems enhance the communication experience, reduce call costs, and induce flexibility in the institutions’ operations.
To avail of these benefits, you must explore the systems listed in our buyer’s guide. If that seems overwhelming, straightaway choose a reliable and feature-rich VoIP system like DialerHQ.
DialerHQ has all the features you need to streamline communication, manage call data, and improve collaboration among the staff. So, wait no further; head to DialerHQ and start a free trial now.
Frequently Asked Questions
The major equipment required for VoIP are modem and router. These pieces of equipment enable you to communicate over the Internet.
Yes, Google Voice and TextNow are free VoIP services. However, they lack phone system features to cater to the calling needs of educational institutions. A robust VoIP system like DialerHQ changes that with its advanced features for seamless communication.
VoIP systems for educational institutions offer benefits like enhanced security, boosted productivity, and top-notch security.
Yes, you can use a VoIP phone as a regular phone.
Priya is a seasoned writer with over 5 years of experience, specializing in VoIP and cloud telephony. She is also well informed about content and digital marketing. Her expertise extends to SEO, ensuring her work not only informs but also ranks. She’s your go-to writer for the telecom industry.
Updated : February 27, 2024
Subscribe to our newsletter & never miss our latest news and promotions.
+15K people have already subscribed
