Moving your business communications to the cloud through Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) can transform how your team works. But handing over control of your calls and communications to a third party requires careful consideration. The wrong provider can leave you vulnerable to security breaches and frustrating outages that disrupt your entire operation.
Here's how to evaluate UCaaS providers to ensure they'll keep your communications secure and running smoothly.
Look Under the Hood at Their Infrastructure
Reliability depends on solid infrastructure. Ask where the provider's data centers are located and whether they have backup facilities in different geographic regions. If one data center gets affected by severe weather or a local blackout, you will want your service to automatically switch to another location with as minimal interruption as possible.
Also, find out what happens during maintenance windows and if they’re scheduled and communicated well in advance. Ask if your service will be unavailable during updates or if they can perform maintenance overnight without disrupting your communications. The answers reveal how seriously the provider takes service uptime (and their five 9s score!).
Understand How They Protect Your Data
Your business conversations and voicemail messages contain sensitive information. Find out how the provider encrypts your data, both when it's being transmitted and when it's stored on their servers. Industry-standard encryption should be the baseline, not an optional add-on.
Also ask about access controls. Does it support multi-factor authentication and other security requirements? You need to maintain control over who can access your communications, especially administrative functions like user preferences and call analytics.
Ask About Their Network Service History
Every hosted VoIP provider experiences issues occasionally, but what matters is how they handle them. Find out how they keep their customers informed when an outage strikes. Do they have a webpage where they post real-time updates and that displays network outage history? And do they alert their customers in real-time with service indicators on their webpages, softphone apps, or admin portals? You can be comfortable with providers who acknowledge past service disruptions and respond to them with empathy, quickness, and transparency.
Test Their Support Before You Need It
When you have questions or need help with troubleshooting an issue, you can't afford to wait hours or days for help. Find out what level of support comes with your plan. Do you have multiple ways to contact the provider, via phone calls, support tickets, emailing, and chat?
Here's a practical tip: test their support during your evaluation period. Ask a technical question and see how quickly and thoroughly they respond. That can help you gauge how accessible they are.
Check Their Reputation in the Real World
Don't rely solely on what the sales team tells you. Ask for customer references, ideally from organizations similar to yours in size or industry. Talk to these references candidly about their experience—have they dealt with outages? How was cybersecurity handled? Did support meet their expectations?
Online reviews and industry analyst reports can provide additional perspective. In fact, review sites like Trustpilot or the Gartner network of websites are a treasure-trove of insights into the service from actual customers. Look for patterns in feedback rather than focusing on individual complaints. If multiple customers mention the same issues, take that seriously.
Trust Your Instincts
Throughout your evaluation, pay attention to how the provider communicates. Are they straightforward when you ask tough questions, or do they deflect with buzzwords and marketing-speak? Do they acknowledge limitations honestly, or do they claim their solution is perfect for everything?
A provider that earns your trust during the sales process is more likely to be a reliable partner in the long term. If something feels off—if they're evasive about security practices, if they pressure you to sign quickly, or if their answers don't quite add up—listen to that intuition.
Choosing a UCaaS Provider with Confidence
Choosing a UCaaS provider is a significant decision that will affect your business communications and operations for years. It's worth taking the time to thoroughly vet your options rather than rushing into a decision based on price or flashy features alone.
For more guidance, check out our blog post detailing the top questions to ask when researching a hosted phone system. The answers you receive will help you understand what each provider offers—and if they can meet your business’s needs.
Take your evaluation seriously, ask the difficult questions, and choose the provider that gives you confidence your communications are in good hands.