Avaya

What is Avaya?

Avaya is a multinational business communications company that is known for its desktop phones, multimedia devices, conference phones, and wireless headsets. In addition to these products, the company also serves as a provider for communications platform as a service (CPaaS), contact center as a service (CCaaS), and unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solutions.

As a result, Avaya is a reliable solution for those that are seeking an all-in-one option – you shouldn’t have any problems getting fully set up with a complete communications package. Their CPaaS APIs allow your team to add code to your applications so that customers reach your brand through multiple channels. These include voice, SMS, MMS, video, and chat. In addition, their other communications solutions for unified communications and contact centers also provide APIs and multichannel functionality so that you reach your customers on their preferred communications touch points. 

Overview of Avaya Features & Highlights

Outside of their hardware, Avaya has several options for businesses looking to embrace CPaaS and UCaaS. Here’s a look at some of the services that the company makes available for its customers:

Avaya OneCloud CPaaS 

OneCloud is Avaya’s dedicated communications API software for the incorporation of communications channels into your apps. Avaya says their platform allows users to “create apps without limits,” and this CPaaS solution does support SMS, MMS, voice, and messaging. Unlike other Avaya products, OneCloud has a single plan for all users that grants several functions for your apps. There’s even SIP integration for those customers with existing trunks.

OneCloud is REST API-based, and the software associated with the service allows you to buy numbers on demand. Here’s a look at all of the features and highlights of the service:

• Local and toll-free dialing for inbound and outbound:
• Inbound and outbound local SMS and MMS messaging 
• Inbound and outbound toll-free SMS and MMS messaging
• WhatsApp messaging
• Local and toll-free virtual phone number with no provisioning required
• Auto transcription of calls
• One-click Google Contact Center integration
• SIP integration
• Automatic speech recognition as well as text-to-speech
• Call recording and transcription
• Audio conferencing
• Voice changer for audio conferences
• Customization for the background audio during conferences
• Carrier services for those looking for insights on call origin and number segmentation
• Contact tracing, which uses AI for information collection
• Avaya Cloud Virtual Agent, which is a AI-enabled auto attendant system for smart call routing

Avaya Unified Communications

The critical benefit of Avaya Unified Communication is consolidation. This service ties calling, messaging, meetings, and team collaboration into a single application. Like most UC services, this increases productivity and opens up the lines of communication for colleagues and customers. The service also has enterprise-grade security features like transport layer security (TLS) and data encryption, which is essential for mitigating VoIP security risks.

Here’s a look at some of the features that are available through Avaya’s UC service:

*All plans include the default features from the previous tier

Avaya Spaces

Avaya Spaces is designed for smaller businesses, which is why they have a freemium plan for those that don’t need a wealth of features. For example, at their base tier, they have audio conferences for up to 50 attendees. The Business and Power tiers are very low priced, as you’ll see in the pricing section, but these plans have all of the features of Essential with increased participant counts and no caps on file sharing.

Here’s a look at the key features of each plan:

*All plans include the default features of the previous plans

Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral

Avaya’s partnership with UC provider, RingCentral was announced late last year in October, and since then they’ve fully unveiled their Avaya Cloud Office UC service. Like with RingCentral Pricing, Avaya Cloud Office offers four distinct plans that include Essentials, Standard, Premium, and Ultimate. Each of these charge per user, per month, and are designed with teams in mind. 

The four distinct plans present businesses with more tailored options as they scale. For example, each grants access to virtual phone numbers, but starting with the Standard Plan, users gain DID numbers in 100 countries. Video meetings participant counts also increase with the plan type. 

The voicemail-to-text feature may be a selling point for this service because these transcribe any received business voicemail to text so that your reps read them rather than having to cycle through recordings. For users of plans at the Premium level and above, hot desking may also be useful. This allows the assignment of a single workstation to users at different times of the day/week.

Here’s a look at each tier so that you understand the features of each (we’ll cover pricing later):

*All plans include the default features of the previous plans

Avaya Contact Center

Avaya isn’t limited to UC plans. In fact, for those running a call/contact center, their Avaya Contact Center plan, which was formerly named OneCloud IX, provides several useful features for those looking to set up a cloud contact center. This service only features two plans, but they are very competitive with other cloud-based contact center as a service (CCaaS) providers. 

The two plans are Voice and Digital. Voice is for traditional call centers, but Digital adds on channels so that centers reach their customers on their favored touch points. The focuses for this plan includes email, chat, and SMS. As you’ve learned from our State of the Contact Center piece, omnichannel contact boosts center efficiency and decreases the cost per call of contact. 

Here’s a look at each plan and what each offers:

*The Digital plan includes all of the features of the Voice Plan

Avaya Contact Center also includes a few add-on plan options that you may want to consider. These are for both tiers of their service:

Avaya Pricing & Plans

When it comes to pricing structures, Avaya’s various provider plans have a great deal of variation. For example, their UC plans each have multiple tiers for different sizes of business, and each product is also designed specifically for a certain type of business budget. Here’s a look at their tiers:

Avaya OneCloud CPaaS 

Avaya Unified Communications

Avaya Spaces

Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral

Avaya Contact Center

Editor’s Bottom Line on Avaya

Avaya’s ecosystem of products is varied enough that most businesses should easily be able to find a plan that fits their needs. For those looking to add features to apps, multiple plans are developer-friendly such as their Cloud Office and OneCloud products. 

Avaya is a provider that has plans that work for a variety of different businesses. They have free plans for small businesses like the Essential plan in Avaya Spaces as well as plans that have many more features that you can consider.  

The Ultimate plan in Avaya Cloud Office is extensive enough for larger businesses, and it is feature-heavy with integrations that can really help the daily operations of your organization. Avaya Contact Center even has support for multiple digital channels to help decrease contact center costs.

Many associate Avaya with its hardware, but they are fully committed to providing customers with cloud-based business communications options as well. They even have hybrid solutions for those businesses that need a more tailored cloud experience. Overall, this is definitely a all-in-on provider that’s very worthy of consideration.