EDU

I signed up for Nextiva recently. The sales rep was responsive and quick to adjust the quote to include the changes I required. Since then the experience has not been great. Nextiva gives the impression that much of their focus is on image and sales, and much less so in the area of technical support. So once you’re signed up, it feels like they are much less interested in dealing with you. See exhaustively detailed issues below:

• Uploading audio file for use in auto-attendant or voicemail -- Description in Office Manager user guide states “8 or 16 kbps WAV file”. The file upload wizard defaults to .au file type. Numerous audio file formats were attempted unsuccessfully. In order to determine the actual file format required, it was necessary to download the default Nextiva auto-attendant audio file and analyze the format. Actual required format is: Wave PCM signed 16 bit, 8000 Hz, 128 kbps, mono. I entered a support call for this via email. Ticket was closed without any reply from Nextiva support.
• Followed instructions for initial account configuration detailed in Office Manager user manual. Manual states in several places that the MAC address for devices shipped to customers by Nextiva will be available from a drop down list in the Device Assignment section under “Sites” in Office Manager. No MAC addresses were listed. Four separate support tickets were entered for this issue. After receiving the IP phone, I was unable to configure it or use it because of this. My first telephone support technician and two email support tickets were closed after the technicians told me that their “oversight had been corrected.” It had not been. On the fourth ticket, a phone support technician manually configured the phone using a remote session. She was unable to explain why the device didn’t show up in Office Manager, why the user manual states that it will, or how I was supposed to know that the instructions are wrong. The technician told me that I should feel free to call if I experience any further issues and they would help me with it. She also told me that I would “get used to” the confusing operation of Office Manager. I spent a few hours dealing with this problem. Although my phone does seem to be working properly now, I still do not have any devices listed.
• The auto-attendant configuration page plays an audio file of the default auto-attendant greeting every time the page is loaded. It’s a minor issue, but it’s annoying, and I don’t understand why it plays at all, since I have my own custom greeting selected for the auto-attendant.
• The sales rep became unresponsive shortly after the completion of the sale. He went out of his way to assure me during our first conversation that he was “my personal representative” and that he would guide me through the process and make sure that he did everything necessary to ensure a smooth transition to the Nextiva service.
• The porting department seems disorganized. After signing up for the service, I received two sets of documents that I needed to fill out and send back to them. One for each number that we were porting. I filled them out and sent them back, only to be contacted the following day by someone who sent them again and said that she needed me to complete them and send them back. I told her that I had already sent them in, and she apologized. Not a big deal, but also perhaps indicative of a less-than-professional system. Did not inspire confidence that they’re going to port our numbers correctly.
• Received an email from someone in their “Customer Success” department, checking to see if things were all right. Replied to his email, and promptly received a bounce-back stating that his email address doesn’t exist in the system.  Ironic.
• Nextiva technical manuals are poorly written. Screen shots relevant to particular tasks are all located in an appendix at the back of the manual. Frustrating to have to flip back and forth in order to take a look at what they’re describing in the text.
• Web portal lacks polish. Everything has a bit of a cobbled-together feel. Contextual help is not particularly helpful. Descriptions and conditional settings are confusing. It is often difficult to tell whether or not a setting change has actually taken effect. There are some inconsistencies in the appearance and functions. Things such as the “Save” button looking different from page to page, or being difficult to find, or appearing to be for one section on a page as opposed to saving settings for the entire page. Basic usability issues that should have been ironed out before customers were allowed to use the site.

Overall, I’m not overly impressed with Nextiva. I’m glad that I only moved one of our telephone lines to Nextiva rather than everything that we depend on. I’m a brand-new customer, and if things continue the way that they have so far, I’ll be looking for another VoIP hosted PBX provider in very short order.