Google Voice vs. Rakuten Viber

[Google Voice is] great if you have a workforce that needs to make calls for business purposes from their personal mobile device, while keeping their personal phone number private. If you have a large company with its own telecom system, it probably won't be necessary if employees already have their own landlines or separate work phones.

Incentivized

It's perfect for messaging and group messaging, especially when users in group are from different places, organizations... (unlike slack where you have to be member of same organization to be in same group). The video calls are the weak point of the app, so Viber is not good for conference calls, video calls and especially for group video conference calls.

Incentivized

• Google Voice has been great for setting up additional phone lines and numbers.
• The voicemail inbox is a great feature and you can see when messages come in online and listen to the messages from your computer.
• Google Voice allows us to have multiple phone numbers and lines for specific business purposes.

Incentivized

• It is very easy to use and is very user-friendly.
• You can have high quality video and audio meetings with more than 1 person.
• You can upload any type of file in Viber (video, audio, text, GIFs, PDF files).
• It is a very well known messenger so all people have access to it.

Incentivized

• It can be tricky to configure exactly how you want it. If you are particular about which voicemail greeting goes to which number, and how it appears when it rings through to the phone - it can take a good amount of work to set it up properly.

Incentivized

• As far as I can tell, Viber lacks the feature to block specific callers/numbers. I've never needed to do this, but I'd like to know I have the option.
• Viber cannot be used without wifi, so it is not possible to connect with contacts who aren't also using Viber. (Unless you want to use the paid service.)
• This isn't a major complaint, but I find the layout of Viber to be a little cluttered. Comparing it to WhatsApp, I don't find it to be quite as user-friendly, and I sometimes stumble around to find my way to a contact to call.

Incentivized

It's user friendly, how to use it is self explanatory, they support all their own options while someone like Phone Booth uses a third party. I can cancel Google Voice anytime and I choose how much I spend with Google Voice

I haven't had problems with dropped calls, bad reception, lost recordings - everything works the way it should. The iOS app is easy to use, and the process is easy to explain to other people. It's also the cheapest way I've found to call internationally - I've used it to interview people from London and Austraila.

Incentivized

They do not offer support unless you have the Business account for Google Voice under G Suite. This is tough, because Google doesn't really have a customer support team for this service, so when it gets shut down for a few hours, we have no choice but to wait it out. But this doesn't happen that often, which is great.

Incentivized

I have not frequently used the support for Viber as I have not had many problems with it on my phone. I did use support one time for problems with the computer application and used the forums to solve my problems. They were fairly easy to follow and I appreciated the online help in that format.

Incentivized

It is a pretty seamless program to transfer to, even for people who either have little experience with these programs or people who were stuck on Skype

Incentivized

Google Voice at the peak of its adoption did serve as a very real and effective solution. However bugs persisted, and innovation lacked, and support for the product soon declined. However, there are several other solutions provided that focus on making one product as best as it could be. Google made it clear to me as a customer, that this was a backup for a backup. When you look at the simplicity on its own, it appears to be fantastic, however as you dive deeper, and experience its lack of smooth edges, you find that it's been built by engineers who were given a scope, rather than solving for a use case and listening to customer feedback. Many of the other solutions available on the market, see this opportunity. This is why voice communication is a growing SaaS vertical, albeit competitive. Understanding the customer here is key, and Google understands what drives value to the larger organization. As a business owner, I understand, that when a business has to allocate resources, another department, or service suffers. Unfortunately this product feels to be the one that has met that fate

Incentivized

Rakuten Viber is overall the best. Hands down!!! Even though the other products have their own use and they are well functioning in the market, but Rakuten Viber is still top notch!

Incentivized

• Google Voice has saved us a lot of time in regards to overall productivity.
• Google Voice allows us to operate at a greater scale than without it.
• Google voice allows us to track which advertisements are working best.
• Google Voice allows us to spend less time listening to voicemails.

Incentivized

• Rakuten Viber allows me to delete any type of message I've sent
• Rakuten Viber can't access or read my private conversations in the first place, Viber can't sell them.
• Hidden Chats allows me to keep whatever chats I want away from my main chat list, so they don't show up in my main chat list. Only a PIN that I set gives me access to Hidden Chats.

Incentivized