Nextiva gave the dental office its lunch hour back

The sign on Dr. Ostermann's front desk said "Back at 1:00." It said that from 11:45 to about 1:40 every day, because when Tina left for lunch the phone just rang. Patients heard ten rings and a dial tone, then called the dentist across town. She estimated six or seven new patients lost a month. Nobody tracked it. You do not track the customers who never reach you.

So here's the thing. A phone system for a two person office is not a phone bill anymore. It is a piece of software with rules, and the rules are the product. Nextiva is what we put in, and it is what I recommend when there is more than one person answering.

What it costs

1. Core, $15 per user per month billed yearly, or $23 month to month. Unlimited calling, video meetings, team chat, 100 text messages per user a month, and voicemail that shows up as text.
2. Engage, $25 per user per month billed yearly. Adds call recording, live chat, online fax, and bigger texting limits.
3. Scale, $75 per user per month. Call center territory, with AI transcriptions and supervisor tools.

I pay for Dr. Ostermann's account myself, four seats on Core, and her office pays me monthly like everything else I run for them. Four seats at $15 is $60 a month, $720 a year. Month to month would have run closer to $92. They were paying about $190 a month for three copper lines and a phone tree nobody could edit. The math is not subtle.

What we actually set up

1. One main number, ported over, which took about two weeks like every port does.
2. A rule that rings the front desk first, then Tina's cell, then the back office, then voicemail that lands in email as a sound file.
3. The auto attendant for after hours and lunch. It says the hours, gives the emergency line, and takes a message.
4. Texting from the main number. The confirmation texts alone cut the no shows, which Tina noticed before I did.

Setup was one afternoon. The apps went on their existing cell phones, one inexpensive desk phone for the front desk, nothing wired into the walls. I am no phone guy and I did it anyway. That is the review right there.

The honest downsides

Nextiva is not the cheap option. The budget services undercut it, and Forbes dings it for costing more than the average VoIP plan. Some of those cheap ones are fine. I have written about them. What you are paying extra for is support that answers, and reviewers consistently rank Nextiva near the top for that. Trustpilot sits at 4.6 across thousands of reviews, with reliable call quality the most common praise.

That said, not everybody is happy. There are Reddit threads from business users who had real call quality problems and slow support tickets. I cannot argue with their experience and I will not. Ours has been clean for a year, but our internet is also good, and VoIP on a bad connection is misery no matter whose name is on the invoice.

One warning. The month to month price runs roughly 35 to 50 percent higher than the annual price. If you try it, know you are renting at a premium. Commit once you know your internet can carry it.

The gas manifold

The auto attendant is a gas manifold. One supply line comes in, and the manifold splits it to the burners that actually need fire, in the order you decided when your head was clear. Without it, you are running one flame and hoping the person standing closest answers. Every small office past two people needs the manifold.

What to do Monday

Sit at your front desk at lunch hour tomorrow and just listen to what happens when the phone rings. If it rings four times or more before a human answers, write down the ring order you actually want and compare it to what you have. Fixing that one rule is worth more than any website I have ever built. It was for Dr. Ostermann.