Today’s business environments are more complex than ever. We’re living in a world where it’s becoming increasingly common for people to work remotely or operate outside of the office. This means that if companies want to remain as productive as possible, they need a way to keep their teams connected.
The future of communication and UC 3.0 relies on the ability of organisations to deliver stronger experiences. Those experiences aren’t just for customers, but for the business, the team, and the individual user too.
GoToMeeting and Webex are two of the leading meeting solutions available for users today. We’re going to explore what each of them can offer the UC 3.0 world.
GoToMeeting vs. Webex: User Experience
User Experience is the most common concern that companies face when adopting a new technology. Even the best meeting room solution won’t positively transform your business if no-one on your team is willing to use it.
GoToMeeting has pulled all of its collaboration and communications solutions together in the unified “GoTo” suite of products. The GoTo environment gives companies everything they need to collaborate and communicate over the cloud. For instance, GoToMeeting ensures that people can connect easily and quickly with a single click on a customised URL. You can join conferences from any device and adapt your experience to suit you.
GoTo also provides access to simple voice calling through Jive Voice. Jive comes with access to toll-free multi-national numbers, and more than 80 features intended to simplify the management of VoIP strategies. User experience features include:
- GoTo simplicity – countless features in a single portfolio
- Toll-free numbers for over 50 countries
- Click-to-join meetings
- No hardware or downloads required
- Smartphone and web browser access
- Cloud flexibility
Cisco Webex also makes communication and collaboration simple, with one-button click-to-join meetings, and crystal clear audio and video conferencing. Thanks to the Webex mobile app, people can interact wherever they are, whenever they want. There are no complicated processes to figure out, just click on a link to join, and you can even see contextual information about the participants you’re speaking to.
Up to 100,000 people can join a conversation via Webex Meetings, including guests, and Cisco strives to make managing your system as easy as possible with no expensive infrastructure or on-premises IT. Cisco can handle the back-end of your cloud for you while you manage basic settings through an intuitive customer care portal. What’s more, the Webex solution integrates with all of your existing Cisco tools and solutions. User experience features include:
- Tap or click to join
- Easy management with no on-premises infrastructure
- No hardware or downloads required
- Cloud flexibility
- Webex Mobile app for on-the-go management
- Integration with existing Cisco tools
GoToMeeting vs. Webex: Team Experience
Webex and GoTo are both portfolios designed to improve the collaboration between your employees and help your business run more smoothly. Even in this age of dispersed workforces, the right tool can bring your team members together.
GoTo’s team meeting strategy is based around their recently-announced GoToConnect solution, which combines the GoToMeeting service for video, audio, and web conferencing with Jive for VoIP phone systems. Employees can use GoToConnect to chat, talk, text, meet, and collaborate through a single application, which helps to boost productivity.
Aside from GoToConnect, GoTo also offers GoToMeeting, with support for up to 25 high definition video feeds per session, and GoToWebinar for larger business presentations and demonstrations. To support your in-house conferencing experiences and huddle rooms, you can also explore the range of GoToRoom bundles from GoTo. These solutions come with hardware for mid-sized rooms and huddle spaces. Alternatively, you can use InRoom link to connect to your existing H.323 enabled video tools.
Team experience features include:
- GoToRoom bundles and equipment
- One-tap conferences
- GoToConnect for UC&C
- Webinar support with GoToWebinar
- File and screen sharing
- Video, audio and instant messaging
- Virtual whiteboards and annotations
Webex supports the collaboration needs of the modern enterprise through their Webex Teams solution, designed to compete against offerings like Microsoft Teams. The software comes with everything that today’s groups need to communicate and work together as a team, including file sharing tools, instant messaging, video conferencing, and audio.
Users can keep track of their messages and information easily with an environment that keeps all of their collaborative content in the same space. Webex Teams also allows users to share screens, documents, spreadsheets, and more to add context to conversations. When annotation and extra information is necessary, there are virtual whiteboard solutions available through Webex, and users can share their interactive drawings in the chat space.
For larger presentations and demonstrations, Webex offers webcasting for up to 100,000 participants and Webinars with Cisco Webex events. There is also a range of hardware solutions for meeting rooms provided by Webex, including the Cisco Webex board, Cisco Webex room devices, and Cisco Webex desk devices. You can build out your huddle room or conference room using a complete Cisco-powered solution, and even add-in Cisco’s state-of-the-art AI assistant too. Team experience features include:
- Webex Teams collaboration
- Webex Webinars and Webcasting
- Interactive whiteboards and annotations
- File and screen sharing
- Cisco hardware, including interactive whiteboards
- AI virtual assistant
- Video and audio conferencing, plus instant messaging
GoToMeeting vs. Webex: Customer Experience
GoTo offers a range of ways for companies to upgrade their customer experience. First of all, you have a range of integrations with crucial tools that you can add to GoToMeeting and GoToConnect to give your employees more context and information when they’re dealing with customer needs. The better a team’s communication is, the better they can serve your clients.
Additionally, for resellers providing GoToMeeting as part of their solutions, provisioning is quick and simple. There’s even Handover control available that allows people to hand the control of their computer over to someone else, for assistance learning how to use a service.
The GoTo portfolio also has its own contact centre, available through Jive. The Jive contact centre comes with dozens of tools designed for VoIP and contact centre management, including screen sharing, team-based call distribution, custom call routing, and more. Customer experience features include:
- HD conferencing and back-end collaboration
- One-click recording
- Integrations with crucial business tools
- Handover control
- GoTo Jive Contact Centre
For Cisco users who already have access to tools like the Cisco Customer Journey Platform, or Unified Contact Centre experience, Webex will be a natural addition into the technology stack. Cisco Webex is designed to work alongside other Cisco solutions seamlessly, though there isn’t currently a Cisco contact centre under the Webex brand.
Despite this, Cisco does make it easy for companies to deliver the support that their customers are looking for anywhere in the world. Cisco Webex support is available to users anywhere in the world, with special solutions for Cisco resellers. Additionally, as we mentioned with GoTo, Cisco provides excellent solutions for backend collaboration that will help team members to find answers to customer problems as quickly as possible. Customer experience features include:
- Access to Cisco contact centre tools
- Cisco Webex Support
- One-click recording
- Conferencing via Webex Teams
GoToMeeting vs. Webex: Business Experience
Finally, before you can choose whether to use Webex or GoTo for your meeting solution, you need to ensure that you’re investing in the right strategy for your business. Today’s UC&C tools need to be affordable, flexible, and reliable.
GoTo provides a portfolio of diverse and easy-to-use tools that support everything from contact centre management to team collaboration. Individuals in the GoTo environment can communicate however, and whenever they choose and integrate their experience with the tools they’re already using too.
GoTo makes sure that your meetings remain as secure as possible, thanks to PIN-based entry that protect your conversations. Additionally, the full GoTo portfolio is packed with encryption measures intended to reduce the risk of breaches.
There are plenty of support and training options available with GoTo, including videos, live training, webinars, and PDF guides. Companies can also access GoTo training to deliver additional support to their teams. Business experience features include:
- Single sign-on and admin control
- HIPAA compliance
- Training and guidance
- End-to-end encryption
- PIN-based meeting entry
- Affordable, transparent pricing
The Webex team also takes business success seriously. When you use Cisco’s Webex solutions, you can rest assured that your conversations and meetings will be protected with end-to-end encryption. For added control, you can also manage your encryption keys on-premises too. Administrators can also handle personal and corporate devices with remote wiping and PIN lock, and there’s plenty of support for DLP using tools like Cisco Cloud Lock.
Cisco offers the opportunity to keep using your favourite tools alongside Webex, too, such as Google Drive, Box, and Trello. This makes it easier for companies to keep productivity running smoothly. If you already have a UC or Cisco solution in your workplace, you can also easily access a migration plan to Webex through Cisco partners. Business experience features include:
- Training and guidance
- End-to-end encryption
- Lots of admin control
- Transparent pricing
- Numerous integrations
- Role-based access and security centre
Do you prefer GoTo or Webex for your UC 3.0 plan?
