Your Inside Look at the Meraki MC74

This past week, Metric Loop received a demo of Meraki’s latest VoiP phone, the MC74. As with any new toy, we couldn’t wait to set it up and take it for a test drive. Just like all of Meraki’s products, this phone is elegant and sleek. Even the phone’s embossed, black box screams high-class.

Boasting a 7-inch touchscreen and a user-friendly interface, the MC74 is more than just a pretty face. Everything from the initial setup to call forwarding is a breeze. Not once, did I have to consult the manual to figure out how to operate the MC74. This phone is what the iPhone was to the BlackBerry and every pushbutton phone before it. Gone are the days of fat-finger dialing and asking your co-workers if they remember the 10-step process necessary to setup call forwarding.

Features

For the regular run-of-the-mill user, you can easily check your voicemail, find contacts, and forward calls to any number within seconds of using it for the first time. In fact, the MC74 makes every other enterprise desk phone look rather archaic. To convey just how easy this phone is to use, I’m going to go over a few of my favorite features.

Call Forwarding

To set up call forwarding, you just click on Settings, Call Forwarding, and select the number or numbers that you want to forward to from the call forwarding list. If you need to add number or initially setup the call forwarding list, just click the + icon and add a number and give it a name. That’s it.

Transfer a Call

Transferring a call couldn’t get much easier. You just have to answer the call and press the Transfer icon. If you know the extension or external phone number, you can simply dial, or you can press the Contacts icon or the History icon to look up a number.

Add a New Call

To add a new call, simply press the New Call Icon, which appears when you answer a call. From there, it’s the same as Transferring a call.

Contacts

Easily look up your contacts. Simply press Contact, and either scroll down the list until you find the name of your contact or click in the search bar and type in the first few letters of your contact’s name.

Voicemail

The MC74 has what Meraki refers to as Visual Voicemail. The interface, which can be accessed either via the physical phone or Meraki’s online portal, allows users to check their voicemail from anywhere and in any order. Without listening to the voicemail, you can determine who left a message, when he or she left it, and how long the message is. Although this feature is something that most smartphone users have become accustom to, it’s nice to finally this feature in a desk phone.

Another nice feature in regards to the MC74’s voicemail interface, is that it is easy to record and set a voicemail greeting. For example, if you know that you are going to be out-of-the office, you can easily switch your voicemail greeting to inform callers that you will gone for the next week. When you return, simply switch the greeting without having to record a new message.

Bluetooth

This was the one feature that we had trouble with. Although, the phone has a Bluetooth Settings tab, we could not get the phone to pair with any of our Bluetooth devices. Rumor is that Meraki is working on an update that includes a new set of features centered around Bluetooth.

Self Service Portal Sign Up

From the physical phone, you can sign up for Meraki’s Self Service Portal, which is accessed via the internet. The Self Service Portal acts as a softphone. From there, you can make calls, check your voicemail, see your call history, and enable and set up your call forwarding settings from anywhere in the world. Although I did not attempt to do so, the MC74 apparently allows users to download a Google Chrome extension, which lets users to dial directly from Chrome with a single click.

With the help of an engineer, the MC74 can compete with much more expensive enterprise phone systems, making a great solution for Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs). Some of the more advanced features include automated menu options, calling trees, and personal profile pictures. Large contact lists can also be imported onto the phone easily making switching over to the MC74 painless. As your business grows additional phones, can be added to the network in a matter of minutes. So whether a business needs a single phone or several hundred phones, the MC74 is an excellent choice for even the smallest of growing business.

Originally published at metricloop.com on June 24, 2016.