Before signing any UCaaS contract, run your vendor through these 26 questions. Six categories cover everything that matters: pricing transparency, contract terms, support infrastructure, infrastructure reliability, the demo itself, and whether the sales process signals a real partner.
Mark each item Pass or Fail as answers come in. The score updates automatically. Use the print button to bring a clean copy to your next vendor meeting. Read the full evaluation guide for detailed guidance on each question.
UCaaS Vendor Evaluation Checklist
26 questions. 6 categories. Everything a business owner should ask before signing anything.
Part 1💰 Pricing & Billing3 items
| Evaluation Item | What to Ask / Watch For | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Did they ask for every physical location address?Taxes calculate at city & county level. No address = no real quote. | Ask:Provide a fully burdened quote calculated with the street address of every location where phones will be installed. | ||
Watch For:A quote with a single blended tax rate and no address request. That number will change on the first invoice. | |||
| Which demo features require an upgrade -- and what are the usage limits?"Included" with a 30-min storage cap is not included. Ask about limits on every feature. | Ask:Is this included in the quoted tier? If so, what are the storage, usage, or volume limits on that inclusion? | ||
Watch For:Features shown that require an upgrade to use -- or inclusions with caps so low they are functionally useless at normal volume. | |||
| How are usage-based charges billed -- and is there a cap?International, SMS overages, conferencing, fax-to-email. Every line item beyond the seat price. | Ask:Can you provide a sample invoice from a client our size -- not a proposal, an actual invoice? | ||
Watch For:Vague answers about charges that vary by usage with no ceiling. No willingness to show a real invoice from a comparable client. | |||
Part 2📄 Contracts2 items
| Evaluation Item | What to Ask / Watch For | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What are the exact auto-renewal terms?Notice windows are often 60-90 days before anniversary. Missing it = another full term. | Ask:How many days before renewal must notice be submitted? Who sends it? Will we receive proactive written notification? | ||
Watch For:Notice windows over 30 days, or any suggestion that tracking the renewal date is the customer's responsibility alone. | |||
| Under what SLA failures can the contract be terminated without penalty?ETFs can equal the full remaining contract balance. 18 months in on a 36-month deal = 18 months of fees for nothing. | Ask:If you fail to meet the uptime SLA repeatedly, can we exit without penalty? Show me that language in the contract. | ||
Watch For:No termination-for-cause provisions tied to SLA failures, or ETF language charging the full remaining value regardless of provider performance. | |||
Part 3🎧 Support & Service5 items
| Evaluation Item | What to Ask / Watch For | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where is support located -- dedicated contact or ticket queue?24/7 support can mean a U.S.-based engineer or an offshore queue that cannot escalate without filing a ticket. | Ask:Is support U.S.-based? Is there a named contact assigned to our account, or do we enter a general queue? | ||
Watch For:24/7 support that resolves to a chatbot, offshore queue, or portal with no named human who knows the account. | |||
| What is the P1 escalation path -- names, roles, and response times?Real support infrastructure has defined tiers, named contacts, and committed response times. Vague answers are the answer. | Ask:Who do we call first for a critical outage? Who escalates if that does not resolve it? What is the contractual response time? | ||
Watch For:Our team prioritizes critical issues with no named contacts, no defined tiers, and no contractual response time commitments. | |||
| Project manager or project coordinator -- which one is assigned?A coordinator schedules meetings. A project manager owns outcomes and makes decisions when things go sideways. | Ask:Is the person assigned a project manager with decision-making authority -- or a coordinator who facilitates? | ||
Watch For:Onboarding described as self-serve, guided setup, or staffed by someone whose authority ends at scheduling calls. | |||
| How is number porting managed -- and what is the contingency if a port misses go-live?Porting takes 2-6 weeks when it goes right. No dedicated team = horror stories the night before launch. | Ask:Who owns the porting process? Is there a dedicated porting team? What is the documented contingency if a port is delayed? | ||
Watch For:Porting typically takes 2-4 weeks with no follow-up on who owns it, who escalates, or what happens if it misses go-live. | |||
| What does a typical first 90 days look like for a client similar in size?Forces specifics. A provider with experience can describe week one, go-live milestones, training timing, and common issues. | Ask:Walk me through the first 90 days for a client our size -- week by week, who does what, what we are responsible for. | ||
Watch For:Every client is different with no ability to describe a typical timeline or what a normal go-live process looks like. | |||
Part 4🖥 Infrastructure & Reliability3 items
| Evaluation Item | What to Ask / Watch For | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared multitenant or private dedicated infrastructure?One neighbor's broken pipe, everyone's wet ceiling. Shared infra means another customer's bad day can become yours. | Ask:Is this shared multitenant or dedicated private infrastructure? How are customers isolated from each other? | ||
Watch For:Vague answers about enterprise-grade cloud that never address shared vs. private directly. The vagueness is the answer. | |||
| Describe every redundancy layer -- geographic, network, power, failover.Real redundancy has layers. Providers who have built it describe it in detail. Those who have not stay general. | Ask:Describe your geographic redundancy, network path redundancy, and power backup. How does failover activate and how fast? | ||
Watch For:We have multiple data centers with no specifics on location separation, independent network paths, or failover trigger mechanism. | |||
| What is your RTO and RPO -- and how often is failover actually tested?Providers who know these numbers designed their infrastructure around them. Untested redundancy is redundancy in theory. | Ask:What is your Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective? When was failover last tested under real failure conditions? | ||
Watch For:Blank stares, or our system is highly available with no actual RTO/RPO numbers and no testing cadence to point to. | |||
Part 5💻 Evaluating the Demo10 items
| Evaluation Item | What to Ask / Watch For | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Did they ask what is broken before opening a single slide?A rep who demos before diagnosing is running a script. Scripts close deals. They do not build systems that fit. | Watch for:Did discovery happen before the demo -- current system, what breaks, what a bad day costs? | ||
Watch For:The demo started in the first 10 minutes without a single question about the business. Product tour, not needs assessment. | |||
| Did they ask how customers reach the business?Inbound volume, peak hours, after-hours handling. Without this they can only configure a generic system. | Watch for:Questions about call volume, peak times, after-hours coverage -- before any features were shown. | ||
Watch For:The routing in the demo was generic. No questions about actual call patterns before features were demonstrated. | |||
| Did they ask what a bad day looks like?Separates reps trying to solve a problem from reps trying to close a deal. | Watch for:Describe a recent situation where your phone system made things worse -- and were they listening or waiting to resume? | ||
Watch For:No bad-day question. Discovery felt like a formality before features. The rep was waiting to talk, not listening to understand. | |||
| Was the demo customized -- or the same deck shown to everyone?By the second conversation, features should map to specific situations discussed in discovery. | Watch for:Features tied back to specific pain points discussed earlier -- not a standard sequence regardless of what was described. | ||
Watch For:Every feature shown in the same order regardless of what was discussed. Nothing skipped because it was not relevant. | |||
| Did they demo daily-use features -- or just the flashy ones?Voicemail transcription and admin reliability matter more on a Tuesday morning than AI demo theater. | Watch for:Admin interface, call queue management, everyday workflows -- not just headline features shown to impress. | ||
Watch For:90% of the demo was advanced features. Nobody showed what the system looks like to an admin managing it day-to-day. | |||
| Did the rep answer product questions directly -- or defer?The sales team is the most knowledgeable version of that company a prospect will ever encounter. | Watch for:Direct answers to product questions -- or hedging and promises to follow up on basic feature questions. | ||
Watch For:I'll circle back on that for questions about call recording, porting timelines, or failure behavior. Basic gaps are a preview. | |||
| Did they show what happens during a failure?How calls route when the internet goes down. Providers with good answers show it proudly. | Watch for:A demo of failure scenarios -- internet outage, power event, carrier disruption. How fast does it recover? | ||
Watch For:Subject changed quickly when failure scenarios came up. No demo of call continuity or failover routing during an outage. | |||
| Did they reference clients in the same industry by specific scenario?We work with businesses like yours is not a reference. Specific problem, solution, and outcome is a reference. | Watch for:A client story in the same vertical with the actual problem, how the platform addressed it, and what changed. | ||
Watch For:Vague claims about serving businesses like yours with no specifics on what those businesses needed or how it was solved. | |||
| Did they address compliance or workflow requirements for the vertical?HIPAA, PCI, legal hold. Providers with real vertical experience raise these unprompted. | Watch for:Proactive mention of compliance requirements relevant to the industry -- without being asked. | ||
Watch For:We can discuss your specific compliance needs with our team means the rep does not know them. | |||
| Did they acknowledge anything the platform does not do well?The honesty test. No platform is perfect. Admitting a limitation signals the candor that shows up after go-live. | Watch for:At least one honest acknowledgment of a limitation or a workaround clients use -- without being pressured. | ||
Watch For:Apparently perfect for every use case. Zero limitations mentioned across the entire demo. That is a posture, not a feature. | |||
Part 6🤝 Sales Process & Fit3 items
| Evaluation Item | What to Ask / Watch For | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Did they ask real discovery questions -- or pitch cold?Discovery determines fit. Skipping it optimizes for a signed contract, not a successful deployment. | Watch for:Meaningful questions about the business and pain points -- before any pitch, demo, or slide deck appeared. | ||
Watch For:The pitch started within the first few minutes. Discovery was a formality, not a genuine effort to understand fit. | |||
| Did the rep ever push back or honestly mention a limitation?The most reliable signal of a trustworthy sales process is a moment of honest friction. | Watch for:At least one moment where the rep said actually, here is a limitation or you probably do not need the enterprise tier. | ||
Watch For:Every question got a yes. Every concern got minimized. A rep who never mentions a limitation is not well-informed or not being honest. | |||
| Can they provide a 2+ year reference who survived a real support incident?Ask the questions the provider did not prepare the reference for. | Ask the reference:What happened in your first 90 days? What fees were on the first invoice that were not in the proposal? Worst support experience? | ||
Watch For:Reference has been a customer less than 90 days or has never needed support. Happy new customers are not useful data points. | |||
Score:
0
Pass
0
Fail
26
Total
Mark each item as the vendor answers. Fails in Sections 1-3 are serious. Multiple fails anywhere is a reason to negotiate hard or walk away.
Notes & Deal-Breakers
TechMode passes every item on this checklist.
Fully burdened quotes. Private triple-redundant AWS. Dedicated project manager. U.S.-based Concierge Support. 99.999% uptime. NPS 85. A+ BBB. No hidden fees. No per-feature upcharges.
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