Small Business Owners: How do you handle your phone system?
 

We currently have a bare bones land line in our store with an answering machine.

The thing is: my wife likes to be way more connected to her business than that, especially when she's out of town. She'd like for people to be able to dial her directly (preferably giving her the option of accepting the call or sending it to voice mail), but doesn't really want to juggle a second cell phone.

Currently we're looking at just getting an answering machine that we can actually dial into and check, but that doesn't allow her to actually take people's calls while she's not at the store.

What other options are out there? I think that Google Voice has some of the functionality we're looking for, but I'm open to cheap/elegant solutions.

Personally I just have a cell phone. There is a land line in the office, but the only usage it gets is tool salesmen asking for dad.

But I'm not a retailer. I would guess that some form of service that could forward calls to a cell would be best.

Get cell for the store. It has an option in which you can forward calls to any phone you choose.

I did this for years, and it works great. You can even have local numbers from different towns so that people feel more comfortable using you.

Have you checked out phone.com, Mr. NewChief?

I seem to remember that we used them for awhile one time (start-up phase) and the features were acceptable. They gave us an 800 number, automatic forwarding (to cells or wherever), voice mail, etc. and they were inexpensive. Keep in mind that I wasn't responsible for stuff like phones but the guy who was did his research and I think that's the company he chose. I wasn't unhappy and I can't think of anyone who complained.

You might want to chat them up about what they can do for you.

FAX

Mrs. NewChief, of the famous brother, is somewhat resistant to change. She is currently objecting to having to change her phone number, so she wants to keep the existing phone number (which is the land line) as she says, "Our vendors have it, our customers have it, our planners have it, it's on all our signage, business cards, etc... what do you mean you want me to change to a 1-800 number? Are you stupid?!?!" or something along those lines.

I tried to explain that it wasn't that big of a deal, but I"m stonewalled (and probably done trying to help her until she gets in the kitchen and cooks me up some food by way of apology for her rudeness).

I don't know for sure, but I'll bet that phone.com will allow you to keep your existing number and forward 800 calls to that.

Honestly, it's pretty amazing what these telephony guys can do these days. It's all 1s and 0s, apparently.

FAX

Ask the cell company if they can transfer it. They did with mine.

Have her hire a sweet ass little
Receptionist

Almost all businesses around here have both. And a couple of them have 800-XXX-XXXX instead of (area code)-XXX-XXXX. Not sure what all it takes to integrate all that, but I think there are options to keep your number.

On the other hand, there are growing pains with all this. I'd imagine the scope of her business in the future will not be limited to just Mrs. NewChief. If you add a merchandiser or shipping/receiving department or something, they will have to have a new phone number that will have to be distributed to vendors, suppliers, customers, etc. Growing pains happen with business, particularly successful ones. Grand scheme, this probably isn't a big deal. Think about Cabela's. It started in Dick Cabela's garage. People aren't calling Dick Cabela's house to place an order.

If I were you, I'd suggest that if she's in this for the long term, that she finds the optimal way she could do it, and get as close as she can within the confines of cost. At that point, any change should be advertised as an "easier to contact us" or something similar. Stuff like this can be offset pretty easily by facebook/webpages, so long as she is diligent about contacting her suppliers and stakeholder businesses.

Why don't you just look at call forwarding from your landline provider? I don't remember what that costs a month, but it's pretty cheap. The other option would be to use your landline provider's voicemail. You can dial into that at any time.

You can keep your local number and add the toll free:

http://grasshopper.com/how-it-works-and-features/

DT

Beat me to it. I think I pay 3.00 for my call forwarding.

magic jack

it can also be set up to send an email to alert you that there are msgs.
sec

Recently I dropped sprint and started winning the game. You need to buy an ooma telo

I have this now and pay less than 5 a month for unlimited calling. Requires inner webs.Ooma premier is about 15 per month and can do multi ring andmulti line. You can also port your number.

Ooma is top dog http://www.ooma.com

Pro tip I got my telo on amazon for 129 a month or 2 ago and it kicks ass

Premier features http://www.ooma.com/products/premier

I was way skeptical at first but now I don't know why everyone doesn't use this service