Is anyone using a toll free 800# for their business?
Were going to set up a permanent 800 number to use on all signs. We want it to have a 24 hour recorded message. If someone can recommend a service that they like/use, please do so.
blue
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I’m a hackmeister…they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
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The last place I worked at got an 800 number.
No one warned us that they might have just switched the number over from another business that had quit using their 800 number. So for about 2 years, we got a bunch of wrong number calls from people looking for "Sattelite Weekly" magazine.
Don't know if there's anything you can do about that, but it might be worth asking.
"Remember: It's not really yours until you take it apart [Tim Taylor on "Home Improvement"]"Best quote yet !; )
The person you offend today, may have been your best friend tomorrow
blue
we tried that for a few years. We are in several different markets where it is a toll cal to rach our dispatch. After a while I sort of igured out that contractors werenot caling mch. I think it as two things. One, the number of digits to call. Extra digits while drving, etc are a hassle. Two, the concept that you are not local. I think that contractors want to deal with local trades. An 800 number makes you seem like some big conglomerate with the calls routed to India. I believe you need to stay local.
What we did instead was to get a local number. Then call forward that number to the dispatch. Very cheap. $15-25/month. Contractors are making a lkocal cal. Even though you might be 300 miles away.
now if you are dealing w/the general public you may need to disregard this advice.
Thats some good insight SCRPR. I was targetting retail clients, but I'm still going to rethink your idea.
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
Sorry about the spelling. My wireless mouse is acting funny.
Do you have a high speed internet connection? If you do I'd recommend Vonage. Their Small Business Basic is $39.99 per month (plus your local taxes) and their Small Business Unlimited is $49.99. Their Toll Free Plus plan is only an additional
$4.99 per month for 100 incoming minutes every month and each additional minute is only 4.9 cents.
Plus if your you are actually interested in going with them send me your e-mail address and as a current user I can then send you a referral link and when you sign up using that link they will give you your second month for free.
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Jerrald, I checked that site. It's intriguing, but I started to get anxiety attacks trying to sift through all the stuff. I swear, I'm the worst when it comes to shopping on the internet.
I'm skeptical about anything that has to be routed over the net. I used to use efax and it would take hours for the thing to show up. I'd be afraid that their fax system does the same.
Do you have any experience using any of these features and if so, what are the downsides. I can read all about the upside, but they won't tell you the bad things about internet phones.
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
My business phone service is all with Vonage. Think having local and long distance together (along with a separate dedicated fax) for that one low flat rate is alone a great deal. I would move my home phone to Vonage too except the number I have had for almost twenty years now is not yet portable so they would have to give me a new number. As soon as it does gain portability I'm making the switch.
The feature I really love that Vonage gives you in addition to retrieving your voice mail via the phone you can also access it via the internet or even have you voice mail messages e-mailed to you. I now save and store the important client and sub phones messages on my computer along with all the other project documents.
Also through their control panel I can see a log of every call both incoming and outgoing so if I am wondering when it was I talked to so-and-so I can open up the control panel and find that call.
I don't use the Toll Free service since we are already having a tough time keeping up with our new project leads. The last thing I need right now is more calls but my brother business uses the Toll Free service and loves it. My brother has a huge list of his clients that he has recommended Vonage to and they are all very happy about it too.
"I'm skeptical about anything that has to be routed over the net." I'm not and while I never had a complaint regarding my previous phone service with Verizon other than it being too expensive I think I prefer and trust the cable and the net more. The technology and installed infrastructure is newer and more up to date that the phones lines that have been around since who knows when. In fact I called Version a while back, which is the company that maintains the phones lines locally for us, about a damaged tree in the woods that is one day soon going to fall and take out all the phones lines that run into my neighborhood but it seem their response or plan of action is to take care of the problem when it happens rather than preventing it because it been like that for a little over a year now. The tree now actually rests against the lines.
"I used to use efax and it would take hours for the thing to show up. I'd be afraid that their fax system does the same." Well I never used anything like that but I do know that my email containing voice mail messages comes in within seconds after the message was recorded.
"Do you have any experience using any of these features and if so, what are the downsides. I can read all about the upside, but they won't tell you the bad things about internet phones."
If there is a bad thing it might be that it can on occasion chew up bandwidth. The one and only time I ever had a problem with it was when I was surfing the net, with two TVs on in the house, video conferencing with my three year old niece via Apple's iChatAV using an iSight Camera. A call came in from a contractor friend of mine and when I took the call (which came in perfectly fine) the video feed with my niece (which uses a lot of bandwidth) got a little shaky and jerky. You just set your router (which they supply you with) so that the phone has priority.
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What kind of bandwidth do you get from your cable modem ?
carpenter in transition
Checking it right this second using the bandwidth speed test at http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/ I got this evaluation:
I have however gotten a few slightly lower evaluations in the past although the subjective ratings are always high. My cable provider (Cablevision, Optimum Online New York) also offers an internet phone service but I choose Vonage for what I felt was an even better feature set.
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This was me until a few weeks ago...
11 megabits per secondCommunications 11 megabits per secondStorage 1.3 megabits per second1MB file download .8 secondsSubjective rating Unbelievable
You can read about my cable company's adjustment of this speed in a related thread.
carpenter in transition
What thread?
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dumbest thing i did today
carpenter in transition
Jerrald, what is involved in a number becoming 'portable'? I have been interested in net phone technology but don't know if I could use the number I have, which is a must, or if the local phone company would continue listing me in the directory.
I really don't know what affects the portabilty. Of all the people I know who have switched to Vonage and that probaly numbers in the twenties I am the only one who couldn't get his old number ported over. They tell you by running a check during the online application set up process whether or not your number is portable or not. But I'm at a total loss as to what effects portability. I've got a friend (whose name is ironically Hayes, no relation) that works for Verizon that I'll have to ask the next time I run into her.
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"Two, the concept that you are not local. "
years ago when I was doing carpet cleaning in Houston we had 3 numbers ...
a "houston" number ... a "conroe" number ... and an 800 number.
Conroe at that time was a budding rich/lake front community just north of Houston. Same office ... but they all wanted a "local" company ... a Conroe company ... not some place from Houston!
anyways .. all the calls we got we on the two local exchanges ...
very little on the 800# ... no one wanted "an out of town" operation coming into their home. Even thought they all rang the same office ... everyone wanted "local".
The few calls we did get on the 800# most all turned out to be pain in the butt jobs too? Something about wanting that "free call" ... they all seemed to want free work too. Or just called to kick the tires.
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry in Carpentry
Pgh, PA
One of the other kool things about the Vonage phone service is I could get a Pittburgh phone number for my business here in Katonah NY.
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if I was Blue ... I'd go that route as opposed to an 800 number.
Jeff Buck Construction
Artistry in Carpentry
Pgh, PA
One thing is that can make a difference is if you are in an area with several area codes and you need to dail an area code even for local calls.In that case an 800 number for the metro area makes sense.
Good point Bill!
I live in an area that has been splitting area codes so fast that I seriously have trouble remembering which phone has what. I routinely dial 810, 586, 313, 248, 715, 989, and theres a new one....I can't remember...517? Just to dial a local number, I often, and I mean most of the time, have to try using a 1, sometimes just the area code without the 1, and sometimes none of the above....this drives me batty...and I have no idea when which rule applys to which situation. Often times it changes from day to day it seems. Sometimes I try it all three ways and still cant get through
Now I'm angry again thinking about it...
blueJust because you can, doesn't mean you should!
Warning! Be cautious when taking any framing advice from me. There are some in here who think I'm a hackmeister...they might be right! Of course, they might be wrong too!
I think Jeff raises an interesting point. I see companies out there with 800 numbers and/or a local number for every town. Learn a bit more and you see that it's really one company, one office, trying to look big. Something about that makes me wary, but I'm the kind of guy who likes to hire companies where the owner answers the phone him/herself and probably works on the job too. Only exception might be drain cleaning or something like that. I know Blue is changing businesses, and I'll go back and read up on the switch, but I'm not sure an 800 # is right for most small contractors doing custom work.
With cell phones like everyone has these days the toll free attraction of an 800 number is getting more and more limited.
Unless you plan to spend a long time on the phone....................
"There is no such thing as ex-wives"