I'm creating a business with a few friends and i'm looking for a good way to set up a business phone.

Question

I don't know how we're going to set this up yet, but we need a business phone number for our company. The problem is nobody will be around during the day to answer any of the calls so we'd like to have something forward it to all of our mobile numbers until somebody picks the call up first.

I'm thinking I can get the phone service from vonage and just keep it at my house or wherever and maybe there's some kind of PC software I can use to forward it? I don't know too much about this kind of stuff. Would I need VoIP to do this? Any recommendations? I saw skype has call forwarding to multiple numbers exactly like i'm talking about, but I don't know if thats even possible to setup with any number like that.

Thanks guys

Answer 1

If this is a small business you are setting up (one or 2 phone numbers), then I think Vonage would be your best bet.  If you are trying this out as a home-based business, I would recommend that one of you sign up for personal Vonage service and then pay $6.99 extra per month for a "Virtual Number".  If your business might get calls from around the country, you could also opt for a 1-800 number.  Either way, you can use Vonage's online service to forward those calls to one or multiple numbers.

The explanation above might not be making any sense, so please message me if you need more clarification.  I own a small business and I use Vonage -- and I'm very frugal, so I've probably researched every possible option for reducing our phone expenses.

If you are looking at forming a larger company, you might want to check out this company: http://gotvmail.com/  I have not tried their services yet, but the concept sure is intereresting.  Perhaps one of the other YA users has experience with them.

We are personally very happy with our Vonage service.  We did research all of the available options, but Vonage was the only service that offered a phone number for our area.

If you do decide to go with Vonage, message me and I will send you a referral link.  If you use the link when you sign up for service, you will get 1 month free and a $50 Visa card (and I get the same for referring someone).  That's not the reason why I'm recommending Vonage -- I do really love the service.  We hated the service offered by our local phone provider which is why we switched to Vonage in the first place.  Getting a kickback for recommending a product that I love is just a bonus.