Free Phone System For Your Business
01/17/2017
Are you still using your personal phone number for your business? Did you know that anyone in the US can get a free business phone system from google with just an email account? If you answered no then you have been living under a rock and I an here to help you.
Why You Shouldn’t Use Your Personal Number for Your Business
First off here are a few reasons why you shouldnt use your personal number for business:
There is such a thing as making yourself too accessible.
Using your personal number increases the likelihood that your work and personal lives will blend together. Chances are it’ll be pretty much impossible to enjoy that long-overdue tropical getaway if your clients are calling you every five minutes.
It’s incredibly difficult to make the switch to a different number after you’ve established your business.
At this point, you will be faced with two options: either switch your personal number and update all of your friends and family on the change, or switch your business number and update all of your clients and employees on the change. Neither of these circumstances are ideal, so you might as well save time and get a separate number now.
Using your personal number now means you’ll have a difficult decision to make as you begin adding employees to your business.
When make a new hire for your company, and you don’t have a separate business number, you’ll either have to make the decision to make the switch at that moment, or forgo the possibility of that new employee taking calls on behalf of the company. Furthermore, if that new hire has to make a call for the business, they will have to either borrow your phone or make the call from their personal cell.
If you and your employees are all using personal numbers, it becomes that much more difficult for you—the boss—to be sure that everyone is doing their jobs.
How will you know if someone is ducking client calls or just generally not being responsive enough?
So Google Voice Is Free Whats The Catch?
Well none really for anyone with a small company in the US that wants a second line for their business. Here are a few pros and cons of google voice:
Pros
- Unified communications through one single phone number.
- Voice to text transcription of voicemails.
- Free calls to the US. Competitive rates for outgoing international calls.
- Free service, open to anyone.
- Many interesting features, including call recording, conferencing etc.
Cons
- Existing phone number cannot be ported to Google Voice. (Update: this is changing soon)
- Available only for users in the US, as calls cannot be forwarded abroad.
- Outgoing calls cannot be recorded.
Conclusion
If you run a small business and aren't using this service you are putting yourself and your company at increased risk and could face complications in the future. I strongly urge you to take 30 minutes today and get a google voice number.
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Free Small Business Tools