Finding Money Advice

Professional, business-like communication is the #1 home office technology you need; and by that we don’t mean a ‘can ya hear me now’ cell phone.

If you’re starting or builsing a small business you need a way to answer incoming calls with a pleasant greeting, help the caller do what they want to do quickly, take a message when necessary, and make sure you receive any messages left for you. Of course, you want to do all that inexpensively, without having to buy any special equipment, or hire a receptionist or answering service.

We found the solution and used it to turn our unusual home-based aviation business into the oldest and largest in the country. We simply couldn’t have done it without FreedomVOICE.

So, no, this is not an unbiased review, and yes we are an affiliate, and yes we do make a small commission when you sign up. But that’s beside the point, a nice thank you from the folks that run the company, and we appreciate it. We’re touting what they offer here because we want you to know about the extraordinary system and service they have and we want you to know they’re a company you can trust. (We know the founder and president personally and if they don’t treat you right we–and he–want to know about it.)

We love the company and their service because they helped us turn a business started on ‘a wing without a prayer’ into a profitable, internationally recognized success.

We realized we needed a better solution when we started answering the phones with our mouth full, from the bedroom, and even in the bathroom. We knew that whatever we found would be cheaper than a shrink, and that’s what we were going to need if we didn’t find a solution. Answering the same questions over and over, and scrambling to make sure we didn’t miss a call—a call we’d paid hundreds of dollars in advertising to make happen—was driving us nuts.

So we tried an answering service. But the training hurdle for each new operator was a huge one, and they just didn’t have the passion for our business even though we offered them financial incentives. In fact, some of them didn’t even understand what we did well enough to take a reservation or book a ticket. In other words, more headaches for us, and that’s not a solution.

Automated answering systems and menu selections drive us nuts too, so we didn’t want to subject our customers to the torture of a seemingly endless maze. Then one day at a local coffee shop we overheard a young entrepreneur describing what he did and we knew we’d found the answer.

Before long, we had the perfect set-up: a very brief, entertaining intro message so callers found what they wanted quickly, and a foolproof way of routing calls to informative recordings or helpful people. After all, a company that’s in the business of having fun should sound like it’s fun! But it was crucial to sound professional too, and not like a fly by night outfit.

So when you called us, you heard a vintage biplane fly past and upbeat 1920s ragtime music, a genuinly enthusiastic voice offered information on our flights or the opportunity to talk with a real live person immediately. If the service had to put you on hold, which was seldom because the system who hunt someone down through a series of easily programmed foloow-me numbers, they’d get a message such as, “We’re busy as a one armed wing walker with a wedgie, but hold on and we’ll be right with you.” It wasn’t long before people actually complained when we answered the phone. In fact, review of the extensive call analysis data (included free) showed that some people were calling just to listen to our messages! Wow! Out voicemail was also an advertisement!

Click here for a sample of what folks heard when they called. Not your standard, “Press Zero for Customer Support.” Yeah, the production value could have been better, but we did it ourselves using a coat closet as a sound both and mixed the music and voice over ourselves. In other words, it was effective and inexpensive.

We also found what we wanted as business owners—a way to track callers, assess ad performance, and foolproof message taking. With inexpensive in-bound 800 numbers we had oodles of numbers that we used in advertisements so we could track ad performance from yellow pages, brochures, classified and display ads, rack cards, and so forth. We also really liked the fact that the system would email voicemail messages to us as MP3 files so we could listen to the calls from our office computer and save them if we wanted to. Sometimes having information “straight from the horse’s mouth” is handy for training or disputer esolution–or even on the rare occassion when you might want to share it with the FBI.

So there it is. FreedomVOICE’s Virtual Office is a business-class hosted phone system with features like a nationwide toll free number, auto attendant, call forwarding, multiple voicemail extensions and internet faxing. This low-cost, equipment-free virtual phone solution is designed to help savvy small and home-based business owners build the same strong, professional image as larger competitors without the limitations and high price tag of a traditional enterprise phone system.