I’m a former Phone system Tech. I started my own small business in Communications in PA.

STEP 1 – Has very good tips.
Small digital system with 3 lines and 8 extensions cost a 1 time fee $300-500

STEP 2 – Use a voice mail system Auto Attendant, can give call option to reach you at the office on your mobile phone. A small system with 10 Mailboxs and 4 voicemail ports cost about $400-$600

STEP 3 – Great advice, my cell cost about $30 for 600 minutes.

STEP 4 – This can be confusing and lead to unanswered calls. As long as your employees know the ring pattern and answers the call and doesn’t think the other person will answer.

STEP 5 – Most all phone companies have free long distance, shop around. Just like you mobile, shop for a deal.

Do what works for you!!! I have worked with thousand of different companies and install hundreds of systems from 2 phones to 5,000 phones. I have see some wierd stuff. But it works for them.

Don’t forget this is your business. You have to call someone when is breaks. The worst people to get ahold of are folks in the telephone business. They know how to hide like the best of them. I have spent days on the phone. Keep names and number of the people you deal with.

Don’t forget, all businesses plan on growing. Things change yearly. Pay a consultant or two, to evaluate your communications needs.

It can be very confusing!

Good luck and God bless!!!

“NOTHING IS FREE OR ALMOST FREE!!!”

Seventy five a hour
Jared Seven,one,seven,seven,three,three,five,two,two,five

Pair that together with an inexpensive PBX and you’ll have a professional setup. You can probably get a decent VOIP PBX that will handle the PRI for less than 2000 (I work on Panasonic systems, so I’d suggest the NCP1000) and each phone for just over 200 (you’d pay that for a decent SIP phone anyhow). Then you’re set! Obviously there would be some cost in install/setup, but most of the after programming you could do yourself.

1. Quality and reliability of service
2. Features that make them look bigger than they really are
3. Absolute simplicity to set up and manage
4. Access to customer support when they need help

The problem with cobbling together free solutions is that you get none of this. For many small businesses, their phone system is their lifeline to customers and revenues. They prefer to pay someone for it because then the provider is on the hook to give them the reliability and support they need. The money they pay gives the provider the resources to do that. Despite all the free services out there, our growth at Toktumi is taking off. We don’t charge much ($14.95 a month), but its enough to make sure they get the four things I listed above plus all the features you mentioned in your article. And an auto-attendant! :-)

Om, I also do not agree with ditching the auto attendant. If you are calling up any small business, I often use its first phone system to determine the image of the company.

Yes, Skype plus attendant etc. would make sense.

I still believe in what businesses such as RC, 800pbx, GotVMail etc. are doing. They help SMEs to make the system more productive.

Is your business really serious if you are actually using google voice etc for your business. I wouldn’t.

VoIP has a great potential that some people still can’t see, that’s sure, Some times we don’t stop to think how a couple of free internet tools can be combined for make life cheaper & easier.
For example, Pete Anderson had an idea how to stop tele-marketing in Asterisk by blacklisting them in his house phone.(link)

And also I agree with dmichels that this solution it’s more a creative exercise than a real solution for companies where telephone calls is really imporant, and you can’t waste money because of Google Voice last bug or whatever.

RING CENTRAL for the total package of call attendant/routing, VM and fax, plus reasonably priced outbound calling. For inbound call routing RC is fantastic. You can set up call trees easily using a web interface, and then set rules for sequential or simultaneous forwarding, forwarding by schedule, answering rules by caller or by schedule, etc. Their digital line service was shaky at launch, but it has improved. Customer support has fallen off in the last year, but it is still miles ahead of Skype and Google. No, I have no interest in this company.

SKYPE for outbound calling, and possibly for simple (solo) inbound calling and VM.

Google Voice is for experimentation only. As others have suggested, it still has too many bugs, and VM is impossible to skip through quickly if you dial in for messages. Plus, it doesn’t do fax at all yet. It is irresponsible to recommend this for business use now, even if you can beg or buy a new number.