Phonebooth: A Free Phone System for Web Workers
Finding a good, professional phone system can be tough for web workers — landlines are rarely a practical option, and most of us don’t want our clients or colleagues hearing the same phone message that we use for friends and family on our cell phones. Phonebooth is looking to fill in that gap with a free phone system designed for freelancers, small businesses and independent professionals.
The free version of Phonebooth offers up a good variety of features: you get a local phone number for your business, an automated attendant to direct calls, voicemail-to-email transcriptions and other functionality that generally makes phone calls easier to manage. The free version does only offer 200 minutes a month, but if you’re primarily web-based, you may not need much more than that. Phonebooth does offer a premium version for $20 per month per user — that version offers unlimited local and long distance calling. Either choice will work for a small team: you can create extensions for different people on your team, and make yourself more efficient by routing phone calls into different departments.
You can also easily integrate Phonebooth with an existing web site. The “Contact Us Plus” system offered in both versions of Phonebooth allows you to add a button to your web site that directs anyone trying to contact you to the best number. That can include displaying extensions for different members of your team, or showing extensions just for sales or other departments, which allows any callers to skip phone trees.
Managing phone calls as you travel is easy with Phonebooth as well. You do get a local number for your business, but you can forward your phone calls by selecting options online. You can control call routing so that you don’t miss any calls, as well as route phone calls to team mates as needed. You can also use your computer to accept calls with the premium version of Phonebooth — it’s just a matter of plugging an IP phone into your laptop. It also allows for simplified conference calls with temporary numbers, as well as providing separate passcodes for both moderators and participants.
Technically, the free version of Phonebooth is still in beta. You can sign up to be notified when more people are able to sign up. However, invites do seem to be rolling out fairly quickly. The free version does seem reliable; however, if phone communication is crucial to your work, it may be worth upgrading, just for the improved reliability offered in the premium version, as it is hosted through redundant geographically-dispersed data centers.
Which virtual phone system do you use, and why?
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I use Google voice pared with Gizmo5. You can watch a decent product review on Google voice at this link http://buygooglevoice.info
Very cool. I use Google Voice for my business, but I bet once I get more employees, I might need a system like this.
Closed down to new accounts was the message I got – plus it only works if you live in the US – my UK area code wasn’t accepted.
Does anyone know of a similar service that serves the UK? It’d be quite handy but we can’t get Google voice or a lot of these services here.
Maybe you can try http://www.Friendcaller.com You can use their web phone for instance.
This free version of Phonebooth looks promising but is somewhat limited only giving users 200 minutes of use per month. Once you are paying $20 monthly there are quite a few companies that compete with each other with pricing, features, and sound quality. I actually work at Grasshopper, we provide virtual office solutions that help entrepreneurs sound professional and stay connected. I would definitely urge readers to do their homework and research the best virtual PBX provider for them. Cheers!
The free version of Phonebooth offers up a good variety of features: you get a local phone number for your business, an automated attendant to direct calls, voicemail-to-email transcriptions and other functionality that generally makes phone calls easier to manage.