Many web workers are looking at services like Google Voice and 3jam, which allow you to have one business phone number that can be configured to forward to cell phones, to voice mail, or to colleagues if you’re out of the office. Google Voice, however, isn’t really designed for business use, and 3jam has only limited business-oriented features.

If you need more robust features, there are many business-oriented “virtual phone systems.” I’ve recently taken one such product, Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail), for a spin, and was impressed by it. But its cost is higher than Google Voice and 3jam, so you’ll need to see if the feature set is worth it for you.

Grasshopper has quite an extensive feature set; more than I can list here. But some of the most useful are:

• A very slick web interface. Since the system has so many features, it takes a while to find everything, but it’s pretty self-explanatory, and Grasshopper makes good use of tooltips and contextual help to point out and explain features. I found the interface to be a bit slow on occasion, but it’s generally pretty responsive.
• The ability for each company member to have their own extension, with individual greetings, voicemail, web access and notifications by email or text messaging.
• The ability to create “department” extensions that can be forwarded to one or more members of that department. Alternatively, one can create a “call-routing” extension that distributes calls equally across multiple extensions (useful for multi-person sales or support teams).
• The ability to purchase local numbers or toll-free numbers (including “vanity” numbers), as well as to transfer in existing numbers, with minimal setup fees.
• The ability to accept faxes, which can be sent to individual extensions, or to a dedicated fax extension. Faxes can be viewed online, or emailed to you as PDFs.
• The ability to specify your regular business hours, and to route incoming calls differently depending on time of day.
• Control over on-hold music. Grasshopper offers several different types, or you can upload your own (which might include messages as well as music). The default selections aren’t too bad, as hold music goes. You can use different music for each extension, if desired. There doesn’t seem to be a way to turn off hold music entirely, although I imagine that you could upload a blank MP3 file and select that.
• The ability to record your own messages by phone, or to upload MP3 files. Grasshopper will write and record messages for you for $75-$175.

Given Grasshopper’s extensive features, I was surprised that there doesn’t seem to be a way to import contacts into the address book. And it doesn’t have voicemail transcription, like Google Voice and SpinVox do.

I suspect that most web workers will want to look at Grasshopper’s plans and pricing closely. As with most cellphone plans, Grasshopper charges you for incoming minutes. So the $9.95/month “Start” plan, which bundles only 100 minutes per month (with each additional minute billed at 6 cents), will probably not be suitable for most web workers. The “Grow” plan, priced at $49/month, and which is bundled with 2,000 minutes, is probably the minimum that will be useful in a business environment; Grasshopper also offers a more comprehensive plan for $199 a month.

You’ll want to compare Grasshopper with similar services such as Accessline, Virtual PBX, Onebox, RingCentral and others. Plan prices and features vary widely, so you’ll probably be able to find a service that fits your needs and budget. For instance, Accessline (which I’ve used for several years) has a similar service priced at $59.95 per month, but Costco members can get it for $29.95-$34.95. Accessline don’t have all the features that Grasshopper does, and its web interface is pretty clunky by today’s standards. But it has worked well for my company’s needs.

Grasshopper is certainly worth checking out. Its feature set makes it a worthy competitor in a field with many good products.

Have you used Grasshopper? What other virtual phone systems have you used?

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There’s a simple way to do this using Memo, a service from Spinvox. Memo is a note-taking service you can use with your phone. Call a number, leave your message, and Spinvox converts the speech to text and emails it to a designated account. This is really handy for use with GTD. I’ll explain how I’m using it with my Gmail Tasks system, but you could also use it quite easily with any other GTD app. You could also use Jott, a similar speech-to-text service, but that’s no good for me as it’s only available in the U.S.

First, sign up for a free Spinvox Memo account (Memo is available in the U.S, the UK, Canada, France, Germany and Spain). After signing up, you’ll be sent Spinvox’s Memo phone number. Store this number in your phone’s contacts.

Then, when you’re away from your computer and you think of a task, just dial the number and record your message. Spinvox will then convert the message to text and email it to your Gmail inbox. The text-to-speech works very well. It struggles with some technical words (it phonetically spells any words it can’t figure out), but for the purposes of taking quick notes it’s easily good enough.

Once you’re back at your computer it’s just a case of copying and pasting the note from the email into the Inbox list of your Gmail Tasks (or any other app), and the idea is safely stored in your trusted GTD system.

Copying a note from Spinvox to Gmail Tasks

One feature that would be nice to see would be the option to put the message text in the email subject line instead of the body of the email. That way, you wouldn’t even have to copy and paste the details across to Tasks; you could just click More actions -> Add to Tasks in Gmail to create the task automatically. If this functionality is a priority for you, you could probably write a script that moved the message into the subject line — but for the occasional note it’s no big deal to copy and paste.

I tend to think of things I need to add to GTD at the most inconvenient of times, often when I’m nowhere near a computer. However, I always have my phone with me. This system makes sure I don’t forget any ideas I have away from the office.

Have you used Spinvox? What do you think?

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Image via Wikipedia (LibSyn)

Before I fell asleep last night, I started thinking about what I’m spending on Web applications. I take advantage of the free levels of apps whenever I can, however, in some cases, I have to give in and pay for the services.

Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have buyer’s remorse, but I do think I need to get a firm grasp of what Web apps or SaaS’s I have on autopay on my business credit card because it is getting to be too easy to charge these things.

Here is the list of Web apps I’ve been paying for and why I pay for them:

• Basecamp – $24/month – to keep track of communications and files with clients.
• FreshBooks – $24/month – to manage client invoicing.
• Typepad – $89.50/year for three blogs (about $7.45/month) – to develop three of my many blogs.
• Constant Contact – $15/month – to send out my occasional e-newsletter.
• Cafepress – $6.95/month – to sell Second Life swag.
• LibSyn- $5/month – to host my Cybergrrl Oh podcast about Second Life.
• SpinVox- $9.99/month – to convert my voicemail messages into texts and emails. (My service in the U.S. is actually through UReach.
• MeetUp – $72/6 months ($12/month) – to host several Meetup groups.

Total Fees – $104.39 per month or $1,252.68 per year

I began thinking that I should pay more attention to these payments. If the app is really valuable to my business, maybe I should consider paying for a year’s subscription in advance. Often, an annual subscription is discounted so I could save some money.

Then again, it might just be negligible. CafePress, for example, comes out to be $5/month for an annual subscription which would save me $23 for the year. Well, the theory sounded good when I was thinking about it. Still, if I were to subscribe to many more apps and sites, maybe the savings would become more significant.

Sites like Freshbooks and Basecamp don’t offer an annual fee. They use a pay-as-you-go model without committing you to a long term contract. Freshbooks does offer a lump sum payment where you can opt to pay for a number of months in advance but without any discount.

What are you paying on a monthly basis for Web apps and sites? Which ones and what do they do for you?

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