Virtual Phone Service for Small Business

Virtual Phone Service for small business has become very popular and with good reason.

Protect your privacy while increasing conversions, isn’t this what many of us want to do?

Recently you may have read my post “Call Now Button for Mobile” which was about placing an indispensable CTA button on your smartphone as a great CTA to increase engagement and business. This is fantastic for any type of business, particularly those engaged in local business. For those who missed that post, here it is again:

​Call Now Button for Mobile

However, some of you voiced concerns that this button would invade your privacy issues. I certainly do understand and don’t blame you, I would never upload this button unless my anonymity and privacy could be firmly protected and I had complete assurance of this.

No doubt it can be outright dangerous to give out your phone number to a public you don't know, and that's exactly what happens when a website asks you for your phone number. Fortunately, just like with anonymous email addresses and debit cards, you can also grab an anonymous phone number to mask your real number.

So I mentioned I would share my personal solution in one of my next posts.

Here is THAT post.

Also check out my #1 Recommendation for generating a passive income with a small business from home.

So before you install this Call Now button feature, READ THIS as it is very important to create an account with a service that will allow you to establish a SAFE and secure dedicated “business only” telephone number that you will assign to the Call Now Button.

Well, thank goodness! Here come VPS’s – or Virtual Phone Service for Small Business – to the rescue!

There are affiliate links within this post. What this means is that if you decide to purchase anything through one of my links, I'll be rewarded with a small commission at absolutely no extra cost to you. This small commission helps me run and maintain my website.

Virtual Phone Service for Small Business: All-in-One Tools

When you use a virtual phone number, only that number is known, not your real number, even though the virtual number might ring your actual “real phone” to establish the phone call. With a few simple clicks on your PC, MAC or taps on your smartphone, anyone you call and anyone who calls your virtual number, cannot see your real phone number.

Virtual Phone Services (VPS) allows you to get free international telephone numbers and low priced toll free numbers. These often come packaged with many other interesting and highly useful features.

Before activating my “Call Now Button” plugin to the mobile view of my website, I decided to sign up for and reserve my toll free number through my chosen VNS, Call Hippo.

The toll free number cost me $10 per month, but that expense was well worth the combination of the advanced features, privacy, and the public perception.

Here are some 2 great virtual phone services that are perfect for both business and personal use, and I will describe their Features and Benefits:

Google Voice

Google Voice is totally free and gives you access to a completely different phone number that you can use to make and receive calls and texts. This service works on any computer and via their mobile app.

It costs nothing to sign up a Google Voice account and to use it. The phone number, the text service and other features are all free. You pay only for the international calls, as calls to most phone numbers in the US and Canada are free. There are some numbers you may have to pay to call, starting at a rate of about $0.01 per minute. The rates for those cities, and international rates may vary, but you can find out exactly what it will cost before you make every single call.

Another cool feature I like is the Intelligent Voice Transcript (IVT). Google Voice will convert your voicemail (which is in voice) into text, so you can read the message in your mail box. This helps when you need to get the messages in silence, and also when you have to search for a message. Voice to text has never been perfect, even after decades, but it has improved. Some of the words transcribed may be misspelled. Google voicemail transcription is not perfect and can be quite funny at times.

Personally, I use a dedicated Google Voice number for my entertainment company and for band bookings through my website. All communication with new clients looking to book the band go through Google Voice. I love it!

Call Hippo: A Great Virtual Phone Service for Small Business

Here is another GREAT Virtual Phone Service for Small Business I use that is relatively cheap and is well suited if you are doing international business, a service that offers toll free numbers and has some really cool features that will give you some terrific unrealized benefits.

You might have guessed from the length of this review that I am pretty excited about this VNS!

I use Call Hippo for my interior design business, where I deal with international vendors, and I can receive up to 800 FREE minutes of international calls. And I also get an excellent inexpensive toll free number with the service.

CallHippo is a cloud-based VoIP phone system designed to meet the communication requirements of startups and small businesses. Available both as a web app and a mobile-based application, CallHippo allows businesses to buy virtual phone numbers of more than 50 countries, add users on the same number, and make calls to receivers across the world for a cheap rate, and receive free calls.

Furthermore, this VNS offers a scalable solution available on a monthly subscription basis wherein businesses need to pay only for the number of active users and the number of virtual phone numbers; hence it’s a solution that enables you to setup your sales, marketing, and support teams in ANY state, region or country to make and receive inexpensive virtual global calls.

For instance, you can have your 3-person marketing team remotely located in Bismarck, North Dakota, your customer support in California, and 2 salespeople in Lituania! This not only is excellent for local and regional business, it is great VNS for small businesses that truly intend to expand internationally.

Businesses can get time zones displayed on their dialer before making the call so that there won't be any confusion regarding current time while making international calls, set working hours for each number, and set availability status of users. The solution also offers an Android app for agents to make and receive calls even on the go and never miss a business call again.

CallHippo’s real-time call analytics tool provides details about callers, calling quality, and time duration, while call recording automatically records calls and conversations during a campaign, for managers to listen to from their dashboard. .

The voicemail and on hold music feature allows businesses to greet callers with a recorded message or custom music during non-working hours or when put on hold. Another fabulous feature is that you can translate your pre-recorded greeting message into 50 different languages!

My favorite feature of all is their Interactive Voice Response (IVR) which is included in their dashboard. An IVR is a prerecorded voice system which will help customers to reach to the right person or right department. By activating this feature, you can add “Dial 1 for Sales, 2 for Marketing, 3 for Support” etc.

In my personal opinion based on my detailed research, Call Hippo is one of the most cost-effective VNS services that offer such a wide array of useful and expandable features your money can buy. For only $15 per month, I get everything!

Conclusion: Virtual Phone Service for Small Business

This article is a general introductory review of VNS Call Hippo and what this service can do for your small business.

There are several other VNS services such as Talkroute, VNumber, Call Centric, Tossable Digits, and Grasshopper (the most popular VNS but rather pricey).

 I will be comparing these other VNS services to Call Hippo separately in an upcoming Review.

I highly recommend you do spend some time and do a search on these various VNS services so you can find the right “fit” of price, features, and benefits that will be well-tailored to your business - whether it be local, regional national, or even international - make your business thrive.

Once you have setup your favorite VNS, go ahead and activate that Call Now Button and assign your virtual number to it! You are safe and protected!

Thank you for reading this article on Virtual Phone Service for Small Business and I hope you found something useful here.

Kindly leave your comments below.