remote working

[warmastoast]

I've been given the opportunity to do some remote working from the USA for which I will need a UK telephone number...

my first port of call was skype.  I've used them before for this type of thing and it was great. I bought a UK telephone number, paid for skype credit and thought I was good to go.

NOPE

3 weeks ago, skype disabled customised voicemail messages.  Everyone gets the skype default one which is absolutely useless for business when you want your customers to know that they've actually reached you.
Never mind, I thought, I'll just get it forwarded to my cell phone when I can't answer it.  What a rabbit hole this was turning out to  be.   I then realised that my usual cell phone wouldn't work because I want my clients to hear my business message.  So I went and got another line added to my cell phone account and bought a cheap ($50) android.  Then I tested it all out.

Useless, absolutely useless.

The call took forever ( a minute) to be forwarded to my cell phone.  Nobody is going to hang around that long, they'll just think you don't have a voice mail. I reset all the skype forwarding options which was supposed to forward after 1 second and it didn't, it took 35 seconds to stop on the pc then another 20 odd for my new cellphone voicemail to work.  Then the absolutely last straw.... if you sign out of skype or the device goes into sleep mode, it doesn't forward at all.  ARGGHHHH!!!  After looking at the skype help forum, this is making some people very angry indeed.  I was lucky because I'm just setting it all up but others have long term businesses that have just been dumped into this situation. I contacted skype customer service and they have agreed to refund everything.
I need an alternative,  localphone looks good and seems to do what I need it to... any other recommendations? 

TIA

[eyePod]

We use RingCentral, and I think they can give you a local phone number.

We're all located throughout the US, and I don't know about pricing, so YMMV.

Their software is great though, and they have a good phone app. When I get called, it rings at my desk phone, my computer app, and my cell phone all at once.

[dreams_and_discoveries]

Can't you just buy a UK pay as you go sim and pay the roaming charges?

[warmastoast]

Can't you just buy a UK pay as you go sim and pay the roaming charges?

no, I'm in the US and that would be a very expensive way to go.

I have an interim solution that seems ok.
I have google voice so the skype call gets diverted to that instead of my cell phone.  Google voice is set to "do not disturb".  I've recorded a message and it all goes through very quickly.  The upside of this is that I get a transcript of the message sent to my gmail - I get the number that called me, the time and the message.  So this isn't a bad option at all.

I like using skype otherwise so I'll see how this goes.