Author Topic: How to get the right phone system?  (Read 1730 times)

OrchardTree

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How to get the right phone system?
« on: December 07, 2018, 06:55:17 AM »
I'm not an engineer so I'm currently struggling with setting up the right phone system for my business.

It's a small business and, of course, mustachian, so a lot of the big, expensive solutions don't really work for me.

I do have a business cell phone where I answer all my calls, but I do have multiple phone numbers. Some are for tracking where website leads come from. I use CallRail and it works fine. Then I use Line2 for a 1-888 phone number. Here, the call quality is terrible.

My guess is that Line2 is bad because it's VOIP. I would prefer to have an old-school system forwarding number that does nothing but forward calls to my cell phone, but has great call quality.

I'm also looking to hire a part time assistant soon. To keep things Mustachian she would be working from home so I don't need to get an office lease. Ideally the forwarding number could be forwarded to her and my phone. Even better if I could set it up so it only forward to her at certain times of the day. To monitor her it would be nice to have call recording.

I would appreciate if someone could help with my choices. And sorry if this is all confusing. Evidently I don't really understand how phone systems work.

MusicLover

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Re: How to get the right phone system?
« Reply #1 on: December 07, 2018, 07:00:35 AM »
If you enjoy tinkering with software and learning about phone switches nerdvittles.com site has step by step instructions to build a very capable phone system, in the cloud or on your own hardware, that is inexpensive, has FAX capability if you need it, uses VoIP, and does it all so well you wouldn't even realize its VoIP.  It's been my landline for the last 10 or more years.

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OrchardTree

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Re: How to get the right phone system?
« Reply #2 on: December 07, 2018, 09:07:05 AM »
Thank you for the tip. Unfortunately my business is very time consuming and I need someone else to handle it.

But based on what you say. If you run your own VOIP system and the call quality is good. That means that there's a quality difference between different VOIP systems. So how do I find a high quality one?

OrchardTree

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Re: How to get the right phone system?
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2018, 09:49:11 AM »
here we go, found this on the Mighty Call website:

Quote
When assessing the virtual telephony market, Talkroute is sort of like Grasshopper-lite. The systems are very similar, and Talkroute touts their use of the PSTN (public switched telephone network)—which is also the backbone of Grasshopper’s call connections. The majority of competitors on the market use a strictly VoIP-centered approach, which means a call’s quality depends directly on your internet connection.

katsiki

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Re: How to get the right phone system?
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2018, 09:55:44 AM »
Vitelity.net is good voip.  I am not sure how much hand-holding they will do.  You might check out their web site.  They have been around, I would guess, close to 10 years.  They do everything... local numbers, toll-free, international, etc.  Lots of stuff you don't need.

You may be able to accomplish what you want for free with Google Voice as well.  Depending on business needs, that may or may not make sense.  (No real support mechanism with Google to my knowledge).

P.S. If you continue with the VOIP route, your network is important.  You may want to have someone review your network configuration while setting up the new VOIP.

Good luck!

OrchardTree

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Re: How to get the right phone system?
« Reply #5 on: December 07, 2018, 02:29:14 PM »
Thank you. I might just go with one of the two PTSN solutions. Call quality is very important to me.

MusicLover

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Re: How to get the right phone system?
« Reply #6 on: December 07, 2018, 03:21:56 PM »
I've found voip.ms to be very high quality as well.  I compared several to find the ones having the lowest latency.  It has servers in many cities so you can choose the closest data center to you.  & the online portal it has for setting things up is almost like having your own pbx (switch).

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