So you’re an entrepreneur. Maybe you own a small business. And your smartphone’s become…your work phone.
The line between your personal life and career is so blurred you can barely even see it. But how do you know when it’s too much? And what can you do about it?
The answer is surprisingly simple. (And doesn’t require sending your phone to the International Space Station. Or, you know, running it over with your car.) It’s a little something called VoIP: voice over internet protocol, or, in layman’s terms, phone service over the internet.
We’re here to identify common problems to watch for when you’re using your cell for work—and share how VoIP can make things a whole lot better (without changing your number).
Your phone’s like a train station at rush hour.
You have a lot going on, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But every day, all day, your phone. does. not. stop. Enter VoIP’s all-star feature: call handling, which lets you route incoming calls to different numbers, extensions, greetings, menus, and more based on the day and time a call is received. If you want business calls (and texts) to stop altogether, enable a handy do-not-disturb mode and enjoy the peace and quiet.
Your personal calls are interfering with your business calls.
You love talking to your mom. And your sister. And your BFF. But sometimes personal calls have to wait until you can finally take a breather. Call handling lets you program in certain numbers and route them to say, voicemail, during certain times of day. You can even record custom greetings for each number so everyone still feels the love.
You’re getting your texts mixed up.
You also love texting. But texting your client when you actually thought you were texting your bestie is more OMG than LOL. When you sign up for VoIP, you also get a special inbox for business texts to keep things nice and organized and 100% separate.
You never get a break. (Even on vacation.)
Even entrepreneurs need sleep. And a vacation every once in a while. But you also don’t want to jeopardize your business by missing calls. Another cool VoIP feature called scheduling lets you rest—while resting easy that your business is still running like a well-oiled machine—by routing calls wherever you’d like, whenever you’d like. You can even plan in advance for time off so you can finally put those feet up and relax.
Voicemails are falling by the wayside.
No matter how technologically savvy we get, voicemail is still alive and kickin’. And let’s face it, you’re not always the best at keeping up with them. VoIP’s voicemail-to-email feature makes them way less painful by emailing you an audio file of each message. If listening to them is even too much, voicemail transcription will basically change your life.
And your own voicemail greeting could be a whole lot better.
Speaking of voicemail, how about we talk about that ancient, lackluster greeting of yours? VoIP’s text-to-greeting service helps you make a great first impression by letting you text your greeting and choose from over 40 automated voices so you don’t have to spend 15 minutes clearing your throat and re-recording. Ahem. Anyway, next!
Conference calls are sometimes a hot mess.
Juggling different conferencing apps and dial-in numbers and passwords can be, yeah, kind of a hot mess. VoIP provides HD audio conferencing (for up to 300 participants) and video conferencing (for up to 25) that are ready for use—and all in one place—in an instant.
Your contacts are a hot mess, too.
When you’ve got your work and personal contacts all mixed together, things get messy, fast. VoIP gives you the ability to not keep them separate, but import, manage, sync, and route all business contacts from an address book completely devoted to your business. Because your brain’s already at full capacity without scrolling through John G., John T., John (Coffee Shop), and John From Conference, wondering which one you’re supposed to be calling in five minutes.
You’re missing calls.
We all know it’s Murphy’s Law with cell phones: the moment you put your phone down and walk away, it will inevitably ring. That’s why VoIP’s stalker-like but astonishingly effective Follow Me feature is so great. It lets you direct calls to multiple numbers, even your computer, so they’ll ring one after another or all at once. Take that, Murphy!
You sometimes sound…less than professional.
Because you’re sleeping or it’s Saturday or you’re at the gym or…you just don’t feel like talking. VoIP lets you sound your best all the time with that fab scheduling feature, along with call screening and call notification. So you never have to talk before your first (or second or, uh, third) cup of coffee again.
You can’t transfer calls.
Sometimes you’re on a call with a client, or a potential client, and you want them to talk to one of your colleagues. If you were on a desk phone, you could transfer them. But since you’re on your cell, you can’t, right? Wrong! VoIP hooks you up with all kinds of fancy in-call features, including transferring, which used to be the exclusive domain of desk phones but is now finally within reach for you, too. Hold please! We’re transferring you now. Booyah!