Every week we talk to an owner paying for a landline that rings in an empty shop while they are out on a job. The call goes to a voicemail nobody checks and the customer phones the next name on the list.
What you are paying for now
A traditional business line from one of the big telcos runs somewhere between $60 and $90 a month before long distance, plus a desk phone that only works in one room. Add a second line for the cell and you are past $150 for a system that still misses calls.
What a modern system costs
Internet-based (VoIP) business service is priced per user, and for a one-to-five person shop that is typically $20 to $35 a month each. For that you get:
- A real business number, or your existing number ported over
- Rings the shop first, your cell second, a partner third
- An after-hours greeting that takes a message
- Voicemail delivered to your email as audio and text
- An app on your cell that shows the business number, not your personal one
The one-time part
The setup is where the value is, and it is the part most providers skip. Somebody has to design the call flow around how your business actually works, port the number without dropping calls for a day, configure the phones or the app, and stick around for the first month. We quote that as a fixed one-time fee.
The bottom line
Most clients end up paying less per month than before, with a system that catches the calls the old one missed. One extra job a month more than covers it.
