Call Center Contact Center Phone Service

Call centers and contact centers are major users of telephone services, especially long distance and toll free number services. What’s the best option for your call center to ensure that you have the right features and the best pricing? Well, there are several good technical options available right now. Let’s take a closer look at them to see what they can offer.

Traditional telephony has been based on basic business phone service, also called POTS or Plain Old Telephone Service. Old is right. Analog phone lines have been used for over 100 years and are still going strong. They’re highly reliable, deliver clear voice quality and don’t suffer from digital artifacts like latency.

Analog lines were originally intended to be one line per telephone. Key systems allow multiple lines on each phone so you can select which one to answer manually. All the but the smallest call centers have more lines and more agents than a key system can handle. That means using a PBX or Private Branch Exchange to automatically assign lines and direct incoming calls.

What PBX offers is automation. If you only need a half dozen or so outside lines, analog business lines still make economic sense. You connect them to your PBX using FXO (Foreign Exchange Office) ports on interface cards that plug into your PBX system.

When you need more than a half dozen or so outside lines, digital trunk service starts to make sense. Why? It’s because there is a cost advantage to bundling multiple phone lines into one trunk line. You may already have multiple analog lines coming in via a multi-pair binder cable. This is different. A T1 line uses two twisted copper pair to carry 23 or 24 separate phone lines digitally. Yes, those are the same copper pair that would otherwise be used for analog phone service.

The way this works is that the phone conversations are digitized at one end using an analog to digital converter and converted back to analog at the other end using a digital to analog converter. Each call is assigned its own digital timeslot or channel. They are kept separate so that there is no cross-talk between calls. T1 is a synchronous system that has strict timing at both ends of the line. Latency is almost non-existant. However, any unused channels are transmitted empty. All channels are constantly being exchanged between your PBX and your telephone service provider.

Why the choice between 23 and 24 phone conversations on a T1 line? All 24 channels can be used for telephone calls. This is called a T1 telephone line or T1 trunk. The other option is to use 23 channels for conversations and use one channel for switching, signaling and data, such as ANI and Caller ID. That option is called ISDN PRI or T1 PRI. PRI trunks are very popular with call centers because they offer the Caller ID information and faster switching times than normal T1 phone lines. Your PBX system may have multiple PRI ports so that you can have 23, 46, 69 or more outside lines for your call center.

SIP Trunking is an alternative to ISDN PRI. It is based on VoIP technology and uses packets rather than channels. SIP Trunks can be interfaced to older technology PBX systems and the newer IP PBX phone systems. There may be cost advantages for SIP Trunking, especially if using a lower bandwidth CODEC (Coder/Decoder) than the industry standard G.711. Some newer CODECs offer high call quality while transporting more simultaneous calls on the same line bandwidth.

SIP Trunking also opens the opportunity for cloud communications or Hosted PBX. With a hosted system, both the outside lines and the PBX switching system move to the cloud. You have only phones and a VoIP gateway in-house. The advantage to a cloud hosted solution is that you avoid heavy capital investment, pay for service by the agent seat per month, and don’t have to worry about maintenance or upgrades. The service provider takes care of all this for you.

Are you starting up a new call center or contact center, facing an upgrade cycle or expanding operations? If so, this is the perfect time to check business phone service options and prices for call centers and contact centers. You could gain performance advantages at lower prices now.

Flat Rate vs Per Minute Toll Free Service

Nearly all companies that sell to the public have or need toll free telephone numbers. People come to expect a toll free number for ordering or customer service. If they have to pay to call you, they may think twice and go elsewhere. It’s a bit like free WiFi. There are so many places that offer it that the ones that don’t seem less desirable. But, did you know that there are two types of toll free services to choose from?

The two fundamentally different approaches to toll free number service are pay per minute and flat rate. Flat rate means you pay a fixed amount each month regardless of how many or few calls come in.

Note that as the business owner you pay for all calls that come into your toll free number. The caller isn’t charged, and that’s the way they like it.

The way pay per minute services work is that the meter starts running as soon as you pick up a ringing toll free call. An excellent service that works on the pay per minute basis is Kall8. For each minute that you are on the phone with a customer or prospect that calls in on your toll free number, you pay 6.9 cents per minute. That rate applies to all calls coming in from the lower 48 US states. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii have a surcharge.

What happens if you don’t have any toll free calls during a particular month? In that case, you pay just the fee to maintain your number. It’s $2 for 866, 877 or 888 numbers and $5 for 800 numbers. All of those prefixes are toll free. Some companies prefer actual 800 numbers because people know what an “800 number” is. Others are fine with the newer 866, 877 or 888 numbers that are also toll free.

For your, say, $2 per month you have exclusive use of your toll free number. It will ring to any phone that you program it to. It’s not a separate line with a separate telephone hooked to it. For instance, you can program your toll free number to ring to your cell phone while you are out and about, change it to ring to your desk phone when you are in the office and even change it again to ring to your home phone so you don’t miss calls in the evening or overnight.

Some other features you get with your Kall8 toll free number are voice mail that you can use the conventional way or have your messages sent to you as audio files attached to email messages. You can block calls from people or areas you don’t want to deal with, conduct conference calls with up to 25 participants and receive FAX messages to your toll free number. The messages can be read online or sent to you as email attachments. That’s a lot of capability for a mere $2 a month.

The competing service is flat rate toll free. A good example is iTeleCenter toll free service that costs $49 a month. For that you get to pick your number from a list of available toll free numbers that are ready to use. You also enjoy 30 features that include online faxing, follow-me call forwarding, and voicemails sent to email or text messages at no additional charge. What’s more, there’s a 14 day free trial so you can see if you like this service before you commit to it.

It should be noted that “unlimited” calling is actually limited to a fair usage amount of 1,000 minutes per month. If business booms and you talk more than this, you’ll pay an overage charge of 4.9 cents per minute. That compares to 6.9 cents per minute for each minute on Kall8.

So, how do you choose between the two toll free services? The pay per minute plan works well for companies with widely varying phone traffic each month or for startups that don’t expect many calls for a long while. Your expenses expand at the same rate that your business grows. However, if you get lucky and your phones ring off the hook you’ll be paying more than you would with the flat rate plan.

Flat rate toll free service is great if you don’t like surprises and want to know what to budget for incoming calls each month. If you are a very small operation and it takes forever to get business going, you will pay more during the slow times than you would with pay per minute toll free service. However, if all of a sudden business takes off, you have the protection of the flat rate. Even overages will cost less than on the pay per minute plan.

Load Up on Toll Free Numbers For Your Business

What’s a really inexpensive tool that many business users think costs a fortune? It’s the toll free number. True, toll free numbers used to cost a small fortune and take forever to get set up. Not any more. Now you can have as many as you want ready to use immediately for $2 each.

Shocked? I’ll bet. At that price you not only have to consider getting your first toll free number, but loading up on them as well.

Why get more than one? It’s all about the marketing. Businesses that run ads in a multitude of media need some way to know which ads are working and which are just along for the ride. You can do that with coupon codes or long confusing Web addresses. Often, companies will list a phone number but distinguish the ads with different extension numbers. None of these are sure-fire. Customers and prospects can easily forget codes and extensions or get them mixed up. Even when they don’t, do you really want to make your valuable customers jump through hoops to help you assess your ad results?

It’s much easier to simply present a unique toll free number. You can assign different toll free numbers to each ad, each product, or each sales representative. Different departments can each have their own toll free number to avoid the confusion of phone trees or having a receptionist transfer every call. That makes calling fast and easy for your customers. Since the numbers are toll free, they’ll never hesitate to call regardless of how far away they are located.

What’s makes multiple toll free numbers so attractive is both cost and ease of management. You control everything online for each of your numbers. That includes deciding which phone should ring, including cell phones, how many rings before a call goes to voice mail, and whether or not you want FAX messages delivered to your email.

Yes, those features and more are available with these toll free numbers. You make the updates yourself at anytime, day or night, using an ordinary Web browser. That gives you completely control and you don’t have to wait for certain hours or for someone to have time to make the changes for you.

The cost? It’s just $2 to acquire an 866, 877 or 888 toll free number set up and ready to use. After that you pay just $2 a month to maintain service for each number. Incoming calls cost just 6.9 cents per minute. As an example, if two customers are calling-in to 2 toll free numbers, you pay 6.9 cents per minute per caller for the duration of the calls. Calls from Alaska and Hawaii do have a small surcharge added.

How about 800 numbers? Yes, they are readily available and cost $5 each to acquire and $5 per month to maintain. The cost of the incoming calls is the same 6.9 cents per minute as the other toll free numbers.

Are you ready to load up on toll free numbers? Order your first number and set up your account. Then add numbers as needed. You’ll get online reporting for each number so you’ll know what you are spending and which numbers are producing for you.

Still Your Best Toll Free Option

Could your business benefit from having a toll free number? Perhaps you already have toll free service, but are looking at getting a better deal or upgrading to more numbers. What service makes the most business sense these days?

If you’ve never had a toll free number and aren’t positive that it will make a significant impact on your business, the best thing to do is get in cheap without making any long term commitments. That way you can test the waters and see what happens. So, how do you do that?

Kall8 offers an outstanding package of toll free services that has been popular for years. It's had staying power because you get a lot for a little with no contractual commitments.

Here’s how it works. Your lowest cost option is to pick one of the 866, 877, or 888 toll free numbers that are all set up and ready to go. It’s like visiting the toll free supermarket. Just take a number that looks good to you off the shelf and put it in your shopping cart. When you check out, you’ll fork over all of $2. That’s right, two bucks.

What do you get for your toll free $2? You get to have calls to that number ring to a phone of your choice as soon as your order is complete. That can be your office phone, home phone or cell phone. Change that option to a different phone whenever you like, even in the middle of the night. You have an online portal that gives you complete control of your toll free number 24/7.

This is huge for mobile professionals, like consultants or real estate agents. Give everybody your toll free number, set it to the phone you are at, and you’ll never miss a call. If you do happen to be busy, calls will go to your toll free voicemail. You can call in and get messages at your leisure, listen to them online, or... get this... have the sound file sent to your email. Wait! It gets better. If anyone sends a FAX message to your toll free number, you can read that message online or also have it sent to your email.

How much does this really cost? It’s $2 to get the number. Then $2 a month to maintain service plus the cost of incoming calls. Most calls, originating in the 48 contiguous US states, are 6.9 cents a minute. There’s a modest surcharge for Alaska and Hawaii. If you decide you don’t want service anymore, then cancel it. All you owe is for what you’ve been using.

How can Kall8 make an offer like this? It’s because once you have the service you’ll want to keep it forever. Since you are only paying a couple of bucks a month plus the cost of calls, the bill for your toll free service only goes up when you get more calls. More calls mean more business, so you can easily afford the calling cost. It’s one sweet deal.

Low Price Toll Free Numbers

Are you looking for a toll free number for your business, but want to pay as little as you can and still get quality service? Your best bet may be Kall8 toll-free service.

This is much more than just a simple telephone number where you pay the cost of the call instead of the person calling. Kall8 offers a complete suite of telephone services that can make your mobile phone as powerful as your office phone. We’ll take a look at those services, but first you have to hear the price...

Kall8 low price toll free numbers start at $2. That gets you an 866, 877 or 888 toll free number all set up and ready to use immediately. Plus you get an online management account plus all the features that work with this number. You can keep your toll free number by paying just $2 a month for as long as you want it. If you decide to stop using the service, you pay only for the cost of the calls that have come in. Nothing more. There are no contracts or disconnect fees.

Yes, you can also get an 800 toll free number. These have all the same features as the 866, 877 and 888 toll free numbers. The cost is slightly more at $5 each plus $5 per month to keep the account.

But how much will you pay for those toll free incoming calls? Most calls are just 6.9 cents per minute. I say most calls, because calls that originate in Alaska, Hawaii or U.S. territories have additional surcharges. Even so, may businesses pay more than 6.9 cents per minute for just their regular outgoing long distance calls.

Now let's take a look at the features included with your toll free number. First of all, you get to set the ring-to number and change it anytime you want. The ring-to number is the number of the phone that will ring when someone calls your toll free number. In a sense, your toll free calls are automatically forwarded to the phone number of your choice. That can be an office phone, home phone or even your cell phone. If you move around a lot, you can go online and change the ring-to number at anytime.

Kall8 low price toll free numbers all have their own voice mail. You have a choice of how you want to retrieve those voice mail messages. You can call-in and listen to them. You can go to your online account from any Web browser and listen to them on your computer. Or you can have those messages sent as audio attachments to email messages.

Your Kall8 number will also accept fax messages. If anyone sends you a fax message, you can get a copy as an email attachment or go online to read it. Your choice.

Ever want to conduct a conference call, but didn’t have time or energy to go looking for a conferencing service? Now you can conduct conferences with up to 25 participants at any time for as long as you want. No scheduling needed. The regular per minute charges apply for each participant that dials your toll free number and enters the password that you give them.

Your Kall8 toll-free number also works in reverse as a virtual calling card. You just dial any of the voice mail access numbers and use the system to make outbound calls at the same 6.9 cents a minute that applies to incoming calls.

Other features include call blocking, custom call forwarding, choice of Caller ID display, and setting a maximum call length so callers don’t prattle on for hours at your expense.

RingCentral Makes Your Office Mobile

You know what an office is, right? It’s got a desk, a chair, carpet, maybe walls and maybe dividers, all bathed in glorious fluorescent light. Well, not anymore. With RingCentral, your office is in your pocket. You don’t sit in it, you take it with you.

RingCentral Mobile is a low cost telecommunications service that lets you take your business anywhere. That’s important when you could miss an important call just because you’re out of the “office.” You won’t now, because you and the office are always together.

This service is just the thing for anyone who isn’t literally chained to their desk. That’s just about anyone in sales, technical consulting, or running a home based business. Mobile phones have given us the ability to cut the telephone cord. Smartphones added the capability to cut the broadband cord. RingCentral Mobile takes advantage of this freedom to enable your cell phone to be your office phone.

How does it do that? It’s starts with a special local phone number or toll free number that goes directly into the system. The “system” is RingCentral’s virtual PBX business telephone system. It’s all hosted and maintained by RingCentral, so you don’t have to buy any equipment or worry about maintenance procedures. What you get is the power of an office phone system without the headaches of owning one and without the limitations of being tethered to a landline based phone system.

Since this is a complete business phone system, only virtual, it is designed to accommodate business with only a single employee or as many employees as you want. They are all interconnected by this virtual PBX system. That means there is no need to round everybody up and make sure they sit cheek to jowl in the same room all day. The employees using this virtual office can all be on the go anywhere in the US or Canada. That’s one BIG office space, isn’t it?

The RingCentral virtual PBX can have a toll free or local main company number. An automated attendant, also known as an auto-receptionist, will take care of directing incoming calls that aren’t directly dialed to a particular employee. Of course, if you can’t take the call immediately it will go to your personal voicemail. You can set up answering rules so that callers will be directed to voicemail, extensions and alternate phone numbers based on the data and time or Caller ID as well as which number they are calling. If you need to put them on hold, play some pleasant music or an informative recording so they won’t be drumming their fingers as they wait.

Each RingCentral number can be used for both phone calls and fax messages. Unlike some services, you can send and receive faxes using nothing but your computer or cell phone.

Why continue to limit your business activities to the confines of a bricks and mortar office, when you could be free to visit clients or work from wherever makes sense at the moment. With RingCentral Mobile, no one needs to be the wiser unless you elect to tell them. But why do that and risk them getting jealous of your personal freedom? We’ll keep it our little secret.

Try Internet Fax For Free

In these days of hyperactive texting, fax machines may seem a bit quaint to the uninitiated. But fax messages are a staple of business and used to exchange contracts and other important business documents. So, does that mean you need to buy an armada of dedicated fax machines and run to the office when you need to send or receive a fax message? No way. You can do it all online from wherever you happen to be. That is, if you have the right fax plan.

What’s better than a fax machine in this business environment is a fax service plan. A fax machine is a one task dedicated piece of equipment that sits in a designated space, tethered to its own phone line. A fax service plan lets you receive and send faxes by email and online account. It works on your desktop PC. It works on your laptop computer.

Oh, I know. You remember those early fax software programs that ran on your computer. You needed a special fax modem and they tied up both your computer and your phone line. This service is nothing like that. You don’t need a fax modem or even a phone line. This is an Internet-based fax service that you access over your broadband Internet connection like other online applications.

Here’s what you get when you sign up for a RingCentral Internet Fax Service Plan or take the free trial offer. You get your own toll free or local phone number. What’s that for? It is so people can send fax messages to you. Remember that fax machines send and receive messages over telephone lines. RingCentral gives you a virtual fax machine, but it still needs a number for those other fax machines to call. Those incoming messages will be stored in your online account and sent to you via email. You can even get text messages on your cell phone or PDA alerting you to new faxes so you never miss an important message.

How about sending faxes? You can send a fax right from email. Your email message becomes the cover sheet. The attached documents become the fax pages. That’s the simple way to fax. You also get a free software application that adds a fax button to your Microsoft Windows applications, such as Outlook and Word. Click the button and you can send your document out as a fax message. You can electronically sign faxes using a bitmap of your signature. No need to print documents, sign them with a pen, and then scan them back in as you would with a standard fax machine.

The RingCentral Internet Fax is as powerful as a large dedicated fax machine. You can create groups of contacts and easily send faxes to the whole group from your computer. You don’t tie up any phone lines. You’ll be notified by the system when your faxes have been sent. Both the software app and online account let you create custom cover sheets. Over a dozen different page styles are included with the service. If you are having a problem with junk faxes, you can block those so they won’t come in.

By the way, your computer doesn’t even have to be on for you to get a fax message. The sender never gets a busy signal when someone is on the phone, either. Remember, this is a virtual fax machine that is hosted online.

How much does it cost for all this faxing goodness? Plans start as low as $7.99 a month for 300 pages with a small charge per page over that. If you regularly deal with high fax volumes, other plans will push that up to include 2,500 pages per month. That includes your toll free or local fax number. You can pay that much just for a toll free number from other suppliers.

Phone Toll-Free Service

In a business environment where it's hard to get anyone to buy anything, the easier you make it for your customers to do business with you, the more likely they'll buy from you instead of your competitor. One benefit that prospects and existing customers consider valuable is the ability to call toll-free instead of paying for the phone call themselves.

It may seem silly that people will make a buying decision on whether they have to spend a matter of pennies or dimes to make a phone call. But consumers are fickle. That even applies to business people under pressure to cut expenses no matter what. Letting them phone toll-free may not be the major part of the decision, but it does remove one more objection. Why not do it when the cost to you is so very little? Plus, when you get the right toll-free service you get additional valuable business tools that make your job easier and more productive.

One excellent provider of toll-free phone services is Kall8. You can get a toll-free number instantly for just $2. Then for merely $2 a month you have the online management system to put your toll-free number to work. Until someone calls, that's all you pay. You are charged just 6.9 cents per minute for incoming calls from the contiguous 48 states, slightly more for calls that originate in Alaska and Hawaii. Can it get much better?

You bet it can. The low cost and instant availability of toll free numbers is just the start of the service from Kall8. The first additional service you'll enjoy is the ability to change your ring-to number at will. That's the number of the phone that will ring when someone calls your toll free number. It doesn't always have to be the same phone.

Some sales people find it valuable to set their ring-to number to their office phone when they are at their desk, and then change it to their cell phone when they leave. At home they can leave it programmed to ring their cell, or they can change it to ring their home phone. That saves cell minutes and ensures that a prospect or client can always reach you immediately. Don't you think you might close more sales if the caller doesn't get frustrated by voice mail and goes elsewhere?

Do you ever get need to receive FAX messages? You may be calling from the road, but the FAX you need will be sent to a distant office machine. Not with Kall8. You just have your caller send the FAX to your toll-free phone number. It will be received by Kall8 and sent to your email. You can get access to it at hotel or coffee shop hotspot or even on your Internet-enabled smartphone.

Voice mail has a similar feature. If you elect to have your messages go to voice mail, you can call into the system to hear them. Or just have Kall8 send them to your computer as a sound file attached to an email.

Need to make a long distance call from someone's home or a client's office? You surely don't want them to have to pay for it. No need to. Call your Kall8 number, enter the access code, and you'll be able to use the service in reverse as a virtual calling card. The cost of the call will be charged to your account at the same 6.9 cents per minute that you pay for incoming calls.

You can even set up conference calls, with up to 25 participants calling in on your toll-free number. Kall8 takes care of the conferencing bridge and charges you the regular per minute cost per participant. This feature is included with your toll-free service and is available anytime you need it.

There are other features, including detailed call reports, that you'll find handy in managing your toll-free phone number. Hard to believe you can get all this for just $2 a month plus the cost of the calls. If you are paying more than that now or have always wanted toll-free service but thought it was too expensive, then learn more and order your Kall8 toll-free phone number(s) now.

$2 Toll Free Numbers Help Professionals Go Independent

At this point in the economic malaise, many talented individuals are giving serious consideration to disconnecting from the corporate environment and going independent. It's a big decision to cut that umbilical cord to one's employer, but there are tools available that can help you leap the abyss to self-employment. One of those is an almost unbelievably inexpensive toll free service that lets you operate free as a bird.

Here's the situation. Those who decide to strike out on their own are often operating out of a limited home office space and are typically on the go much of their day. This is especially true for those selling a service, such as real estate or insurance, or technical professionals acting as consultants on-site. The question is how do you make sure that customers and potential clients can reach you no matter where you are? How can you conduct business on the go with only your cell phone and laptop computer?

Most importantly for anyone just starting out or trying to get their feet wet by moonlighting before they commit to the independent lifestyle is the matter of cost. You want to keep as much money in the bank as you can as a safety fund. It's often hard to know how fast your business will spin up and when the cash flow will begin in earnest. So rather than go out and spend a bundle committing to new equipment and support services, why not spend a bare minimum on a pay as you go basis? Pay next to nothing while you are getting started and only modestly more as your business and income grows.

This is the design of the Kall8 Toll Free Service system. You pick a toll free number, which in most cases is going to cost you a measly $2 to capture. That number is assigned to you for as long as you maintain it. You print it on your business card and flyers as the only number clients need. You make sure that business prospects know they can call you toll free anytime and even send fax documents to that number.

Maintaining your toll free number is also a low cost experience. You pay $2 per month to keep that number assigned to you. You don't pay anything else until you start getting calls. Then it's just 6.9 cents per minute for calls from the contiguous U.S. states. Of course, anyone who calls that number is going to be well worth your while to talk to. After all, they are your business clients and prospects, right?

What you get for a couple of dollars a month plus calls is a complete mobile office communications system. From your online control panel, you can decide where your toll free number will ring. Planning to be in the home office for awhile? Set it to ring to your landline. Going to be in the car or at customer's sites? Set it to ring to your cell phone. Change it from any Internet connected computer as you wish.

Of course, if you can't take the call at all it will go to voice mail. But this is very special voice mail. Your incoming call will be recorded, translated to a audio file and sent to your email if you wish. The same is true for FAX messages. Just tell anyone who wants to get a fax to you to send it to your toll free number. The FAX will be accepted and converted to an email attachment that you can pick up from your computer when it's convenient. Voicemail to email and FAX to email are often expensive add-on services, but Kall8 includes them with your toll free service.

Consulting engineers, contract technicians, recruiters, crafters, artists, Realtors and sales people in all fields have found low cost toll free service to be just the tool they need to maximize their ability to communicate with important business clients.

Cell Phone Family Plans for Professionals

When you think of family plans, it's probably in terms of adding cell phones for the kids. But these economic times, a family plan might mean the difference between two professionals each having their own cell phone and having to share a phone. Share a phone? That doesn't work so well for business. Let's take a closer look at those family plans.

The name "family plan" is probably why you haven't considered this option for professional use. These service arrangements should more properly be called shared minutes plans. But family plan is the name that has stuck, so we'll use that.

The first thing you should know is that sharing a plan does not mean sharing a handset or sharing a line. It's only the minutes that are being shared. You each have your own phone and phone number. But you get only one bill per month and it can be a lot less expensive than two completely separate cell phone bills.

Some people use all the minutes they can get. But what if 900 minutes a month are more than you actually use. In fact, what if 900 minutes is more than you and your significant other both need in a month? That is a likely case if one of you is a light duty user while the other is a heavy user of wireless minutes.

Of course, if you need more minutes you can always upgrade to a larger service plan. The price you'll pay will be less than having two identical service plans and two cellular bills each month. With a rollover plan you may find that even if you have a heavy usage month you'll still have plenty of minutes available on a shared basis.

There are family service plans available for all the major carriers and many, many cell phones available free or at a big discount. Some even offer cash back rebates even though don't pay for the phone in the first place. You don't have to get two identical phones. Each of you can select the model phone you want. You just need to be on the same family plan with the same carrier. Check out the special offers and variety of plans available at Cell Phone Plans Finder now.

Here's another way to save on your monthly phone expenses. Do you make calls to other countries? The extra charges from your cellular carrier for this may be considerable. But by using a pre-paid international calling service you can call anywhere in the world from your cell phone at rates from just a couple of cents per minute.

Also, consider a toll free number if you have clients calling you from outside your area code. They're pretty cheap and offer their own voice mail to email and fax to email reception. That's very handy for professionals on the go.

Dirt Cheap Toll Free Numbers

You'd know that you'd have more business opportunities if prospective customers could phone you from anywhere without having to pay for the call. It would be even better if you could just print one toll free number on your business card and put it in your advertisements. Clients could then reach you regardless of whether you happened to be in the office or on the go. But who wants to pay a bundle every month for that service? Especially when money's tight? Well, you don't have to. Instead get yourself a dirt cheap toll free number.

So what does dirt cheap mean? You know that hosted PBX services with toll free numbers can run you $20 or $30 a month. Some forwarded toll free numbers cost this much or more. But why pay that much when you can get a full-featured toll free number for just $2 set up and $2 a month plus the cost of calls.

Don't be fooled by offers that include a number of minutes with your service. You'll pay through the nose for those minutes. Plus there could be long periods when nobody calls. You may be better off just paying 6.9 cents per minute for the time that callers actually use. That rate applies to calls from the 48 contiguous United States plus Canada. There is an additional 7 cent per minute surcharge for calls that originate from Alaska or Hawaii.

But what does full featured mean? You get to assign your toll free number to ring to whatever phone you happen to be at. That can be your office desk phone or your cell phone or some other phone you happen to be near on the road. Best of all, you can change that ring-to number any time you want by simply logging on to your own control panel online.

What if you can't take your call right away? Voice mail is included, of course. But this isn't just any voice mail. In addition to recording your caller's comments, this voice mail system will send you an email with an audio file attachment of the caller's message.

How about FAXes? Your toll free number will also receive fax messages and then send them to you as email attachments. No matter where you happen to be, you can simply check your email on a PC and get your faxes and voice mail messages. That's all included in the same pricing. No extra charge.

This dirt cheap full featured toll free number also lets you conduct conference calls, block areas that you don't want calls from, and have your Caller ID display either the caller's number or your toll free number. Just set these features the way you want them using your online account management.

All this for two bucks a month? Yes. Plus a $2 set up charge for each 888, 877, or 866 number you want. Vanity or 800 numbers are a bit more. These rates are so low that some businesses have lots of different toll free numbers so they can track their advertising or direct specific numbers to specific employees. Learn lots more about these dirt cheap toll free numbers and order yours for instant use.

iTelecenter Boosts Real Estate Agent Income

If you sell real estate for a living, you probably think that describing home sales as a disaster is putting in mildly. It's easily the worst market in a generation. But you still need a way to put food on the table. If only technology could provide you with an edge...

Well perhaps it can. iTeleCenter has a toll-free real estate hotline and lead capture system that they designed in 1992 and have been deploying to top agents and brokers worldwide. A few years ago you might have yawned if you saw a story about this. After all, who needs more help when your phone is ringing off the hook already. But today any competitive edge is worth considering, especially if it's already proven itself in the market.

The TeleCenter Real Estate Pro multiplies the value of your telephone. It simplifies communication, increases your productivity, helps you generate more leads and increased listings, and track the effectiveness of your advertising to reduce costs.

This is a telephone tool, right? But not some complicated piece of equipment that you have to get wired up and programmed. The iTeleCenter hardware and software are remotely hosted and managed by professionals so you don't need anything more than the phones you already have. It will add features and consolidate all your different numbers so that buyers and sellers can reach you anywhere, anytime by calling a single number.

Let's look at that calling feature. Forget about having a bunch of different numbers on your business card. You have just one toll free number. Anyone who wants you will call that number from wherever they happen to be and get your message. They push "0" and your phone rings. It could be your home phone, office phone or cell phone. The system will forward the call to you wherever you happen to be.

How about getting more leads? iTeleCenter is also a hotline where you promote information on hot properties. Potential buyers call to hear what's available without feeling pressured to interact with an agent. If they want to speak with you immediately, they can press a button and do so. If not, the TeleCenter Real Estate Pro captures their phone number automatically and, if they are listed in the white or yellow pages of the phone book, it will even provide you with the name and address of the caller. How's that for a hot lead?

Ah, but what if someone want to send you a fax? No problem. They send it to your one published toll free number. They can also get faxes from you automatically. If they are interested in a particular property, all they have to do is push a button and a listing sheet will be automatically sent to their fax machine.

There's a lot more to this and if you are in real estate sales, direct marketing or any other business where lead generation and follow-up is key to your income, you should learn more about the TeleCenter Real Estate Pro from iTeleCenter. It could be just the edge you need in today's tough markets.

Your Cell Phone IS Your Business Phone System

You can go out and invest in a big PBX telephone system, but what sense does that make for an independent professional? If you make your living on the go in sales or consulting work, that phone in your pocket may be all the phone system you really need.

Let's face it. There's not much point in having clients or suppliers call you at the office if you are never there. If they call your mobile number, you'll be sure to get critical calls no matter where you happen to be. You always have the option of letting calls go to voice mail. But at least you don't have to trudge across town to get your messages off the answering machine.

Your cell phone is already a business phone. Adding a few enhancements can make it a business phone system.

One inexpensive and easy to implement service is the Kall8 toll free service package. Why toll free? Toll free numbers, with prefixes like 800, 866, 877 and 888, let people call you long distance at your expense. That's especially important if you deal directly with the public. Some people think twice before they'll make a long distance call because they don't want to get a big bill for the minutes. The bill probably won't amount to much at today's long distance rates, but the reluctance to call is still there. If your sales area covers two or more states that can easily cost you customers.

For just a couple of bucks a month and the per minute cost of the calls, you can have a toll free number that you assign to your cell phone. Your client dials the toll free number with confidence because they know that no matter how long they're on the line, you're picking up the tab. Your cell phone rings and your Caller ID can tell you either the caller's number or that it's your toll free number coming in.

This is a programmable service, so you can log-in with a Web browser wherever you have Internet access and tell the system which phone to ring for incoming toll free calls. If you are going to be in your office, change the setup to ring that phone instead of your cell. Or not. You also get voice mail that you can program to pick up after a certain number of rings. Or not.

Kall8 makes your phone a conference phone. You can hold conference with up to 25 participants. Participants dial you toll free number to join the conference.

Now here's something that road warriors will really appreciate. Your toll free number is also a FAX number. When someone sends you a fax, you get an email with an image of the FAX message attached. Check your email at a coffee shop or hotel room and you'll get your FAX messages on your laptop computer. You'll also get email notifications of any calls that were picked up by voice mail. You can listen to them on your computer without using cell minutes.

Your toll free service also works in reverse as a calling card. Just call the number you use to check your voice mail messages and you can make outgoing long distance calls at the same low rate.

All this for a couple of bucks a month and the cost of calls? Many toll free numbers are instantly available so you can get set up with this service in a matter of minutes. Learn more and get your toll free business number now.