Showing posts with label toll free numbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toll free numbers. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

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?

Choose between pay per minute and flat rate toll free services...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.

Is it time for you get toll free service for your company? If so, learn more and order Kall8 pay per minute or iTelecenter flat rate toll free number service now.



Follow Telexplainer on Twitter

Thursday, November 4, 2010

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.

Presenting toll free numbers so cheap you can order as many as you like. Click for more informationShocked? 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. Get inexpensive toll free numbers right now and see how much they can benefit your business.



Follow Telexplainer on Twitter

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

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?

This toll free service works with your cell phone. Click to learn more.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.

How can you not grab one of these toll free numbers and put it work for you right this minute? It’s easy to do. Learn more and order your Kall8 toll free number in just a matter of minutes.



Follow Telexplainer on Twitter

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

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 .

Low price toll free numbers that work with cell phones.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.

Can you believe that all this is yours for a mere $2 a month plus the cost of calls? It’s time you had your own toll free number. Learn more and order Kall8 low price toll free numbers now.



Follow Telexplainer on Twitter

Monday, February 15, 2010

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.

You business goes with you with RingCentral Mobile.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.



Follow Telexplainer on Twitter

Monday, February 8, 2010

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.



Follow Telexplainer on Twitter