Hi, we just recently got our toll-free #. But right now it basically rings on a phone I tell it to. I was wondering where I find a place that provides the professional systems that let the caller press 1 for sales, 2 for support, etc? Also, I was wondering where you get the professional sounding voices for a voicemail box for the business etc.

Thanks.

Well some of the bigger ones would be a lucent system. Before I started my company the system they had at the internship was about 1/4 of a million dollars

We priced out something for about 12-20k which is server based
Overall, i can get you that info tommorow

Then it comes into the issue of is it needed. For us we have 3 toll free numbers, and are maybe getting a few inquiries a day via phone where as we get a ton of emails a day via email

So we have a basic system, with Voice mail integration into our phones, but nothing crazy.

Overall if your getting alot of calls sure, if not its a waste of cash

Joe

We don't receive many calls, so I would also like to keep it simple.

Atleast a professional voice would be nice on the voice mail.

do a search on the net for software packages to manage this, there are ones that are alot cheaper than that available if youre willing to figure them out and get em working.

-Brendan

I just got a New panasonic phone for my office + got a voice mail deal from my local phone company, it integrates well with the phone

Joe

Re: The professional sounding voices...

A company I worked for, merged with a company that did this. The sales person was somewhat of a professional "press 1 for... press two for..." I guess you could say. She set up the system, set up the external voicemail messages, etc., and it sounded very professional. This was for a Fortune 500 compnay however and the price for their service would probably be unreasonable for a smaller host type company. Like I said, we merged with them, so services were traded...

You might be better off with a small office system, base controls range from $250-$600+ and convincing a female friend to do the voicing (have auditions! :D)

We have a business line package that includes our business phone number, yellow pages listing, unlimited dial up for Internet, basic voice mail with annoucement for a low monthly fee.

I had a friend (female) record a message (sounds professional to most people) and when people call, they hear her message if that line is in use or we are not there to take the call.

Message is similar to the following:

"Thank you for calling XYZ. Please leave a detailed message and your call will be returned as soon as possible by one of our representatives. If this is an emergency please page us at 1-888-xxx-xxxx. ..."

For most of our customers (network services) , this is acceptable and they can always call us toll free on our pager if the situation is urgent. Pager is on 24 hours a day and we do call them back asap when paged.

Bizfon...

http://www.bizfon.com/
is a good, flexible system at a very reasonable price...

Somehow, I rmember something that cam pre-installed on a Win98 machine, but afte theree or four wipes of the HD, it is gone, and it's not in the CD bundle that came with the terminal.

I don't know what you would look for, but here's a description, maybe someone would know what it was called or a technical name to search google with.

THe system was basically voice mail/dial out/pick up the phone with the computer. It hooked up to a phoneline via your56K voice/data modem and you would be able to set your computer to answer after X rings (I have never set up thesoftware, bt I know this much), it would pick up the phone and play back some sort of message (one of the pre-recorded women) and record the message to hard disk.

If you had the time to research this and an extra windows machine, you might look into it, otherwise, I'd just buy voicemail from the phone company and hire some woman to do the message.

Pretty nice setup for the price check it out.

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1622597852

Check out some of the Voice Logic systems. Depending on the number of people connected to it, you can get a nice system for under $600:

http://www.voicelogicinc.com/

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16739

http://talkswitch.com/

This system is great. It even has call queing like the big boys. It runs for $800 - $1400

Originally posted by gnorthey00
Somehow, I rmember something that cam pre-installed on a Win98 machine, but afte theree or four wipes of the HD, it is gone, and it's not in the CD bundle that came with the terminal.

I don't know what you would look for, but here's a description, maybe someone would know what it was called or a technical name to search google with.

THe system was basically voice mail/dial out/pick up the phone with the computer. It hooked up to a phoneline via your56K voice/data modem and you would be able to set your computer to answer after X rings (I have never set up thesoftware, bt I know this much), it would pick up the phone and play back some sort of message (one of the pre-recorded women) and record the message to hard disk.

If you had the time to research this and an extra windows machine, you might look into it, otherwise, I'd just buy voicemail from the phone company and hire some woman to do the message.
http://www.symantec.com/talkworks/
http://www.01com.com/products/i2000.shtml
http://store.smithmicro.com/buy/products.tpl?cart=9973842823423651&--eqskudatarq=HMCWINEE&MC=Communications&show=detail&%2A%2AwoTHE_PLATFORMdatarq=WINDOWS

We are looking at talk switch

This integrates into our existing phone system, and seems very solid

Getting some more info now

Joe

I was researching something in regards to this topic, and ran across www.freedomvoice.com. Probably too late now, but it would of worked great for what you were looking for.