There are many virtual phone service providers to choose from service. But how do you know you’re making the best decision for your business? In this article, we discuss some of the pros and cons of four of the nation’s leading virtual phone number providers: Avoxi, Grasshopper, Vonage, and Global Call Forwarding. Therefore, you can make the best decision for your business needs. And, you won’t ever have to worry about making the best decision for your business.
1. What is a Virtual Phone Number Provider?
A virtual phone service provider is any company that provides virtual phone numbers for business. virtual phone numbers are numbers that utilize broadband internet to establish a connection. Therefore, they can use across the entire globe. And, they can be even more accessible and more affordable to use than traditional phone services.
Plus, they can offer several features like cloud storage, multiple lines per number, call recording, and more. Many types of businesses see the advantages of virtual phone numbers. Additionally, they understand to use them to expand consumer reach to keep up with competitors. As a result, finding the best service provider is a must to save money and to get the best service.
2. Virtual Phone Providers that Offer Free Trials
Before determining which virtual phone service provider may be right for your business, you may want to take advantage of a free trial. This will allow you to determine better whether or not virtual phone numbers are right for your company. Furthermore, it will also help to understand if the specific provider is willing to meet all of your needs. Below, we compare the free trial periods of each of the four virtual phone service providers we’re outlining in this article.
Avoxi: This service provider doesn’t offer a free trial period unless a customer asks for specific permission. So, if you were to sign up today, you’d have to pay the initial fee to get set up.
Grasshopper: This company offers one of the best free trial periods of 7 days. It comes with 100 minutes and 100 texts to use from one virtual phone number of your choosing.
Vonage: While this company is one of the largest providers of virtual phone services, they don’t offer a free trial period, currently. At least, not for business phone systems and features like virtual phone numbers.
Global Call Forwarding: This virtual phone service provider offers a no-risk free trial upon initial activation of an account. If you are not comfortable with your service, cancel within your first 15 days to get refunded.
4. Virtual Service Providers and Rollover Minutes
You know what minutes are in terms of phone services. And virtual phone services are no different. Put, you purchase a plan that includes a specific number of minutes allotted for each month. If you go over this number of minutes, you get charged. But what if you don’t use all of your minutes in a month? Rollover minutes are minutes from a previous month that haven’t use yet.
So, they’re stacked onto the current month’s minutes for later use. Many service providers don’t roll over minutes. If you do not use those things, you lose them. So, many businesses want to know that their service provider offers rollover minutes.
Avoxi Rollover Minutes: This service provider doesn’t offer rollover minutes.
Grasshopper Rollover Minutes: Doesn’t offer rollover minutes for virtual phone number customers.
Vonage Rollover Minutes: Vonage Business Cloud offers three different pricing plans, and they all include unlimited calling and SMS. So, this service provider doesn’t necessarily have to offer rollover minutes for customers.
Global Call Forwarding Rollover Minutes: This virtual phone service provider offers rollover minutes on all of their pricing plans. Whatever minutes you don’t use will roll on to your next month’s usage allotment. This way, you always get what you pay for them.
5. USA Toll-Free Numbers from Virtual Service Providers
For many, a virtual business phone service must offer toll-free numbers. These numbers allow customers and potential customers to call your business for free. Thus, making client-business interaction more enjoyable. But, many of these services don’t offer tollfree numbers. Or, they don’t provide the type of 800 number that you may be looking to utilize.
Avoxi Toll-Free Numbers: This company doesn’t offer toll-free numbers as a feature of their virtual phone service.
Grasshopper Toll-Free Numbers: This service offers toll-free 1-800 numbers.
Vonage Toll-Free Numbers: Not only does Vonage offer 1-800 numbers, but 888, 877, or 866 toll-free numbers as well.
Global Call Forwarding Toll-Free Numbers: This service provider offers toll-free numbers for all the toll-free prefixes, including 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, and 844.
Of course, you want to choose the virtual service provider that’s going to meet all of your business needs. And, make sense for you financially. So, make sure to do your research on the company you’re thinking of using. And, if available, take advantage of the free trial. This way, you can better determine if virtual phone numbers are the best choice for your business.
