Home » Blog » VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) » Comparing the Top Leading Virtual Phone Services

Internet

Comparing the Top Leading Virtual Phone Services

Wondering what virtual phone services you should be choosing? This article compares some of the top-rated services in the nation!

Published

2 years ago

December 31, 2019

TwinzTech

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.

Table of Contents

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.

Internet

6 Fun Activities For Your Next Virtual Corporate Event

Remote working doesn’t have to be boring because you can spruce it up with fun activities for virtual corporate events. These are fun activities that ensure employees are lively and happy.

Published

2 days ago

May 18, 2022

TwinzTech

6 Fun Activities For Your Next Virtual Corporate Event

Virtual corporate events are online gatherings often held via video platforms like Webex, Zoom, and Google Meet. Such events offer an excellent way to participate in games and other fun activities. They also aim to help create familiarity and relationships between the attendees and improve work dynamics and communication.

Hosting a virtual event is challenging, especially for an unfamiliar group. However, it has become a new culture nowadays because most companies have allowed their employees to work in a remote setup.

Despite the convenience, working from home has brought countless negatives like burnout, unexpected distractions, and feelings of isolation. It also resulted in positive outcomes, though, like the ability to bond, connect, laugh together, and have fun with each other via 100% virtual means. Thus, businesses and companies have openly embraced virtual events as part of their work process.

If you are tired of the old encounters at events and are struggling to get fresh creative ideas, here is a list of fun activities you can consider:

Table of Contents

1. Virtual Happy Hours

Despite having employees working from home, companies must ensure that business operations continue without risking employees’ lives. This opened an opportunity to find creative ways to interact with each other to avoid boredom, including attending corporate virtual happy hour with colleagues.

Virtual happy hour doesn’t mean going to bars or pubs after work. There is no need to wait in line to use the bathroom or stick around for drinks, and none of your coworkers has to call a ride-hailing vehicle to take you home afterward. This is because employees can have conversations and share drinks over a video call.

Virtual happy hours allow remote employees to socialize in a confident and comfortable setting. Working from home can sometimes feel lonely and isolated, but virtual happy hours help people socialize, bringing a sense of connection and belonging despite the distance. This also allows employees to toast to each other from different locations, like when they used to go out for drinks after office hours.

2. Health And Well-being Activities

Cases of mental and physical health issues are more common today than ever before. Hence, incorporating activities beneficial for your mental and physical health into your virtual event is recommended to ensure you are well taken care of, even in a small capacity.

For instance, you can incorporate a meditation break or a short workout between sessions, depending on the event you’ll have.

Excited young man looking at laptop celebrating online victory

3. Online Office Games

Online office games have gained steady popularity since several companies adopted remote work setups. Such games are conducted via a secure videoconference platform and last for 90 minutes. These include trivia, icebreakers, and mini-competitions that somehow break the monotony of work duties employees have daily. The game is headed by an eager host to enhance engagement and entertainment.

4. Social Media Groups

According to Statistica, an average person spends about two hours a day on social media. So, you can create private groups on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for more virtual social connections.

For example, on Throwback Thursday, invite your peers to share an old photo with the team, and they will guess who’s in the photo. You may also ask teammates to tag someone on an image you’ll post, say, Ironman, who may be a favorite Avenger of one or two employees.

5. Virtual Dance Party

Dancing is a great stress reliever and team bonding exercise where coworkers can show their goofy and vulnerable side. To conduct a virtual team dance party, invite your coworkers to a video call, then create an enthralling playlist that will call for silly moves.

Another alternative to a dance party is to hold a silent disco. Here, each participant dances to the music they choose on their headset. Joining a silent disco is easy as each attendee dances to a song of their choice, and teammates can guess the song based on the moves. Virtual dance parties involve movements that may help workers blow off steam without thinking or talking to anyone; only rhythm does all the talking.

6. Digital Prom

Everyone has that prom dress or suit sitting in the closet because there is no opportunity to wear such elegant clothes. However, digital prom allows coworkers to dress up and relieve their childhood nostalgia, using the same prom experience to help them bond.

Although this activity might be silly for some, it offers a playful way to interact with peers and overcome fear.

Conclusion

Remote working doesn’t have to be boring because you can spruce it up with fun activities for virtual corporate events. These are fun activities that ensure employees are lively and happy. So, if you’re looking forward to organizing a virtual corporate event, try the activities discussed here to lift your spirits.