I’ve worked freelance for a small company for a few months now and just got asked to join the team full-time. I’m super excited but stumped at this one: my new boss has been using his personal phone number as the business number and I feel like it’s too late to switch it to another number. This number is on the Google Business profile, the socials, every email sent over, and this business is almost 7 years old with a cache of customers knowing this number.
Any recommendations for number forwarding so I can start taking phone calls while he maintains this number? I’ve looked into Google Voice but I want a better idea about how this might work before I go into a meeting later this week as to how we should move forward.
Thanks for the help!
Tell him to go to whoever his phone carrier is and ask them to add another Sim for a personal line. That’s how I have mine set up and I can switch between my personal line and my business line on my phone and it will also put a P next to calls that are calling in on your personal line and a B next to calls that are calling in on your business line. I know with the new iPhones you can have two e- Sims
I’ve had great success over 6 years using Ooma which is cloud based. They would port the number to their platform and you can have it ring into an Ooma IP phone, your cell phone using their app, or even program it to ring to a landline.
Literally just have him get a new personal number. Did it recently myself.
When it comes to affordable call forwarding alternatives to Google Voice, you might want to check out options such as Grasshopper or Line2. They provide flexible solutions, making the transition seamless while retaining the familiarity of the business number.
Wishing you the best of luck in your upcoming meeting!
I use Openphone for my small business. Shared main line, private line per user, shared contacts, easy texting, and a decent app.
Thanks for using OpenPhone! I’m one of the founders and glad you’re finding it valuable. Lmk if you have any feedback for us!
Hey! I’m looking into Openphone right now, is email integration possible with it?
Hey! That’s great to hear. Ping me with any questions :)
Yes, we do have a fairly simple email integration that allows you to get email notifications for any key “events” in OpenPhone.
Here’s more on that -> https://support.openphone.co/hc/en-us/articles/1500009861622-How-to-connect-OpenPhone-to-email
Is that what you’re referring to?
He needs to get a new personal phone number. That’s how we do it.
It’s surprising how common this is.
Everybody seems to set up a business email, get a separate bank account, obtain a business entity, etc.
You can port the number somewhere like Voip.Ms (easier to set up) or Skyetel (need some technical know how and a VPS which adds some cost) and the number can be routed to an app like Groundwire on a phone or a physical desk phone (you can get older Cisco SPA504g’s on eBay for cheap) and then bossman can get a new number for his cell phone. Bossman can even install Groundwire and continue to get calls to the old number.