• Somebody Loves Us! FreedomVOICE, no less!

FreedomVOICE, an amazing communications company offering a one-of-a-kind toll free number service and hosted VoIP PBX had some nice things to say about us on their blog a while back and somehow we never got around to acknowledging it. Until now.

As our last business (vintage airplane rides) grew, answering phones placed a bigger and bigger demand on our time. Trying to juggle that priority and get everything else done had driven us to the edge. When we started talking about a shrink, we knew we needed an new solution. We tried an answering service, but even with extensive training (at our expense), the operators just didn’t have the passion for what we did, and they didn’t communicate the sheer fun of it all. So we started looking for a better answer (pun intended).

FreedomVOICE was what we were looking for. We even wrote about the company and their service in Undress for Success-The Naked Truth About Making Money At Home (the book). Here’s what we said:

After years of struggling for a solution to answering the phone in our flightseeing business, we found a company called FreedomVOICE that offered a simple, elegant, and inexpensive solution to the problem.

We routed our phone lines to them and, through an easy online interface, we set up an elaborate hierarchy to manage how calls were routed and what customers heard when they called. The computer and virtual operator, offered callers the option of receiving voice or fax information about our airplane rides or reaching a real live human.  Depending on what they wanted—a reservation, weather update, gift certificate or just talk—their call was routed to the appropriate recording or person. As staff schedules changed, a few computer clicks was all it took to update the routing. If we were in the car, the technology would hunt through our phone lines until it found us.

We hate voicemail and endless menus as much as anybody, but FreedomVOICE offered a professional solution and allowed us to inject some fun into the mix. We added engine sounds, honky-tonk music, and even some on-hold humor: “We’re busier than a one-armed wing walker with a wedgie, but hang on, and we’ll be right with you.” We actually had folks complain if someone answered a call too quickly because they were enjoying the on hold entertainment.

In the off-hours, the system recorded caller messages and forwarded them (as either a sound or text file) to our e-mail, fax, or iPhone. This is starting to sound like a commercial for FreedomVOICE, but the naked truth is we didn’t find anything else that worked as well.

A big thanks to FreedomVOICE for recommending our book. Find out more about them here –> FreedomVOICE Toll Free Number Service