Business phones

Virtual Phone System

A virtual phone system runs the business line from an app on your phone and a program on your laptop, so the number reaches you in the truck or at a client's table. Here is what it does, what it costs you in peace and quiet, and who should leave the phone exactly as it is.

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Disclosure: AldoMedia is a paid affiliate of Unitel Voice. If you sign up through a link on this page we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend what we would set up for our own clients, and we say plainly below who should not buy this.

What a virtual phone system actually is

A virtual phone system is a business phone line that does not live in a box at your building. The number is held by a provider. You decide which devices it rings: an app on your cell phone, a program on your laptop, a desk phone if you want one, or all of them at once.

Nothing gets installed at the shop. No wiring, no beige box in the closet, no technician visit. If you have internet where you work and a data plan on your phone, you have what it runs on.

That is why it suits people who are not at a desk. A contractor is in a truck all day. A consultant works from the kitchen table on Monday and a client's office on Thursday. The old answer was to hand out a cell number and hope. This lets you hand out the business number instead, and it travels with you.

Two words you will run into

Softphone. The business phone as a program on a computer, with a headset instead of a handset.
Porting. Moving a number you already use from your current phone company to a new one.

Providers name these things differently, and the same word can mean two things on two price sheets. Read the feature list, not the label.

Ringing several devices at once, and why that beats forwarding

Most owners get here having already tried forwarding, and forwarding is a hand-off. A call arrives at one phone, that phone gives up on it, and the call is sent somewhere else. Ringing several devices at once is not a hand-off. Every device you nominate rings at the same moment, and whoever picks up first takes the call.

Three ways to make one number reach more than one phone
Arrangement	What the caller hears	Who gets the message	Where it falls down
Call forwarding	Ringing at the first phone, then ringing again somewhere else	Whichever mailbox gave up last	Long waits, and messages scattered across handsets
Ring several devices at once	One normal ring, answered by whoever is free	One mailbox for the business	Every pocket buzzes on every call, so choose who is in the group
Ring devices in order	A short wait at each step before the next phone rings	The last phone in the chain	Slower, but right when one person should get first refusal

The middle row is why people switch:

Nobody waits. Forwarding spends real seconds ringing a phone nobody is near. Callers hang up in those seconds.
One dead phone does not lose the call. A flat battery stops mattering when two other devices rang too.
Caller ID stays honest. You see the customer's number, not your own office line arriving from itself.
Messages land in one place. Nobody has to collect voicemail from three handsets on Monday morning.

Keeping your personal number off the customer's screen

This is the quiet reason a lot of owners finally do something. You take a job on your own cell, and now a customer has your personal number permanently. They call it on a Sunday night. They give it to a neighbor. And it can never be handed to an employee, because your mother calls it too.

Calls you place from inside the app go out showing the business number, and your carrier number stays private. Two habits undo that.

Returning a missed call from the phone's own dialer. It is sitting in your regular call list, one tap away, and that tap sends the call as you. Return calls inside the app.
Texting from your personal number. Customers text, and a thread started on your own number stays there forever. Check whether business texting is part of the plan, and if it is not, decide out loud what you do about texts.

A number the company controls is also an asset. It can be answered by somebody else, printed on a truck, or pointed elsewhere the day you change how you work. A personal cell number can do none of that.

The same argument applies to the address you send quotes from, which is what business email is for.

Voicemail that arrives as something you can read

Listening to voicemail is a bad fit for this kind of work. You are on a roof, in a crawlspace, or sitting in somebody's living room. Messages pile up until the evening, and the customer who left one at ten in the morning has already called somebody else.

Most business phone systems can deliver voicemail as written text, usually by email and often with the audio alongside it. That turns listening into scanning. You read six lines between stops, spot the one real inquiry, and call that person back first. Old messages become searchable too, which matters on the day a customer insists they left one.

The honest caveat

Transcription is done by software, and it is confident when it is wrong. Names, street names and part numbers are where it fails. Treat the text as a summary that tells you whether to listen. Nobody should copy an address out of one straight into a quote.

Worth checking: whether the audio is delivered as well as the text. Voicemail sent by email also inherits every problem email has, so read why your business email goes to spam if messages start going missing.

The part nobody selling this will mention

When the business phone sat on a desk, closing time was a physical fact. You locked the door and walked away. In your pocket it never closes. Six months in, people are answering at dinner, at their kid's game, and during the one week they took off, and then they blame the phone.

The phone is not the problem. The settings are, and almost nobody opens them. Do this on the first day, not after it has become a habit.

Set business hours inside the system. Outside them the call goes to a greeting instead of your pocket. It is the most useful setting in any business phone system and it is routinely left switched off.
Record a closed greeting that says something. Not just the company name. Say when you open and ask for a number. A caller who is told when they will hear back usually waits.
Use the app's do not disturb, not the phone's. Silencing the whole handset silences the school and the alarm company along with the business.
Decide what counts as an emergency, then route it. If you do emergency work, the closed greeting should offer a way through. If you do not, say so plainly, so nobody sits up waiting.

Then make the website agree with the phone. If the greeting says eight and the site says seven, the customer remembers the wrong one.

Who should not switch

This product has a real no attached, and it is a common one.

Leave the phone alone if

You have a fixed shopfront and the phone sits on the counter. A salon, a bakery, a repair counter. Everyone who answers it is already standing next to it, so a phone that follows you solves a problem you do not have.
The internet where you take calls is unreliable. Calls ride on that connection, so spend the money there first.
You are inside a contract. Find out what leaving your current phone company early costs before you fall in love with anything.
You have an alarm panel, an elevator line, a fax or a card terminal on a plain phone line. Those do not always move to an internet service.
What you actually want is somebody to answer. No phone system answers calls. If the complaint is that nobody picks up, you need a person.

Worth having if

Your work happens away from a desk and customers reach you on your personal cell.
More than one person needs to answer the same number.
A missed call is a lost job rather than a minor annoyance.
You want the number to belong to the business, so it can be handed on later.
You are adding help, remotely or at another location, and they need to be on the company number.

What to check before you sign up

We are not going to print figures we have not verified. Here is the more useful thing: what to ask any provider, this one included, before you hand over a card.

What happens to a call when the internet drops. A good answer has it falling back to a cell number or to voicemail rather than vanishing.
Whether the number you already give out can move, and how long that takes. Do not cancel the old service until the move has finished.
How many people can answer, and what it costs to add one.
Whether business texting is included, and how voicemail is delivered.
The emergency address on the account. An internet phone line does not know where you are standing. Register it, and update it if you move.
What happens to the number if you leave.

If call recording is on your list, check what your state requires before you switch it on. That is a legal question, not a phone question.

How AldoMedia helps

AldoMedia has been building and looking after websites for Western New York businesses since 1999, so we have watched what happens to the phone number printed on them. We are a paid affiliate of Unitel Voice and not the operator of the service, which is why the disclosure sits at the top of this page. Our part is making sure the number on your site, your listings and your truck all match, and telling you when the phone you have is fine. Call 716-771-2536, tell us how calls reach you now, or start with the support pages.

Common questions

Virtual phone system questions

What is a virtual phone system?

It is a business phone line that lives with a provider instead of in a box at your building. You choose which devices the number rings: an app on your phone, a laptop, a desk phone, or all of them at once. Nothing gets wired in and there is no equipment to maintain.

Is a virtual phone system the same as call forwarding?

No. Forwarding hands a call from one phone to the next, so the caller waits through the hand-off. A virtual system rings every device you nominate at the same moment, and whoever picks up first takes the call. Voicemail also stays in one place instead of scattering across handsets.

Will customers see my personal cell number?

Not if you place the call inside the app. The business number is what shows, and your carrier number stays private. The habit that undoes it is returning a missed call from the phone's own dialer, because that goes out as you rather than as the business.

How do I stop the business phone ringing at night?

Set business hours inside the system instead of relying on willpower. Outside those hours calls go to a greeting that says when you will call back. Use the app's own do not disturb rather than silencing the whole handset, so your family still gets through.

Can I keep the number I already give out?

Ask before you buy, and get the answer in writing. Moving a number between carriers is routine, but it is not instant and it is not possible for every kind of line. Never cancel the old service until the number has finished moving.

Related guides

Business Email

The same argument as the phone number, applied to the address you send quotes from.

Read about business email

Why Business Email Goes to Spam

Useful if voicemail notifications or form messages stop arriving.

Why mail goes to spam

Support

Where to start when something that used to reach you has stopped.

Go to support

Also useful: Microsoft 365 if the mailbox and calendar are on your list too, or all of the guides.

Work out whether the phone should follow you

Tell us how calls reach you now and who else needs to answer them. If the phone sits on a counter and everybody who answers it is already there, we will tell you to keep it.

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