I use
Yay.com for my number, I would also recommend
Net-Telco, both offer call recording as well as rolling contracts. I have tried others who offer good 'deals' but fall far short in service or functionality
Yay are better for customer interface and website functions
With Net-Telco you can get a number from £12 per year plus call divert charges - for example I was £13 last month with them for my legacy numbers
I have different numbers for different local areas - I have 3 local area codes for when I used to advertise in the local paper as I found that people from Ayr were less likely to call a Kilmarnock company.
My last full month was November (to exclude holidays) and I had 204 incoming calls, my monthly cost was £34 including VAT for Yay.com. All numbers divert through this number, this cost includes global call recording and all my non-mobile outgoing calls.
They do an app that allows you to call out from your virtual mobile number from anywhere with an internet connection (or mobile data)
It also allows time based routing- my numbers give an out of hours message from Friday at 4pm to Monday at am and then transfer the call to my mobile. This stops nutters calling at 10pm on a Saturday night to ask about an outside light when drunk (yes, I have had that)
It also scares off people who want to rip you off as they know calls are recorded from the start
The way I look at the cost of the number is in jobs- if a virtual landline number costs £34 per month then ONE job from it pays for the number.
Can you afford not to have a landline number?
If you are starting out then you need to have consistency so a landline number from the start helps- it makes you look like a company rather than a one man band
The call divert helps- people calling hear my sweet voice telling them the call is about to be diverted to the electricain and that calls are recorded, this adds 13 seconds or so and eliminates the spammers
The benefit of Yay is that I get missed call alerts- if you are on the phone or out of area then you know when a call is missed- see below
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