Our phones are the main communication tool we use with our clients. You don’t need to spend a ton of money and have a fancy phone system, but it is important that you have a solid reliable solution.
Cell Phones
Some agents like to use their cell phone. You probably already have one. There probably wouldn’t be any additional cost to what you are already paying. It has both calls and text functionality. However, you risk clients calling or texting you at anytime of the day or night. You will probably want some sort of headset to use, so you don’t have to hold it or have it on speakerphone.
SoftPhones
A softphone is an app based phone system that can be used on a computer or a cell phone, or both. They allow you to have a separate business phone number and separate so you can separate your personal life and your business life. There is an added cost to these phones, but they are very reasonably priced, usually anywhere from $15 to $50 each month.
When first started out, I used Microsoft Teams Voice. I already had Microsoft Office software for about $12/month and then to add the softphone feature to MS Teams was about $15/month. It functioned great, the support from Microsoft was always good, call quality was good. It was a great option at a reasonable price.
After a while, I switched to Ring Central to get a few more features that I don’t necessarily need, but are nice to have. Ring Central has text and fax capabilities built in as well as the ability to record calls if needed/wanted. The management of the system is a lot easier than Teams Voice. They have good plans ranging from about $30 to $45 per month