Home Based Travel Agency Phone Options

My business partner Karen used to fuss at me a lot about "rewiring the office" constantly. As a serial netrepreneur and geek I am always trying out new technologies and seeing how they fit. Here are some technologies that have definitely stuck around here a long time - meaning, more than a week.

Phone Service:
Since I work primarily from two physical offices (one on North Padre Island, Texas during the school year/Winter and one from Lake Arrowhead, California in the Summer and Holidays), I learned early on that I needed one phone number to ring wherever I am so my clients didn't have to have a different number. Before Vonage, and Magic Jack, there was Connection Tech. They provided a toll-free phone number which is portable in case I leave them, and offer standard features for the office like call waiting, voice mail, etc.. It also has an auto-attendant which can route calls to the right department (sales, marketing, etc.) and also have up to three follow-me numbers. So, sales calls go to the person covering sales, support goes to support, and whether I'm in California, Texas or Hong Kong, my phone rings and no one I work with needs a different number.

As a home-based agent, you could have one option for cruises, one for vacations, one for payments. They might all go to the same person (you) or you might actually have someone cover for you and route the calls to them.

If you're a one-man show then you might look into a new service called Grand Central from Google, but their terms of service don't allow "commercial" use, so buyer beware.

VOIP Service / Mobile Phones
Connection Tech tells the phones WHERE to ring. HOW they ring is a different story. I have my cell phone service through Verizon Wireless and have been, for the most part, happy with them for almost 8 years. If I'm out of the office then I answer on that cell. If I'm in the office, however, then I don't want to use minutes. For California I use my plain old home phone line to get the calls. Connection Tech routes the call, tells me who is calling and I press "1" to accept the call or "2" to send the caller to voice mail. When I'm dialed into the system, they provide call waiting, redial, and other features of a business phone line, so I only pay $6 for basic phone service with the local company.

For Texas and other on the road locations I use Vonage. I have a business account which is $49.95 per month and gives me unlimited minutes and long distance. It also gives me access to Vonage Talk, which is software installed on my laptop that gives me the same phone number (incoming and outgoing) through my PC. So, let's say I'm in Hong Kong and a client calls. Connection Tech routes the call to my local Vonage number and using my headset I can get the call without any extra programming. When I'm in the office the regular phone rings. It really couldn't be simpler, or cheaper, for that matter.

If you don't need the toll-free, auto-attendant or multiple mailbox feature, you can skip Connection Tech, but really, for around $9 per month, I wouldn't. I also wouldn't use Vonage (Cable Service) for home phone service. I just learned the hard way that relying on VOIP (Voice-over-IP) exclusively for calls is not a good idea. Since I live on an Island sometimes my Internet can get a bit sketchy, which means that my phone service can also get a bit sketchy. By having Connection Tech I can re-route my calls to my AT&T Land Line and not worry.