Biznik - Business Networking

Contact Us


Duct Tape Marketing

Duct Tape Book

Free Social Media for Business ebook

Social Media for Small Business
John Jantsch Marketing Coach
About John Jantsch

Recent Posts

Entire Archive

  • Categories

  • Categories
  • Can your phone service make you a better marketer?

    GotVMailI spent a few minutes with Siamak Taghaddos, CEO and founder of GotVMail for a recent episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. GotVMail is a virtual phone service provider that targets small entrepreneurial firms.

    Virtual phone services, meaning online services that take the place of the old PBX phone system, are great for small to mid size companies. A lot of the chatter around these types of services is that they allow you to act bigger than you are, but that’s sort of silly because the smallness of small business is a great selling tool. What a menu type answering system that forwards calls to the appropriate mailbox does is allow the smallest of companies to put forward a more professional front door.

      Most of these types of system can also:

    • route calls to various numbers until a call is answered
    • rotate incoming calls to different sales agents
    • allow virtual teams to work together under one phone number
    • provide options for fax on demand or even full blown recorded presentations

      In short, virtual phone systems can make you more accessible, provide faster access to information and keep your sales folks closer to the prospect – all good marketing things. There are lots of options to choose from and you can expect to pay anywhere from $10-30 per month depending on plans. – look also at VirtuVoice and VirtualPBX

      In the spirit of full disclosure – I use GotVMail and I serve on their advisory board.

    Like this post? Share it with others
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
    • del.icio.us
    • Sphinn
    • Google Bookmarks
    • StumbleUpon
    • Digg

    Posted by: John Jantsch on Sep 24, 07 | 10:10 am
    Category: GotVMail, Small Business | Tags:

    Comments
    • John,

      Great informative content. My blog readers at Marketing Ease, could benefit from your blog and knowledge. Thank you for your expertise!

      Krista
    • I just switched to a similar service for one of my companies. The promise of convenience, ease of use, email deliver ability of Fax and Voicemail is pretty cool!

      Funny. i used to hate getting voicemails, but I don't mind getting VM over Email. This will also make it easier to outsource some customer service to a virtual assistant.
    • John,
      I checked into GotVMail several months ago and was excited by what they said on their website but some things were not clear so I called the customer service. They were not able to answer my questions (which I considered basic regarding pricing) and were unwilling to try to get the information I needed. They ended up hanging up on me! I was very dissapointed and have not looked into another service of this type since. It may have been an isolated incident of one agent but I didn't want to take the chance by pursuing it any further.
    • John Jantsch
      Vicki,

      Obviously that's not a good thing - my experience has been good to date but I think customer phone support is an area that many companies really struggle with.

      I recently had an issue with AT&T; and the person I got on the phone was downright hostile. I simply hung up, called back in and got another rep who was great - in fact, if I have another child I may name her after this lady - you just never know.
    • John, I had a similar "wonderful rep" at AT&T... after being dropped from three calls after a 20 minute hold on Monday and Tuesday, I called back Friday Evening, and had the most courteous, helpful, happy representative. I think her name was Debbie. She was so nice I almost re-considered canceling my service... but then I thought back to Monday & Tuesday.

      I'm much happier with "Virtual PBX" or whatever it is they call it.
    • Tom O'Brien
      I tried GotVmail. Easy to use and had the basic features, but then I got my first bill. Whoa! They charge 7.4 cents a minute. My bill was nearly $300. I checked out Virtual PBX but went with CallButler www.callbutler.com. Easy to use, many more features than GotVmail or Virtual PBX and a one-time $250 license. Also, great customer support.
    blog comments powered by Disqus


    Popular Searches


    Small Business Marketing Magazines


    Free - No strings attached - Business and Marketing Magazine Subscriptions

    Target Marketing
    CRM
    Internet Retailer
    eWeek
    Electronic Publisher
    Print Media and more


    Creative Commons License
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
    Attribution-NonCommercial
    -NoDerivs 2.5 License
    .
    Subscribe



    Subscribe to the Duct Tape Podcast
    subscribe via iTunes

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape Marketing System

    Duct Tape System - Complete small business marketing system in 14 workbooks and 4 audio CDs.


    Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing

    Marketing Plan Pro

    The Duct Tape Marketing System now comes as Marketing Planning Software. We teamed up with Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro, to bring you the most powerful small business marketing plan tool going. More info here . . .


    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood by John Jantsch

    Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch

    Subscribe to my weekly newsletter

    First Name * Last Name * Email *

    Connect Socially