There’s been a lot of talk about number porting the past two weeks with Google’s announcement that they will begin doing so for Google Voice users. This is exciting news for individuals using Google Voice and it’s great for us because it brings headlines to a feature that we often forget to talk about!

Most people know that Grasshopper has toll free and local numbers available to buy but they might not know we also have the ability to transfer numbers, also called number porting.

Why port your number?

For businesses that already have a phone number, it can be much easier to transfer it than to get a new one. You don’t have to change your contact info, create new marketing materials, print new business cards, modify your website, etc. Porting your number can save you time and money (two extremely valuable things).

Can I port toll free numbers?

You sure can. Port toll free numbers and the majority of local numbers (check here to see if you can port your local number). Plus, you have all rights to the number. Your phone number will always be yours, even if you decide to change providers.

How much does it cost?

Grasshopper charges a $30 one-time fee to port in your number. However, for those signed up on the Grow or Max plans, number porting is included.

Be sure to check out our FAQ page or Support section for more info on number porting.

Learn more about the differences between Grasshopper & Google Voice.

In today’s economy, it’s important to make your business seem like number one. That means as a small 1-5 person business, you need to look and sound as professional as the big guys. An 800 number can not only help you sound bigger but can also make life easier for everyone. Here are seven reasons your small business should have an 800 number:

1. An 800 number centralizes your business. Even if your employees are located in five different states, you still only need one number.

2. It’s easier for customers to remember your number, especially when you use vanity numbers (think 1-800-Flowers).

3. Customers are more likely to call an 800 number simply because it’s free!

4. You own your 800 number. Change businesses, locations, etc…the number is still yours.

5. They are easily transferable. Your business has grown tenfold and you need a bigger phone system but you don’t want to have to change your number. Good news, you don’t have to! Take it with you.

6. Every number comes with a flexible plan based on your need for minutes and features. Just want to reserve a number? For $9.95 a month you can get the number you want and hold onto it.

7. 800 numbers provide you with a variety of helpful features like call forwarding, voicemail, and unlimited extensions. As your business grows, so does your phone system.

An 800 number is a valuable asset and can give your small business the professional look and feel it needs. Have more questions? Check out our FAQ or call customer support 24/7at 1-800-820-8210.

If you are a small business owner and you don’t have the Grasshopper virtual phone system, there must be a good reason. If you are a small business owner and you don’t want the Grasshopper virtual phone system, well, it’s probably for one of these five reasons:

1. You don’t believe in toll free. Customers should pay to call you.

2. You enjoy getting business calls to your personal number. So does your wife/husband

3. You don’t think a phone system for $10 a month could possibly sound professional.

4. Your business isn’t going to grow so you won’t need more extensions.

5. You never leave the office so you don’t have to worry about missing an important call or message.

If any of these are true, then the Grasshopper virtual phone system is definitely not for you. If they aren’t, well maybe you should go find out more.

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All these costs (and others) are why veteran entrepreneurs advise going without an office early on. That said, some businesses objectively need things like a professional mailing address, a business phone system and meeting areas.

Virtual Receptionists & Assistants

Entrepreneurs frequently take on loaded schedules and find themselves shoving repetitive tasks to the back burner. Traditionally, the solution has been hiring assistants whose sole jobs are to complete those tasks. However, it is actually not necessary for an assistant to physically work beside you in an office. A growing number of entrepreneurs are hiring virtual assistants instead.

For about $15 per hour, a virtual assistant will complete from home a list of assigned tasks each day or week. If your company operates primarily over the web, virtual assistants become an even better deal. Since the bulk of their tasks will be web-based, the incremental benefit of managing them face to face is far less than the extra cost.

The same is true of virtual receptionists. Phone systems can re-route business calls to a virtual receptionist who is trained to process calls in a manner of your choosing. As far as callers are concerned, it is as though you have a real office with a receptionist sitting in the front lobby. Best of all, most virtual receptionist providers charge by how many minutes you need a receptionist for – a substantial savings over hiring someone full-time. Plus, you can scale up or down as circumstances dictate without any personal conflicts.

Virtual Answering Services & Call Centers

Let’s face it – nothing advertises the fact that you have a “real” company like an automated answering service. It’s an efficient way to process incoming calls, and any customer-facing business would be foolish to go without one. But you don’t need to pay thousands of dollars to have an elaborate phone system installed. Grasshopper, for example, sells virtual phone systems that enable businesses of any size to use a real, professional answering service that is 100% web-based. You choose a corporate phone number, record a main greeting, add departments and employees, and get your business calls instantly, from anywhere. Customers can leave voice mails, and the entire caller experience is indistinguishable from that of an in-house answering service.

Virtual call centers can also be seamlessly plugged into your company’s infrastructure in a way that is invisible to callers. Customers calling for tech support will dial a number provided by your company and be helped by a remote agent who, as far as the caller is concerned, is in your office and on your payroll. The only substantive difference will be a smaller hit to your company’s bottom line for call center services.

Professional Addresses & Meeting Space

New businesses work hard early on to project a professional image to the world. Of course, it’s hard for outsiders to take a business seriously if their mailing address is clearly a personal residence. It can also be a serious security risk. More cost-effective than opening an office, however, is to simply get a professional mailing address.

Various services will accept your incoming mail at a prestigious, official location and then forward it to you at home. You can even arrange for receptionists at the business address to sign for incoming overnights, deliveries or packages. Document drop-off and pick-up services are available, and some providers offer notaries.

Perhaps you need to hold meetings with customers or partners, but not often enough to justify having a permanent office. Luckily, physical meeting space can be purchased and used in the same on-demand fashion as the other services. Whether you need conference rooms for an hour, a day or a week, business space providers maintain facilities for use whenever your schedule dictates. You can also rent what is known as a “casual workspace”, which is office space available for occasional use whenever you feel the need to work away from home.

The Case For a Virtual Office

If cash is tight and a lack of office amenities is throttling your company, a virtual office is a viable alternative. In addition to the cost savings, consider the often gigantic amount of time that accompanies setting up some of these systems.

To get up and running with an assistant, a receptionist, a business phone system and a call center could realistically take months. Beyond that, the maintenance, upgrading and troubleshooting of this infrastructure would forever be your responsibility. In all likelihood, a new employee or two would be needed for exactly that purpose.

A virtual office, on the other hand, allows you to revel in the fact that you’re paying someone else to do those things and wash your hands of them entirely. And if you have ever run a real office, you know first-hand what a relief that is.

One of the things we talk a lot about is using Grasshopper to help your business sound more professional. Yes, it’s true, a virtual number with custom greetings, on-hold music and voice mail can help your business sound bigger and certainly more professional, but it can also be fun.

Having your own 800 number with unlimited extensions, voicemail greetings, custom music…imagine the possibilities!

Here are three fun ways you can use your virtual phone number:

• Joke of the Day

  What if you were put on hold, only to be told a joke? Being on hold wouldn’t be so bad would it? Knock knock jokes, kids jokes, puns, jokes about your industry or profession, etc. Just be sure to keep it tasteful.

• Dating Extension

  Single? What if you could know it was a personal call before you even picked up? Just like you can create dedicated extensions for specific clients, you can create dedicated extensions for love interests. No more awkwardness, no more wondering who is calling or what you are going to say. When the caller ID shows your dedicated extension, you can be ready.

  Can’t pick up the phone? Create a voice mail message just for that person (I don’t recommend this before date three as it might seem creepy).

• Meeting Planner

  Who needs a secretary when you have Question and Answer extensions? Set up a dedicated extension for meetings and stay efficient. Who is calling? What is the meeting about? What time and date?

  An MP3 of the call will be emailed to you (or with voice mail transcription, a script of the call) and all you have to do is call back and confirm the meeting. You can save time and never have to worry about being out of the office or missing a call.

There are many different ways to use your virtual phone number and there are probably people out there doing things we don’t even know about. How are you using your virtual number?

As the tournament kicks off today, productivity all over the U.S decreases dramatically. For those of us in the office, we can check the scores online and for some brave souls, watch the games at CBS.com with the “Boss Button“.

But what about those who are in meetings or on sales calls and can’t check the score? What if your favorite team is on?

With Grasshopper, this tragedy can be averted.

While you may not be able to break out your phone to check the score, you can take an important call right?

• Using your Grasshopper 800 or local number, set up a March Madness extension.

• Tell your friends who are not working to call this extension to provide updates (lets just stick with half-time, 12 minutes and final).

• When the call is forwarded to your cell phone, you will see the extension and immediately know it’s a score update.

• Politely excuse yourself, stating you have to take this call, and immediately get the latest news.

Colleagues and associates will be none the wiser and you won’t have to worry about missing any news about your team.

*We don’t actually recommend doing this but hey, do what you have to do.

If you are a regular reader of the Grasshopper blog, you know that a main feature of our virtual phone system is the toll free number. What many people may not know is that we also offer local numbers for cities across the United States.

While a toll free number is a great way to give your customers an easy way to communicate with you, a local number can have a positive effect as well.

There are two main advantages to having a local number:

Create a Local Presence

The great thing about having a local number is that you can create a presence in a particular city. As a bigger company, it can be beneficial to have local numbers in cities where large percentages of your customer base live.

Local numbers also allow you to increase your local presence through local business listings, phone books, online search results and more. This could prove to be especially important as search engines like Google continue to show more and more localized results to searchers.

Sense of Community w/ Customers

The second main advantage to having a local phone number for your business, is the ability to create a sense of community with your customers. By achieving a presence in the city, you are establishing a connection with the people who live there, the people who are your customers and potential customers. As a large company, it is important to be able to connect with people rather than being a faceless corporation.

Local numbers can be a valuable asset for a business when used by themselves or even when combined with a toll free number. The great thing is, no matter how many different numbers you have (toll free or local), with a virtual phone number, all calls can be forwarded to the same place.

Have you considered a local number for your business?

When you start a business there are obviously a number of things you need to think about. One of these things is your phone system. While it may seem fine to start with your cell phone, eventually you will want to expand, have a dedicated number, hire employees and so on. Using your personal cell phone probably isn’t going to work for long.

What is it you will really need though? A big expensive PBX system? An extra phone line? A virtual phone system is a low cost solution that may be exactly what you need.

Here are a few things to consider when choosing your phone system & plan:

Phone Numbers

Your phone number is the first thing to consider and hopefully will stay with you as your business grows. Your phone number will be how your customers communicate with you.

• Do you need a phone number or do you already have one?

  If you already have a toll free number (or local), Grasshopper offers number transfers (or number porting). At sign up, simply choose the ‘Transfer an existing number’ option. It’s easy and you won’t have to worry about updating business cards or marketing materials.

• Do you want a toll free number for your business?

  Toll free numbers can have an extremely positive impact on small businesses. It not only helps you look more professional to customers and potential customers but also has proven to elicit more calls from customers than a traditional number.

• What kind of toll free number?

  There are three main types of toll free numbers out there – True 800 numbers, general 800 numbers and vanity numbers. True 800 numbers contain the “800″ prefix, general 800 numbers include 888, 866 and 877, and vanity numbers spell out your product or business name. Here are some tips on choosing a toll free number.

Office Space

Have a home office? Work from the road? Have a co-working space? The great thing about a virtual phone system is that no matter where you work, you can have your business number forwarded to any number on any phone.

If you are often out of the office, it makes a lot of sense to have a virtual number. Anytime a potential customer calls, you won’t have to worry about missing the call because you can simply forward it to your cell phone. Receive a voicemail? The voice mail will be emailed to you, ensuring that you can listen to it or read it (with the Read Your Voicemail feature) at any time.

Additional Extensions

When you start a business, you intend to grow, make money, hire employees, etc. When thinking about your phone system, determine if you are going to need to add extensions. (Note – all Grasshopper plans offer unlimited extensions).

• How many employees do you have?

  If you have employees, you are probably going to want to give them their own extension with their own voice mail box. More importantly, if your employees are not located in the same place, it is even more important that they be able to have their own extension that can be forwarded to their phone.

• Do you have a sales or support team?

  If so, consider creating extensions dedicated to those departments. This way, when a call comes in, you know exactly what it is in regards to. Are you the sales and support team? By creating specific extensions, you will know what the call is about as it comes in, allowing you to mentally prepare before you even answer.

Minutes

This is probably the biggest factor when choosing your actual virtual phone system plan. For most 1-2 person operations, a plan with a large number of minutes probably isn’t going to be necessary. However, maybe you have a partner in another city, do a lot of cold calling, or the majority of your meetings are done over the phone.

You also need to factor in how many employees you have. How often are they on the phone? Do they speak with clients? Is there a sales or support team that is constantly taking calls? If so, a plan with more minutes will be necessary.

A virtual phone system is a great option for small businesses and Grasshopper offers three plans to fit your needs.

Here are a few common facts about 800 numbers that you may not know.

• A “true” 800 number is simply a toll free number with an “800″ prefix.

• You own your 800 number.

• 800 numbers are portable. If you change service providers, you can take your 800 number with you.

• 800 numbers that spell out a company name, product, etc are called “vanity numbers”.

• 800 numbers have been around for over 35 years.

• 800 numbers are regulated by the FCC.

• 800, 888, 866 & 877 are all toll free numbers. The only difference is the numbers themselves.

• 800 numbers can be used for home numbers as well as business numbers.

• 855, 844, 833, and 822 numbers have been reserved to be used as toll free numbers in the future.

• AT&T paid over $1.32 million to acquire the vanity number 1-800-YELLOWPAGES (* wiki)

An 800 number is a great way to make your small business sound professional for a low cost. Get an 800 number along with all the great features of the Grasshopper virtual phone system.

But if you are wondering just how a toll free number can help your business, we have listed 3 key benefits to toll free numbers:

1. Professionalism

As anyone familiar with Grasshopper knows, one of our brand promises is to help entrepreneurs sound professional. A toll free number not only helps your small business look big, but it also helps it look (and of course sound) professional.

Would you feel more comfortable buying from a business with a standard voicemail message or a company with a dedicated business number and professional greeting?

2. Consistency

As your business grows, you may realize that your cell phone just isn’t cutting it anymore. You need a dedicated phone number and an actual phone system for your business. Extensions, voicemail, call forwarding, etc.

Do you really want to have to switch your number because your business is succeeding? You’d have to change business cards, social profiles, websites and marketing materials, all costing you time and money.

With a toll free number you never have to worry about changing your phone number. Toll free numbers are portable and can be transferred to any service you choose. They also can grow as your business grows. Are you a one person operation? You can have your toll free number forwarded to your phone. As you become larger and add employees, you just have to add extensions. You never have to worry about changing your number.

3. Cost

Toll free numbers are affordable for you and your customers. You can get a toll free number with a virtual pbx service for as low as $9.95 month. That includes all the great features we touched on above (call forwarding, extensions, voice mail, on-hold music & more). That’s less than $120 for your business over the course of a year!

As for your customers, they aren’t charged for calling you regardless of how long it takes to solve their problem.

Toll free numbers are a cost-effective way to help your business sound professional, project a strong brand and help your customers reach you.

Most of us are familiar with big names like 1-800-FLOWERS, 1-800-CONTACTS or 1-800-MATTRESS but there are so many other numbers out there, creative ones. Since it’s Friday we thought we’d have a little fun and show some of the lesser known 800 numbers out there.

Here are 5 of our favorite 800 numbers:

• 800-Giant-Men

  The Gentle Giant moving company sure knows how to grab our attention.

• 800-Virus-No

  McAfee makes it known just what their product does. Backwards but you still get the point.

• 800-Junk-USA

  College Hunks Hauling Junk found just the right 800 number. Unless of course they used 800-Junk-Hunks

• 800-44-Store

  Public Storage may not have gotten the exact vanity number they were looking for but you get the point and it’s easy to remember.

• 800-905-Geek

  Geeks on Call can help you get your computer or IT issues fixed in a hurry. More importantly, they aren’t afraid to admit they are geeks and their 800 number proves it.

What other 800 numbers out there stand out in your head?

With the launch of Google Voice this past year, awareness surrounding the virtual phone, virtual pbx, hosted pbx industry has skyrocketed, and here at Grasshopper we have been fortunate enough to enjoy the benefits. More awareness means more people wanting to know what a virtual number is, what a virtual phone system is, how it works, who does this, how it can benefit them and how they can get it?

It also means more people asking, “What is the difference between Grasshopper and Google Voice?”.

The first thing we say is, Grasshopper is designed for small businesses and entrepreneurs versus the general consumer. We are dedicated to helping our customers sound professional, stay connected and ultimately grow their business.

That being said, our feature set has been built as a focused set of tools for entrepreneurs and their businesses – that is really the key difference.

Below we have highlighted just a few of the core features of the Grasshopper virtual phone system – all items not available with Google Voice:

Toll Free 800 Numbers

• A primary difference and business essential – A toll free number is a great way to help a business grow, look bigger and more professional, and provide customers with a means to reach you. With Grasshopper you can get general 800 numbers (800,888,877 & 866 numbers) along with custom vanity numbers (i.e. 1-800-AWESOME) and have them forwarded to any number on any phone in the world.

Phone Number Ownership

• As a Grasshopper customer you own the rights to your toll free or local number. If you decide to change service providers you can take the phone number with you. For businesses this is extremely important as the majority of marketing materials (business cards, website, etc) contain a business phone number. When you own the phone number, you don’t have to worry about adjusting all of your current materials just because you change providers.

Multiple Extensions

• As a business you probably want to add extensions for your employees. This is not only possible with Grasshopper, but also extremely easy and you are never charged for adding extensions. We offer unlimited extensions! That’s right we said an UNLIMITED amount at no extra charge ever. Each extension includes voice mail, call forwarding, custom greetings and more.

Multiple Numbers in ONE Account

• With Grasshopper you have multiple numbers within the same account. These numbers can all forward to any number you wish without limitations. This is important when you have several local numbers and a toll free number for your business. You need the ability to forward all numbers to one phone (whether this is home, office or cell). With Google Voice, you currently have the ability to forward two numbers to landline but only one to a mobile phone.

Human Voice mail Transcription

• One great feature with Google Voice is the voice mail transcription. As a general consumer, using my phone just for personal use, it is an awesome feature. The problem is, sometimes what you read, isn’t what was said. We know this can be the case with transcription which is why we offer a human transcription option included with our Read Your Voicemail feature.

• Example: Say you’re in a business meeting, can’t take a call, see the voice mail is from an important person but the transcription just doesn’t read correctly…choose human transcription and someone will actually listen to the voice mail, type it up for you and send it back. You never have to listen to your voice mail and perhaps miss an important message.

24/7 Live Support

• This is probably the biggest difference when it comes to our service and Google Voice. With our users being business men and women, we know how important it is to make sure service is always available and reliable. Just as we wouldn’t want to miss a call, we don’t want our customers to either. Our 24/7 dedicated support team offers help with set up, online account management and any issues or questions you may be having.

• That means if you live in California and decide to improve your business at 3am PST a real live Grasshopper support team member (yes we understand it is a rare occasion to get a real person on the phone nowadays) is just a phone call away at 800-820-8210 to help you out.

Away Greetings (After Hours, Vacations, Holidays etc.)

• You are a 1-2 person operation who has business calls forwarded to your cell phone using Grasshopper. Do you want to be receiving calls at 9 o’clock at night when you have settled down with your family? Probably not. With Away Greetings you have the option of creating a specific greeting for designated hours each day. Phone calls will not be sent to your phone and callers will hear the message you want them to.

On Hold Music

• You are on your cell phone, you put someone on hold, what do they hear? Silence. With Grasshopper you are able to upload your own on hold music or commercial. Choose music, commercials, jokes, whatever it is you want your customers to hear. Again, it helps your business sound professional and maybe even promote your lasted product to your customer, which is our goal.

We hope that answers any questions you have but if not, please feel free to contact our previously mentioned “live 24 hour/7 days a week” support team at 800-820-8210.

Interested in more information on Grasshopper vs. Google Voice?

• Grasshopper vs Google Voice – Live Crunch
• Your Hidden Potential Interviews David Hauser
• Grasshopper vs. Google Voice for Small Business – Longer Days

Here are five features that our customers love and take Grasshopper above and beyond:

1. Call Forwarding

Stay connected. That is one of the mottos here and it is one of the main reasons our customers use Grasshopper. Have calls forwarded to any number in the world. Your cell phone, home phone, office phone, the pay phone down the street (we don’t necessarily recommend that but hey, it can be done). The call forwarding feature is easy to use and helps you stay connected to your small business.

2. Toll Free Numbers

One of the goals here at Grasshopper is to help entrepreneurs and small businesses sound more professional. A toll free number is a great way to do that. With a toll free number and the Grasshopper virtual phone service you can have a one person outfit or a hundred person outfit and no one would know the difference. We have toll free numbers, true 800 numbers and vanity numbers.

3. Unlimited Extensions

We want our customers to be successful and with unlimited extensions they can do just that without having to change their entire phone system. Grasshopper offers unlimited phone/voice mail extensions with every plan for no extra charge. The best part is, every extension comes with voice mail, call forwarding, away greetings and more.

4. Voice Studio

Have you ever heard the sound of your voice after being recorded and thought you couldn’t possibly sound like that? Are you comfortable recording your main business greeting? Grasshopper offers professional voice talents to help our customers sound more professional and not have to worry about what their voice sounds like. You can have greetings recorded in English, French and Spanish.

5. Read Your Voicemail

This is the newest feature of the Grasshopper virtual PBX and it has been extremely well received. Every time someone leaves a voice mail, an email will be sent to your computer and/or Smart phone with the voice mail transcribed for you. In a meeting? Can’t take the call or listen to your voice mail? With the read your voicemail feature you won’t miss any important messages.

What are your favorite features? What would you like to see from Grasshopper?

To make it a little more clear, we have answered a few of the most common questions in regards to toll free numbers:

• Which numbers are considered toll free?

  800, 866, 877 & 888 prefixes are all considered “toll free” phone numbers for the U.S. and Canada.

• What is the difference between 800, 866, 877 and 888 numbers?

  Nothing. Each of the prefixes are treated the exact same way for toll free numbers.

• Why are there so many different toll free number prefixes?

  800 numbers were introduced in 1967 and as more and more businesses claimed them, the available numbers simply ran out. To meet demand, the FCC released 888 and 877 numbers and eventually 866 numbers in 2000.

• Can I still get an “800″ prefix?

  Grasshopper does in fact offer “true” 800 numbers to our customers. Check out the features page.

Have other questions or thoughts on toll free numbers? Leave a comment!