Hi All

I wonder if you can help? I need to contact a potential new client that I believe is going to ask me to pick up her phone calls/answer phone messages and manage her emails when she is out of the office. My questions are:

1) I know you can divert mobile phone calls to another phone and I can remotely pick up answer phone messages - but does anyone know if there is an easy way to divert landline calls, or does it depend on the phone?

2) I would love an idea of what to charge for this service. I'm thinking of a daily rate because its not something you can charge by the hour really. As I would be able to do other work whilst still being able to pick up her calls, I can't charge her a high daily rate, that wouldn't be fair. I was thinking of somewhere between £20 and £30 per day -does that sound reasonable?

I would be really interested to hear from anyone that does this type of thing already.

Thanks very much for the help
Bev

I think you have to deal with the phone company to set up call forwarding for a land line. If they are using a VOIP or PBX-type system, then it should have its own options that allow you to configure forwarding.

Hi Bev,
I have not personally had to provide this type of service yet but over the last year I came across a company that would help administer this task - E-voice.

They do charge fees for their product but they offer a free 6 month trial period. This would probably give you enough time to evaluate the produce and decide if you want to continue to use it.

I hope that you have a look and if so, please let us know what you think about it.
Best of luck! Keep us Posted

__________________
Website: http://www.den-consulting.com
Social Media with a Twist of HR

Hi,

I have a few clients I handle calls for when their full-time virtual assistant or PA is off on holiday. [I don't offer a full-time call handling service as it means being tied to the desk all day -- that's not what I started a freelance business to do ]

I use a VoIP PBX service, www.voipfone.co.uk, and have set up a couple of numbers on there that I use for these clients.

I use a Snom 360 VoIP phone which has four lines on it (and you can extend this to 20 or so). The Voipfone service comes with voicemail to email, you can set up business hours, and divert your call to your mobile if you're going out. You can also have it back up to your normal landline number if any service issues arise or your broadband is down for some reason.

If your client also uses voipfone, you can set up a line on the Snom phone to show a busy lamp when your client is on the phone -- I've found that very handy when the job includes transferring calls to the client.

Cheers,
Tracy

__________________
Partner, Freelancealot.co.uk
Think Smart, Think Virtual Assistant.

Originally Posted by office help 2 you

Hi All I wonder if you can help? I need to contact a potential new client that I believe is going to ask me to pick up her phone calls/answer phone messages and manage her emails when she is out of the office. My questions are: 1) I know you can divert mobile phone calls to another phone and I can remotely pick up answer phone messages - but does anyone know if there is an easy way to divert landline calls, or does it depend on the phone? 2) I would love an idea of what to charge for this service. I'm thinking of a daily rate because its not something you can charge by the hour really. As I would be able to do other work whilst still being able to pick up her calls, I can't charge her a high daily rate, that wouldn't be fair. I was thinking of somewhere between £20 and £30 per day -does that sound reasonable? I would be really interested to hear from anyone that does this type of thing already. Thanks very much for the help Bev

Try Google Voice. I just signed up today and it's free. I got my own phone number, that I set up to ring on my cell phone. Here is a link to its features:
http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

Hi Bev,
I was not able to determine what Country you are working in. I work in Canada and Google's Voice service is just now, slowly, filtering in to our country - so Google Voice with a phone number is not yet available.
So, if you are in Canada, E-voice was one of the few providers I found.
Best of Luck

__________________
Website: http://www.den-consulting.com
Social Media with a Twist of HR

You could go with a flat rate based on a maximum number of calls and then a per min rate after that or some combination. You could also use something like Zaplee to forward any of the calls to a different phone. But none of these things are difficult to set up. You just need something that will monitor the time spent on the phone with this customer's calls so that you can invoice them properly.

I have Google Voice set up right now. So far it's good for what I need.

__________________
Rhonda