Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 12:53 PM EST

I have asked the question a few times now to different small and medium size business owners, “What does it mean to only have 1 number for your office?”. Each and every one of them said that it’s important and they’d like it if they didn’t already have it. One in particular already does, he told me he spent $14,000 upfront for all the hardware and software for his company phone system. Yes it’s state of the art, yes it’s everything he wanted and yes he has to host the servers himself. But for him it was important to have one number to represent his company.

Then there’s my insurance agent, he has 4-5 employees in his office depending on the day and he spends roughly $400/month on his phone bill and each employee has their own number. This doesn’t work well when you get a call from a number you don’t recognize because you’re getting a secretary calling you back from one of the 4 lines in his office. There’s no congruity there. That doesn’t simplify life, it makes it more complicated and I like simple and straight forward.

After talking to my insurance agent, he decided to give Phone.com a try and he’s signed up. He’s using one line out now and plans to move his entire office over to Phone.com.

But the question is would it help you to have just 1 number? one number that any and all your employees can call from. 1 number everybody in your company can be called on. Phone.com even offers incoming and outgoing text messaging, so you can have serious continuity and text your customers from your office number if you want. Doctors in the UK have been able to drop their rate of missed appointments by 50% by using text reminders. Plus customers can text you.

This is all fine and well but at the end of the day does having one number you can make and receive calls on in addition to sending and receiving texts messages save your company money? I believe the answer is absolutely YES but will it make a difference for you? Give Phone.com a trial run and I bet you’ll be hooked. Right now you can get 1 month at no charge and if you don’t like it there’s no commitment.

I’d like to hear from you, if you have any questions or great stories involving our services please don’t hesitate to email me any time Jeb@Phone.com.