Cloud based phone system?

Hi everyone! I wanted to ask to see if anyone had ever tried a cloud based phone system? I know many of you have some of the same problems I have been having. 1) calls in the middle of the night with no one on the other end or its a fax line 2) Tons of people wanting to sell me something 3) Guests calling at 3am wanting to know if we have anything open for June of next year... I have been trying to figure out a way to try and get some sleep at night and not answer 10 calls a day about google add words. So I found out about cloud based phone systems. It looks kinda neat and I might give it a try. When a customer calls they will get a recorded message of your choice. You can then have the phone routed to who ever you want even to cell phones. You can set your hours and then after that you can have an emergency line. Example.: A customer calls and presses 2 for our massage therapist. It then connects with her cell phone and I don't have to do anything. I talked with the company and all automated phone calls will end. All non business phone calls will not connect. Other companies will not bother trying to find out who they need to talk with. Has anyone tried this kind of service? Thoughts?

We are now considering the 5:47 am phone call every stinkin' day to be our new alarm clock. ;-)
Let us know what you find out about the phone system. I don't get how it is going to stop the random calls tho. The phone still rings.

Madeleine said:

We are now considering the 5:47 am phone call every stinkin' day to be our new alarm clock. ;-)
Let us know what you find out about the phone system. I don't get how it is going to stop the random calls tho. The phone still rings..

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Well. The phone wont ring to you until its forwarded to you.
Example: Customer calls your number. Your number is forwarded to the cloud based system. The system figures out where to send the call after the customer decides who they need to talk to.( Press ! for Reservations, Press 2 for late check ins, Press 3 for massage therapist and so on. After the customer picks from the list, the system then connects your call to your phone. Your phone will not ring unless they do these few steps. You can also set up business hours and they will not connect to your phone during those hours.

Bob said:

Madeleine said:

We are now considering the 5:47 am phone call every stinkin' day to be our new alarm clock. ;-)
Let us know what you find out about the phone system. I don't get how it is going to stop the random calls tho. The phone still rings..

Click to expand...

Well. The phone wont ring to you until its forwarded to you.
Example: Customer calls your number. Your number is forwarded to the cloud based system. The system figures out where to send the call after the customer decides who they need to talk to.( Press ! for Reservations, Press 2 for late check ins, Press 3 for massage therapist and so on. After the customer picks from the list, the system then connects your call to your phone. Your phone will not ring unless they do these few steps. You can also set up business hours and they will not connect to your phone during those hours.
.

Click to expand...

We finally turned our ringer off at night. They can leave a message, machine can give them office hours and that they can book online at the .com. Family has our private cell #. Guests know where we are and can knock and do. We call if people haven't shown up and leave instructions for late arrivals. So far so good.

I hear you Bob! So tired of it all!

But looking at it as a potential guest, I know how I feel when I call and get one of these press 1 for this, 2 for that. I want a human. And that is what I expect when I call a B&B.

That said, if it is after hrs (or when I am otherwise engaged) an answering system is what they get when they call here. It is simple - leave a message and I will return the call.

The only advertised phone number for my place is a Google Voice number. When they call it, my cell phone rings (and any other phones I choose to have the calls forwarded to). I can answer it and take the call, but generally I just let the recording answer it and take a message.
Within seconds after they leave the message, I get a text message to my iPhone with the transcript of the message (at least, it's Google's best guess of what they said). About the same time I get a recording of the message in the free Google Voice iPhone app. I can then listen to the real message, and reply if I want to. Most of the calls are from BnB industry providers so I generally ignore those.
It's all free. Guests can also send text messages to the Google Voice phone number, and a few people have done that.
When you sign up, you get to pick the area code and phone number from a list of available ones. My area code wasn't in their system when I set mine up, so I picked a number with a Little Rock area code. Then I selected a number that's fairly easy to remember, like 1233 or 1123. (1234 was already taken).