In summary, the voice carries a nice bang for the bar with their basic plan. They fall well within the parameters of being a good value.
If you are going to need an 800 number or toll-free vanity number then you may want to look at their other plans. in the case of the E voice, only the mid-level or corporate plan have these options.
If you need international call routing, you'll want to look at someone like grasshopper because they support call forwarding outside of United States.
International rates will apply though, should you need such a service.
Support for you voice is decent, but as with any business the more lines you get, the better chance you're going to have them listen to you, when you need support.
Online Interface
eVoice can get you online and signed up in the next five minutes quick the number selection is easy and they're self-guided wizard take you through the whole process.
Inside the interface, you can store contacts as well as your recorded messages and call records.
Pricing
The pricing plan is a good value and their mid-level and corporate plans are also within line of other companies in the market.
With eVoice, you get a 888, 877 or 866 toll-free number included with monthly price that you pay.
Unless you live in Canada, invoice is not going to be the best solution for you to get an international number. They did not offer them at this time.
However, they do offer the ability to forward to an international number, but it is a custom set up. If you are looking for a vanity number such as 888-PHONE-APP, then you will need to pay a $30 set up fee.
These special numbers are offered only with the mid-level incorporate plans.
eVoice offers the ability for you to port a number into their service for free. Basically what that means is if you currently have a number that you would like to keep, you can transfer that number over to work with eVoice.
You're eVoice trial is good for 30 days, it's completely free, but if you forget to cancel, they will start billing you automatically at $9.95 a month.
At $10 a month though, most folks who start the trial are probably going to convert over, who wouldn't want a virtual number that can follow them anywhere for $10/mo
All of the available plans from eVoice carry a 30 day, no commitment trial.
Ease of Using Interface
To get signed up with you boys I found that pretty easy to use.
When I initially tried to sign up, I was out of the country and I was having some issues with my IP address. But once I got back into the country I was able to sign-up no problem.
Logging into their system, you're not able to use 1Password, which is the best password assistant for Macintosh. I'm not sure how RoboForm (PC) is fairing with their site.
The easy-to-use setup wizard helps you get your contacts into the system. However, if you think you're going to do a dump of your Outlook or Gmail contacts directly into the system, think again.
There are a ton of features inside…here are some of the most notable.
- Call routing
- After hours call forwarding
- Custom after hours greeting
- Dial by extension
- Automatic call forwarding
- A call block list
- Storage for your messages
I made a quick video of a walk-through of the online interface. You can check it out here and let me know what you think…
In addition, you're able to make and receive calls with your iPhone android or BlackBerry smartphone.
That's a pretty cool feature, especially if you run a low minutes per month plan or are traveling outside of your calling area and have access to Wi-Fi.
Call Management Features
If you need really advanced call management features, invoices probably not your best solution. You are allowed to forward, transfer or political hole which are all pretty standard features across the board with all companies.
While you are talking to someone, you do not have the ability to transfer to voice mail, place a call or add someone to the caller block list just by pressing a few keys on your keyboard.
eVoice does offer the ability for "Follow Me" handling… Which is the ability for your incoming calls to keep trying additional numbers until a live person is reached.
They allow you to download your calls each month for additional fee, if that's something that you need.
PBX Features
Continuing with the theme of storage, let's talk about storage. With eVoice you're going to be able to store an unlimited number of messages for up to 30 days.
Again at the end of 30 days, what happens?
You also have the option to receive your voicemails directly to your email, as attachments. If you need to, you can even have your messages transcribed.
With the voice, there are only two extension included in the plan. In our opinion this fall short of market standard, especially with all of the new companies coming online.
However, if this is just for you, the low monthly cost is a definite plus when you're watching your budget.
Each additional extension is another 10 bucks a month roughly, so you do need to consider this.
Conference calling is something that is available to you and you are automatically assigned a bridge number
The conference calls that you do make are billed by time and also by the minute.
eVoice does not come with a fax system built-in. Pretty sure the reason they do that don't kill their partner business eFax. This is another area where they kind of fall short.
Personally though, I want these number separate I want them on different systems different parts of the country so that when communication is affected somehow, I am still reachable in some form or another.
You're able to set up a custom auto attendant supposed to decide where they want to be routed and you can even give them doubt my name directory.
Customer Support
eVoice as a very active support team. On their website they offer live chat and there is usually someone available to respond to email 24 hours a day.
Supports looked into an issue for me while I was signing up and I was satisfied with the due diligence testing they did.
