I’m self employed, and like a lot of people use a mobile for business use. I feel this is putting potential customers off by listing a mobile number on my website.

I’m looking at virtual numbers; a geographical phone number which will forward to my mobile. Has anyone used these services? Good or bad stories?

I’ve seen a few sites and pricing structures already and willing to pay the few quid it will cost per month (I won’t be getting a high volume of calls, probably in the region of a dozen enquires per month).

Bump

Have you considered using an answering service?

Calls are answered by a human who takes a message and then tells you to call them back, might be cheaper.

I had dealings with a firm that used one of these services and it was excellent, I didn’t even realise that the nice lady taking messages wasn’t one of the chaps’ assistants.

Pretty certain you can do all that with skype.

You can with Skype, I’ve just spent 10 seconds setting up the call forwarding for when I’m not in the Liverpool office.

I use skype – in the past I had skype numbers for Rio and LA with a voice message. Worked pretty well.

I use these people AAISP and have several lines. I do have them as my ISP also but I believe that their telecoms service is independent of their broadband.

Works very well – I have one number I use for work set to redirect to my home number and then to my mobile if no answer within 20secs.

But don’t you need a Skypeout number to do that? I’m looking for a Glasgow number (0141 xxx xxxx) to appeal to local enquirers that forwards to my mobile.

Vodafone OneNet Express does that, I believe.