Are you struggling to manage your business's current phone system? Is it time for an upgrade? Do you need a virtual phone system that you can use whenever you need it, wherever you are?
If so, you might be in the market for a solution like Talkroute.
In this Talkroute review, I'll explore what this service offers, its pricing, pros and cons, and who it's best suited for.
However, if you don't have time to stick around for my entire Talkroute review, here's a quick summary of my thoughts:
Overall, I think TalkRoute is best suited for small businesses that need an affordable and intuitive virtual phone system for managing voice calls, text messages, and video conferences from the convenience of their smartphones and/or desktops.
With that said, let's dive into the core of this Talkroute review:
What Is Talkroute?
In a nutshell, Talkroute is a user-friendly virtual phone system that you can deploy within minutes using the hardware you already own – i.e., your desktops, mobile devices, or internet browsers.
Since Talkroute's conception in 2011, it's grown to meet the needs of various size teams – from fledgling businesses to larger enterprises. However, it's worth noting that Talkroute remains committed to ensuring it stays accessible and affordable for small business owners.
How to Get Started with Talkroute
Getting started with Talkroute is easy and, according to their website, can be broken down into four simple steps:
- Selecting a phone number: You can choose a new number or transfer your current business number to Talkroute.
- Download Talkroute's apps: Talkroute has desktop and mobile apps for MacOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android (so you just download the apps you need for your devices).
- Configure your settings: At thing point, you can set your greeting messages, menus, extensions, voicemails, hours of operation, and more.
- Start using Talkroute: You can start calling and messaging your clients and customers.
Before moving on, let's circle back to selecting a phone number; at this point, I want to highlight that Talkroute provides a few options to choose from:
- Toll-free numbers: These are a good option if your business operates nationwide.
- Vanity numbers: For the uninitiated, these are phone numbers you can customize to reflect your brand's needs.
- 800 numbers: Talkroute says it has a ‘limited simply' of genuine 800 numbers.
- Local numbers: You can select a number for your area code or one that complements your city and/or state.
Talkroute's Core Features
With the basics covered, let's take a closer look at the nitty-gritty of what Talkroute has to offer (of course, access to Talkroute's features varies depending on your chosen pricing plan, but more on that below):
Business Calling
As I've already hinted, Talkroute's virtual phone system empowers users to make and receive calls from their desktops, internet browsers, or smartphone devices.
In fact, Talkroute likens this to benefitting from ‘an enterprise-level phone system without…purchas[ing] or maintain[ing] any special equipment.'
Pretty neat, right?
Send and Receive Texts
As mentioned above, Talkroute’s text messaging functionality allows you and your team members to receive and answer texts from your business phone numbers and also handle customer support.
Don't worry; recipients will see your business number on their end, so everything's kept professional.
You can manage text messages via Talkroute's:
- Desktop app
- Mobile app
- Online dashboard
- Text-to-email notifications
Video Conferencing
You can host video meetings with up to 100 participants.
Plus, you can also:
- Record meetings
- Share your screen
- Chat via team messenger
- Collaborate using the whiteboard feature
- Share files
Voicemail
You won't be surprised to hear that you can check your voicemail via your email notifications, internet browser, or Talkroute's apps (yes, you guessed it, you can access most of Talkroute's features these ways).
You can also modify your voicemail greetings and allocate separate mailboxes to different team members, business departments, and phone numbers and route your customers through your voicemail system in order to get them to the right internal contact to support their needs.
Call Forwarding and Routing
As with a traditional phone system, Talkroute's call forwarding and routing make it easy to ensure inbound calls reach the right person.
You can forward calls to any telephone number with a +1 country code and an active service (i.e., US or Canadian numbers), including; cell phones, landline phones, IP phones, softphones, and satellite phones.
You can also route telephone calls to desktops and laptops with Talkroute's app. These devices can be located anywhere in the world! You can “ring” distinct devices and specify which team member should receive the call. You can also add an availability schedule for each desktop user to help ensure calls reach your team when they're free.
Lastly, it's worth citing that you can create custom ring strategies for your phone system. I.e., you can forward and route as many callers as you want to as many devices as needed. You can also ring phones and computers in a specific sequence or simultaneously.
On top of that, you can also configure:
- The ring times for each of your devices
- Set maximum hold times for keeping your callers stacked on hold
- Pick the music that plays while callers are on hold
- Set a message to play to callers while they wait
Menus
You can handle callers more efficiently by creating a multi-level menu system. This goes a long way to increasing the likelihood of inbound calls getting to the correct destination, I.e., sales, support, billing, etc.
Or alternatively, instead of forwarding callers to a department, you can route them to specific team members.
You can offer callers up to ten menu options. But if you need more, you can create submenus to establish extra menu layers.
You can add submenus to your primary call menu, extensions, and after-hours destinations. You can also use submenus to offer callers automated messages that provide essential information, like your business's opening hours, where they can find relevant self-help resources, etc. If you can answer a call with an automated message, you negate the need to speak to the caller, thus freeing up your support team's time – which can only be a good thing!
Plus, you can upload or record these automated messages from the convenience of your online account.
Then, when the automated message finishes, you can offer callers a few options, including routing them back to:
- The main call menu
- A submenu
- A specified phone number
- A user
- A voice mailbox
Suppose you opt to route callers back to a specific voice mailbox. In that case, you can notify the relevant team members with push and voicemail-to-email notifications.
Alternatively, if you wish to route callers to specific team members, you can create dial-by-name directories that allow callers to connect with the right person.
Extensions
Talkroute offers unlimited multi-digit extensions.
Extensions allow callers to type in a number to access specific team members and/or departments. It's up to you whether you create single-digit extensions for an entire department or multi-digit extensions (three or four-digit direct dial extensions) that route callers directly to team members. But, in either instance, you can do this with Talkroute.
When integrated with Talkroute's menus and submenus, you can use single-digit extensions to provide several options, including being able to route callers to:
- A single phone
- Multiple phones
- Desktop users
- An automated message
- Voice mailboxes
Other Notable Features
As Talkroute has such an extensive suite of features, we're unable to discuss all of them in depth.
However, to give you a taste of what else is on offer, we've quickly listed some of Talkroute's other noteworthy features:
- Call recording: You can record inbound and outbound calls. Not only is this excellent for tracking the support provided to different clients, but it can also come in handy for training purposes.
- Hours of operation: Set when your team can accept calls. You can specify an after-hours destination to route calls and play an automated message to those ringing outside your opening hours.
- Call stacking: This feature ‘stacks' incoming calls, I.e., callers are put on hold until someone is available to speak to them. You can manage numerous calls simultaneously without worrying about unwanted busy signals.
- Users and permissions: You control the level of account access your team members have.
- Caller ID: You can showcase your business name and number to call recipients to indicate that you're not a spam caller!
- Reporting: You can generate detailed reports, including the dates and times of your calls, duration, caller ID, the status of all incoming and outgoing calls, etc. You can also export all this data.
Talkroute's Pricing
We've now reached the point of this Talkroute review where we reveal how much TalkRoute will set you back.
So, below is a snapshot of Talkroute's pricing plans as well as what's included in each package:
Basic
The Basic plan costs $19 a month, which gives you:
- One user ($5 per additional user)
- One phone number
- One mailbox
- Unlimited calling
- Text messaging functionality
- Video meetings
- Call forwarding and routing
- Access to Talkroute's desktop, mobile, and web apps
Plus
The Plus plan will set you back $39 a month. Here, you'll get everything listed in the Basic program, plus:
- Three users included ($5 per additional user)
- Two phone numbers
- Three mailboxes
- Menu options
- Single digit extensions
- Simultaneous ring
- Live call transfers
- Hours of operation
Pro
For the Pro plan, you can expect to pay $59 a month; this entitles you to all the above, plus:
- Ten users included ($5 per additional user)
- Three phone numbers
- Ten mailboxes
- Submenus
- Multi-digit extensions
- Call recording
- Scheduled call forwarding
- Reporting (Downloadable call analytics)
- Voice Studio (Access to five custom audio clips created by Talkroute's in-house professionals)- Extra clips cost $20.
- BAA (Business associate agreements available)
Enterprise
Talkroute's final pricing plan is based on a custom quote, so you'll have to contact them directly for more information.
However, we know that you can expect the following to be included:
- You can register 20+ users
- Bulk user pricing
- 10+ phone numbers
- 20+ mailboxes
- SLA (Service level agreements)
- Account management
Talkroute's Customer Service
Talkroute's customer support offering is pretty impressive. First off, there's an online Help Center. Here you'll find a handy FAQs and tutorials section.
Also, from Talkroute's help center, you can schedule a free setup consultation (between 30 and 60 minutes)- so if you're unsure how to hit the ground running, never fear; Talkroute has you covered!
If you need to speak with a Talkroute team member (outside of the onboarding consultation), you can email them at [email protected] or [email protected], talk via live chat, or call them.
Please note that telephone support is available on US and Canadian helplines: 800.747.2140 or 312.219.8705. Telephone support is accessible Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM CST, and Saturday, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST.
Again, live chat support is US and Canadian based and is available Monday to Friday from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM CST and Saturday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM CST.
Talkroute's Pros and Cons
We've covered a fair amount in this Talkroute review, so let's try to condense some of what we've learned into a quick pro-cons list:
Pros
- Several Talkroute customers praise its easy setup
- Others are a fan of their fair and affordable pricing
- A few users applaud Talkroute's excellent customer support
Cons
- According to one user, TalkRoute lags occasionally
- Apparently, TalkRoute doesn't work quite as well on Safari.
Talkroute Review: My Final Thoughts
So there you have it; you've reached the end of my Talkroute review!
So, what's my final verdict?
All in all, I think Talkroute is ideal for small businesses that need an affordable and easy-to-use virtual phone system to manage voice calls, text messages, and video conferences from their smartphones or desktops.
It's also worth noting that Talkroute is a pretty scalable system, so there's a good chance you won't outgrow Talkroute anytime soon.
If you're on the fence about whether Talkroute is the right solution for you, why not book a free demo on their website? Or take advantage of their free seven-day trial? This is the best way to see whether Talkroute meets your business needs.
That's all for my Talkroute review; let me know how you get in the comments box below!
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