Skip to main content

Grasshopper: The virtual phone system for small businesses

Image used with permission by copyright holder

As a small business, it’s important to make it easy and convenient for your customers to communicate with you. Even in these modern times, many customers prefer to call businesses rather than wait for email or contact form responses. It’s a smart move to offer a professional phone service that leaves your customer feeling cared about and appreciated. That’s precisely why we recommend Grasshopper for making everything run more smoothly at a low cost and low amount of effort for you.

What is Grasshopper?

Grasshopper is a virtual phone system for small businesses. It means that you can combine your business phone number with a complete virtual phone system, providing you with plenty of benefits that ensure your business looks bigger than it is. Simply sign up and you can have calls directed to your personal phone number while still looking like you have a dedicated business line. You get all the benefits of a true business phone system without the need for additional devices or anything more complicated than a simple app-based interface. This way, your personal number remains private while maintaining a professional appearance to your potential future clients. Larger businesses use VoIP services to perform similar things at a much higher cost. Grasshopper is specifically aimed at smaller firms thanks to its simple-to-use interface that doesn’t require any additional equipment which keeps costs to a minimum.

How does Grasshopper work?

Via desktop and mobile apps, Grasshopper always gives you a heads-up when a call is business-related. That means you can immediately put on your more professional voice before answering so you’ve got your business mind on and ready to assist. It goes further than that though thanks to numerous useful features that save you time and make you look more organized to your prospective clients.

These include the ability to add automated custom greetings, include extension numbers for specific departments or employees, as well as the ability to take multiple calls at once by routing them to another phone or team member. They’re all useful features for both you and your customers, plus they make your business look bigger than it probably is.

Other useful tools include voicemail transcription, virtual fax facilities, and business texting. Short on time or can’t talk right now? Simply send a customer a text so they know you’ll get back to them. It’s the ideal way to make sure your client knows you’re still thinking of them.
smartphone.jpg?fit=720%2C720&p=1" alt="" width="720" height="480" />

Grasshopper’s killer feature — vanity and toll-free numbers

First impressions count even more so as a small business. Grasshopper helps you look extra professional by giving you the ability to create a vanity number that’s exclusive and unique to your company. Through the site, you can pick a number from what’s available then choose a plan that works for you and get started. There’s even a 7-day free trial to see if it works well for you.

Alternatively, if you simply want a toll-free number, that’s also an option with plenty of toll-free numbers available ensuring you gain a more professional appearance to your clients.

You can even pick out a local number if you want to cultivate trust and credibility in your local area. After all, everyone loves to know they’re supporting a local business.

Whatever you decide, in all cases, you get unlimited texts so you can add an extra means in which to communicate with your customers. There are customized business greetings too so you can automatically welcome and direct your clients to the relevant department, or simply let them know if you’re unavailable. It’s the perfect way to look professional at all times, even if you’re swamped with work.

How much does Grasshopper cost?

Grasshopper starts at just $26 per month with $75 off an annual plan available at the moment. It’s a small price to pay for a lot of functionality and an ideal way to appear like a bigger business to potential customers. Saving you time and effort trying to keep up with calls and be constantly responsive, think of Grasshopper as your own personal virtual receptionist. It’s easily worth the monthly cost.

Jennifer Allen
Jennifer Allen is a technology writer with over 15 years of experience in the field. During that time, she's spent the past…
Independence Day Deal: Save on 3 months of QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll
Independence Day sparklers from Alondra Olivas Unsplash

Intuit QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll are mission-critical bookkeeping and finance tools for businesses of all sizes. Thanks to the administrative suite's tools and support, small businesses can especially keep up with their biggest competitors. Sure, these Intuit applications are revolutionary, but when you're on a tight budget, that might not make a difference. Just in time for Independence Day, Intuit is offering some excellent deals, allowing you to get up to 70% off QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll for your first three months. At these prices, Tom Revere would most likely approve.

 
Why shop Intuit's QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll Independence Day sale

Read more
The best data recovery software
toshiba mn series hdds hard drive disk computer storage

If you accidentally delete important files or photos, your hard drive crashes, or some glitch damaged data on your SSD, all hope is seemingly lost. Fortunately, advanced data recovery software exists that may help get your data back.

It's important to stop using the faulty drive, if possible. The only time you should use it is during the recovery process. After you've extracted as many files as you can, you can try reformatting the drive to test if it's still usable.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

Read more
The Intuit QuickBooks Summer Savings sale is so good we may never see it again
Intuit QuickBooks Online used to collect payments for small business

Just in time for the biggest deals season of the year, Intuit QuickBooks is hosting an unprecedented sale— so wondrous and massive that we may never see anything like this again. Dubbed the Summer Savings Sale, now's your chance to get up to 70% off Intuit's connected tools. As a leader in small business fintech, you've likely heard of QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Payroll before. Helping over 7 million customers worldwide, QuickBooks is an excellent companion for small business growth, from startup to scaling up. You'll gain access to a comprehensive ecosystem of products and services for accounting, payroll support, payments and invoicing, capital management, marketing and much more. The current promotion drops the prices considerably for your first three months, with Simple Start at just $9 per month versus $30, the Plus tier at $27 per month versus $90, and the Advanced tier at $60 per month versus $200.

 
Why you should shop the Intuit QuickBooks Summer Savings sale

Read more