Can You Afford to Miss a Call?

I’m one of those people who just cannot ignore a ringing phone. Just maybe, it’s a producer from a TV network wanting me to host a prime-time special on small-business computing tools, or a book publisher offering me a million-dollar advance.

I may be dreaming, but for many small businesses, missing a call really could mean losing money.

One solution is to get call-forwarding so that your office phone automatically calls your cellular phone or whatever phone number you’re at. The cost is low (Pacific Bell charges $3.50 a month). For an extra $1 a month you can get a “remove call-forwarding” option. This service lets you program or reprogram call-forwarding from any touch-tone phone. Without it, you have to be at your office to program the number where you want your calls forwarded.

With or without remote access, call-forwarding has its limitations. While a call is being forwarded, you can’t answer calls from your office and your answering machine won’t pick up calls. This could be a serious problem if you’re forwarding calls to a cell phone. If the cell phone is busy, has a dead battery or is out of range, your call will be lost completely.

One way around this is to get voicemail for your cell phone, which takes messages if you don’t answer the phone. That, of course, is yet another expense. Another option is to get what Pacific Bell calls “delayed call-forwarding,” which automatically routes your calls to another phone after a specified number of rings.

Or you can bypass phone company services altogether and get a hardware device that intelligently forwards calls for you. The Mobile Home Companion M-100 from SoloPoint (https://www.solopoint.com or [888] 765-6225) is a small, $149 device that automatically forwards calls to your cell phone or other number and does not require any special phone company call-forwarding service. It does require that you have two phone lines--one for the incoming call and another to reroute the call to your remote phone.

The biggest advantages to the device are that it does not disable your answering machine and it lets you monitor incoming calls before you decide to speak with the caller.

It took me only about 10 minutes to set up and configure the device. I plugged it into the jack for both phone lines and connected my answering machine directly into the device. Then I picked up my second phone line to call my main number. The device answered and, at a tone, I punched in a secret access code. I then called back, punched in the access code and then punched in the number of my cell phone and I was done with the programming.

Then, when someone calls your regular phone line (line one) the device automatically calls your cellular phone on line two. In the meantime, your answering machine picks up as it normally would but you can use your cellular phone to monitor the call, just as if you were at home. If you want to speak to the person, you press the 1 key and the call is connected to your cell phone. If you decide not to speak with the person, you just hang up and let the answering machine take the call.

If you pay for incoming cellular phone calls, you’ll have to pay to monitor the calls. However, a number of cellular and PCS (or personal communications services) providers now waive the cost for the first minute of incoming calls.

The device works with any analog or digital answering machine connected to a standard phone line. SoloPoint offers a $249 version (M-200) that also works with voicemail systems like Pacific Bell’s Message Center. The M-200 requires that you have three-way calling on your first line and uses the three-way calling feature to transfer your call to voicemail and, at the same time, uses your second line to connect your home or office phone to your cellular phone.

You don’t have to use a cellular phone to take advantage of these devices. If you have a remote office and a home office, you can program that device to route your calls to whichever phone you’re at so your clients never really know whether they’ve reached you at home or at the office.

Now, for better or worse, you can be accessible all the time.

You can e-mail Lawrence J. Magid at magid@latimes.com and visit his Web site at https://www.larrysworld.com. On AOL use keyword LarryMagid.