Long distance calling and Filipino VA's....any issues?

Question

Hey Guys-for you folks that have experience w/ VA's from the Phillippines. When your phone lines start ringing from your marketing campaigns and you direct the calls to your VA to qualify the leads, how do you route the call to them w/o it being a long distance call? Just trying to sort out the logistics before I go and hire someone from over there as a cost saving method and then realize I was getting charged up the wooza for every call. Any advice would be of great help. Thanks

Chris B. · Answer

This is not quite what I am thinking. Instead of forwarding the call to a VA phone you would use a phone number that dials directly to the VA. Ringcentral will let you set that up as a toll free number even for the caller and it would go through the internet to your VA. No forward to another phone needed. If you wanted to have multiple VAs able to call in and out underneath the call in number then you would set up a ringdown with multiple phone lines underneath the call in number.

Ultimately I think you will spend a lot more money and have more difficulty finding a VA with a cell phone plan that is willing to let you forward an unknown amount of calls to them. Providing the VA with a "soft phone" circumvents the whole issue.

Imtiaz Chowdhury · Answer

@Chris B. I’m using call rail, and I have a number specifically for my mailings associated with that number. CallRail will allow you to forward those calls that come in to a another number (VA’s telephone). If I forward it to the VA in the Phillipines which will be a long distance number, it will be a long distance charge everytime it is forwarded no? I’m wondering how everyone else is doing it. Is there a work around for this scenario that I’m not seeing here?

Chris B. · Answer

Imtiaz,

I have not used an overseas VA for calls but you could use a phone service like Ring Central. The VA will need to have a good internet connection (which most of these postings will specify the internet connection) and they will use what is called a “soft phone”. A soft phone really just means that they are placing calls using their computer with a headset over the internet. The phone number that you put on your mailing will need to use this number. The other great thing about this is you can get more than one number in the future and put the VAs on a “ring down”.

Chris