As a business owner today, you have multiple communications tools at your fingers. Contact forms, your website, Facebook, Twitter, text… and did I mention email? But there will always be a time when you need to talk to your customer. Pick up the phone. Chat. Follow up, Or even to resolve an issue.

And marketing studies show that actual voice contact with a customer, as well as publishing a phone number on your website, will reassure your customers that you and your brand are real. Real = trust, and trust builds sales.

So how do you manage your voice and phone options? After all, you have work to do. You can’t answer phones all day, or keep calling customers and playing voice mail tag. That’s so nineties. And that is where new technology and software applications, for voice and telephone, can be your best friends.

It’s amazing what these apps can do in terms of simplifying your business and even your personal life. Features can include managing multiple phone numbers, voicemail management, web meeting and conference calling, web based calling, to name a few.

Phone apps allow you to create and manage multiple phone numbers. And those multiple phone numbers can be linked to one, central number (for example, your cell phone), and programmed to ring when you want. You could set up your business number to ring only when you’re at work, and your home number to ring only when you’re at home, in the evening. Contacts can be forwarded to certain phones, so you can easily separate your personal friends from business contacts.

Voicemail management has been revolutionized. With the ability to transcribe voicemails directly into email, you can view, search, and organize your voicemail without having to go through them one by one. Greetings can be customized by contacts – a great way to add a personal touch. Call screening features help you manage your time on the phone.

Other features of voice software applications include conference calling and webinars, calling directly from your computer, adding toll free numbers and managing multiple extensions.

With voice and telephone free and low cost software, you can manage your phones and keep a personal voice in your business.

For a comprehensive list of web-based applications for small business and startups, please visit www.headstartup.com

About David Hunegnaw

David Hunegnaw is a veteran of the Internet starting and co-founding 8 startups in just 10 years, including GrooveJob.com a job board for high school and college students with over 1 million users and 30,000 jobs across that country which sold to publicly traded Internet Brands. Other successful ventures included co-founding of DOmedia, a marketplace for buyers/sellers of Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising, founding HeadStartup.com a site that provides detailed reviews of web-based applications for startups, and most recently AboutOurWork.com, a site for small businesses to easily create an online profile page and visual business graph.