A phone system for the shop on the corner and the office on the high street. Desk phones, the number on your mobile (an app or a business SIM so it rings on your phone with no app at all), texts on your business number and a receptionist that never goes to lunch.
The OctopushX app. Calls and texts on the business number, from your own mobile. Example business.
Not a feature list. The six moments in a working week where the phone system either helps or gets in the way.
The app puts your shop or office number on the phone in your pocket. Customers see the business number, never your personal one.
Customers text the business number and it lands in the app. Reply from your mobile or from the office and it comes from the business, not you.
When nobody can pick up, the AI receptionist answers in a natural voice, in your business's name. It takes a proper message, books appointments and passes urgent calls straight to you.
Voicemails arrive in your inbox as text so you can read them in a meeting. Switch on Call Analysis and every recorded call gets a transcript and a short summary too.
Set your week once, including lunch and half-days. Bank holidays are already in. Callers out of hours hear a proper message and can leave one.
Record every call or just some lines. Play them back in the portal, search by caller or by name and choose how long they're kept: 90 days, a year or seven years for regulated work.
Plenty of people who work out of a van, a car or a site don't want another app to open, log into and keep updated. So the number can live in the SIM instead.
Install the OctopushX app on the phone you already have. Best when you want texts, the shared phonebook and the office features in your pocket.
Good for: owners, office staff, anyone who texts customers.
A SIM with your business number on it. Slot it in and the number rings on your phone's ordinary dialler and dials out from the ordinary keypad. Nothing to install, nothing to open, nothing to stay logged into.
Good for: trades in the van, couriers, agents out on viewings and anyone who has had enough of apps.
Both example businesses are made up. The features are not.
Two owners, three staff, one counter, one number: 01903 812440.
The phones ring in the shop but nobody's front of house yet. The receptionist picks up, takes the order for forty rolls and it's in the inbox before the ovens are hot.
Mrs Patel asks about the sourdough. Sam replies from the app on his mobile in the queue at the wholesaler. It shows as the shop, not his number.
Hours are set for a 1 to 2 closure. Callers hear the message and can leave one. The phone doesn't ring during the one quiet hour.
One press of the key on the desk phone closes the shop. Callers hear "we've sold out for today, back tomorrow at 7". It reopens itself at 7.
The missed-call list shows three callers nobody rang back. Two get a text: "Sorry we missed you, what can we get you?"
Four fee earners, a receptionist, two numbers and a regulator who expects records kept for years.
Out-of-hours until 9. The receptionist answers in the firm's name, takes the client's name and matter, and offers a callback slot. The note is on Priya's screen when she sits down.
The call is recorded, as every conveyancing call is. When it's transcribed, the card number is blanked out before it's stored. The transcript is searchable by the client's name.
Warm transfer: reception tells Daniel who's holding and why before the caller hears his voice. If he's in a meeting, it goes to his voicemail, which arrives in his inbox as text.
He won't use an app, so the office number is in a business SIM in his phone. His desk phone and his mobile ring together; in the corridor he answers on the ordinary dialler and the client sees the office number.
A short report lands with the partners: calls answered, calls missed, who was busiest and the callers nobody got back to.
"Daniel, it's Graham. The other side have come back on the boundary. Nothing urgent but could you ring me before four? Thanks."
Once there's more than one of you answering, the question changes from "did the phone ring?" to "who's waiting and who's free?" A wallboard answers it at a glance, live on any TV or screen in the room.
The standard things a business phone should do. All included, all set up for you.
A broadband connection and a desk phone if you want one. Or just the mobiles you already have, with the app or a business SIM in them. No box on the wall, no engineer visit.
Then have the business SIM. The number rings on your phone like any other call and you dial out from the normal keypad. Your own number and SIM stay as they are.
Yes. Your number is loaded before the move and the system is built around it, so nothing changes for your customers on the day it transfers.
Yes. Traditional phone lines are being withdrawn across the UK. This replaces the line, keeps the number and adds the mobile and text side on top.
It answers in your business's name, sticks to what you've told it and hands anything it isn't sure of to a person. You read every message it takes. Try it on the out-of-hours calls first.
We do. Hours, menus, phones and the app are built for you before anything goes live and changed for you afterwards when you ask. Small changes you can make yourself, in plain English.
Kept in the UK for as long as you choose. You decide who can listen and every play is logged. Card details are removed before a transcript is stored.