Remodelers have enough credibility problems without being labeled "unreliable." But that's exactly what happens when important calls and messages fall through the cracks.
If you're missing messages, you may want to try uReach.com's unified messaging system. For $6.99 per month (plus a per-minute access fee, roughly 7 to 8 cents per minute), you get your own toll-free number and a unified voice-mail/fax/e-mail inbox that you can access either through a Web browser or telephone.
You can program your toll-free number to forward your calls to different phone numbers at different times of the day and on different days of the week. For example, uReach can forward calls to your office in the morning, to your cell phone in the afternoon, and to your home phone on weekends and holidays.
If you don't answer a forwarded call, uReach prompts the caller to leave a voice message and sends an alert to your pager, telephone, e-mail, or instant messaging service. You can retrieve voice messages from your online in-box or hear them played back over the telephone.
Plus, each voice message is saved as a Windows.wav file that can be stored with your other project documents for future reference. You'll want this feature when, say, a customer denies selecting the pink paint for his new family room.
Other uReach features remodelers may find useful include the ability to create multi-person conference calls from any phone; send and receive faxes electronically using the same uReach number; and a text-to-speech feature that will read new e-mail to you over the telephone. Check the system out at www.ureach.com. --Joe Stoddard, a technology consultant to the construction industry, can be reached at jstoddard@mountainconsulting.com.