On The Horn.

• Author: Osborne, Steven P.

Advice from small business owners on acquiring great phone service.

Managing telecommunications to our advantage has helped us look and feel like a large office with a bunch of staff members sitting around waiting for a call," says Mike Phelps.

As founding partner of Phusion, a marketing services/strategic communications company with offices in Layton and Salt Lake City, Phelps' job is to keep his clients satisfied. In today's electronic-paced business environment, that means being available to them whenever they need him.

This isn't easy. "We're a small and very mobile company" Phelps says. "I'm almost always outside the office providing services for our clients. And the employees I have are women who want to be work-at-home moms, so we've created completely equipped working environments for them in their homes. But the fact that we're not sitting in the same room all day every day requires communication tools that help us work together as though we were all together."

Phusion's telecommunications system relies heavily on wireless communications allowing for mobility and responsiveness simultaneously. Phelps has a cell phone plus a wireless Internet connection which he uses to send and receive e-mail and access the Internet from his car or a cafe. He also depends heavily on voice mail.

"Our office phones are answered by live receptionists," he says. "When someone leaves a message for us, our voice mail system automatically and immediately pages us so we can respond quickly. For example, a potential client called me this morning. As usual, I wasn't in the office. The receptionist answered. She put him into my voice mail. He left a message. I was paged immediately and called him on my cell phone. The whole process required a five-minute turnaround, whereas it would have been five hours if I had waited to get back to the office."

Voice mail is the backbone of Phelps' communications with his employees. "Because we're on the road so much and never know when and where the others are at any given moment," he says, "we have a voice mail service with its own number that pages us whenever a message comes in. Then we're free to pick it up when we're not tied up in a meeting or whatever. Basically, we can all communicate at the time it is most convenient or efficient for us to communicate -- even at midnight."

Phusion's voice mail provider is City Link, which ties the Wasatch Front into one local calling area. For long distance services, including a...