What is Phonebooth Free? from Bandwidth.com on Vimeo.

Info: Phonebooth is a VOIP phone service like Google Voice but with a feature set ideal for growing businesses . Phonebooth has similar features to Google Voice: visual voicemail, redundant data centers, call routing and a slick interface. Phonebooth pushes the solution a few steps ahead of Google by offering HD voice qaulity, conference calling and an auto-attendant “Press 1 to annoy your customer” menus.

Price: Phonebooth offered a free service (no longer available) and has a pro plan that costs $20 per month per user

UPDATE- THERE ARE NO MORE FREE ACCOUNTS AVAILABLE- I Repeat NO FREE ACCOUNTS- If you’d like an invite to Google Voice instead email me: nicholas@heroikmedia.com

My Thoughts on Phonebooth Pro

I think for a growing company, Phonebooth would be a great tool. They take out a lot of competition and cost with their simplicity and consumers love simplicity when it comes to technology. (Insert Fisher-Price to Mac reference- on 2nd thought Win 7 is pretty user friendly and awesome as well.)

The redundant data centers that ensure continuity for the if and when the power goes out scenario is definitely a valuable feature. But knowing me, I’d try and pay for 2-3 accounts and be curious if I could route certain calls to a Google voice number that would call everyone in an entire department; like the support team, marketing team, etc.

So the product is neat for developing businesses but this particular video is a better ad for Google Voice. If you are a freelancer or just starting up (you know, the target audience of this video) why would you consider this pay service over the free and lovable Google Voice? Do you need a phone tree system? Especially if all options IE sales, marketing, support, take you to the same guy?

More importantly, myself and every person I know including all of my clients has a strong dislike/hatred for those auto attendant robot menus.
So making it easier to torture your customers might not be the best thing.

You’d pay how much to annoy your customers? I understand using this service for business continuity and organization to accommodate growth and would recommend it for its simplicity alone but choosing an auto-attendant voice menu to portray yourself as a “grown-up” business would eventually hurt your business. Trust me, your customers will find out that you don’t have 100 people working for you and when they discover they’ve been duped into the infinite loop and time vacuum of auto-attendants, they’ll go elsewhere.
I think the cover this usage scenario in the “how to appear to be a business douche bag manual.

This video doesn’t do Phonebooth justice beyond generating consumer commentary On 2nd thought: [marketing note- Kudos to the video creators- Note to self-Create a hip stick figure cartoon video that doesn't quite fit your target audience and get the crowd to point the finger at where your product /service would really shine. Let the users state the obvious and they'll think they're doing the world a service and recommend your business and help it find the proper audience.

The redundant data centers ensure continuity for if and when the power goes out is a definite plus. But knowing me, I'd try and pay for 2-3 accounts and be curious if I could route certain calls to a Google voice number that would call everyone on the support team, marketing team, etc.