'Virtual Admin' Talks While You Work

I have spent the past few days tinkering with this jazzed-up Toktumi. And while my final judgment must wait for a full multi-month examination -- there are many, many ways these sorts of tools can frustrate even the most geeked-up small biz -- overall, I found Toktumi to be a reasonably cost effective way to quickly create a phone-based business identity.

What you get

For a single, fixed monthly rate, you get a second phone number that you can route to your existing phones, both personal and business, landline or mobile. This number becomes the one you give out to your professional contacts. You then provision the system to make and route your calls, give out targeted messages, take phone mail, manage your contacts and many other features. And since the system is using your current phone infrastructure, there should be no noticeable degradation in quality. Not bad.

Toktumi gets lots of credit for easy setup. Simply log in, choose a city, state or area code, and pick a number. You then create a numeric access code. Yup, another number to remember, but what can you do? Next, Toktumi makes a call to your cell phone, asks for your confirmation number and then prompts you through about 10 different intro demos, which are of varying usefulness. All in all, setup is relatively simple. Allow yourself an hour or two, and bring your new-technology sense of humor. You should be fine.

Right off, there is a lot to like: For $15 a month, the system essentially renders a perfectly reasonable imitation of a real, live business phone. It has a centralized call-management system that lets you tie specific voice messages to a given number. You can monitor calls. It allows you to create a virtual auto attendant that can route calls to different phone lines. And assuming you enable the software for your PC, you can make outbound calls from your computer, too. It's well done for an entry-level system.