It’s been almost exactly 2 months since I had my little run-in with Toktumi tech support, cancelled my service, then heard immediately from the CEO with an apology and an offer to give things another try. You can read my original post and the excellent response from the Toktumi CEO here: My Experiences With Toktumi & UPDATE: My Experiences With Toktumi.
I’ve been using the Toktumi service for one of my business phone numbers for the entire 2 months. Call volume is not super heavy and Toktumi has performed flawlessly. In fact, I have yet to find a major difference between it and my $1500 hardware PBX I bought a few years ago. Actually the one difference I did find is it’s not a HUGE pain in the butt to make changes to the auto attendant and extensions since everything is web based with Toktumi. VERY VERY handy.
I’m so impressed with the service that I’m transferring a second business number to my original account and set up another account today for another business I own. I’ll also be transferring 2 numbers over to Toktumi for that business. I did a quick calculation today and found that I’ll be saving nearly $200 a month in phone service, even after paying for the Toktumi service.
I’ve tried a number of online PBX type services over the last few years and Toktumi is by far the best and most cost effective. Period. Sure there are some free options like Google Voice, but that’s for personal use and just won’t cut it for business use.
If you have a small business, no matter what you’re doing, you have to give Toktumi a try. They have a free trial and you can just snag a local number or even an 800 number to try it out. I can’t imagine you won’t fall in love with the service and the ease of managing the auto attendant, voice mail, etc.
One thing I did beat my head against the wall a bit at the start of my Toktumi trial was getting my calls to transfer to mine and my employees cell phones correctly. I wanted to give you a few tips to help ease some setup pain.
1. Recording your auto attendant and voice mail greetings
I don’t know about you, but I hate cheesy auto attendant and voice mail greetings. I feel that if you’re going to go to the trouble of having a business line, act like a freakin REAL business. Don’t record your greeting on some dime store crapola phone that sounds scratchy. An easy way to get decent quality without spending all day on it is to just use your iPhone’s recording function. I recorded 7 messages in under 10 minutes just using my iPhone mic and the Recording app bundled with the iPhone. Once recorded, they’ll appear in iTunes automatically (assuming you have that sync option set up). Export them from iTunes in MP3 format (if you don’t know how to do that, it’s simple…Google something like “export from itunes in mp3″ and you’ll find lots of results) and upload them to Toktumi when prompted. Piece of cake and quick!
2. If you’re always using an auto attendant to answer, don’t make your callers wait
If you’re going to have an auto attendant answer every call, that’s what I do, don’t make callers listen to the phone ring 10 times before it answers. Just have your auto attendant answer on the first ring. You can set this option on the Voicemail and Call Flow screen when logged into your Toktumi account. It’s under Inbound Calls. Not a biggie, but a nice little thing.
3. Solve your forwarding calls problems
This is the one that took me quite a bit of time to figure out, and it turned out to be something super simple. I wanted an auto attendant to answer, give people options for an extension, then depending on what they chose, that would forward the call to the appropriate person’s cell phone. I didn’t want to use the voicemail feature in Toktumi (although it’s dang handy, like sending you your voice messages by email), I wanted each person’s cell phone voicemail to be the place where messages are left.
The problem I was having was the call would forward, but Toktumi would hang up before the cell phone voicemail would pick up to take the message. I finally found the setting that needed to be changed at the bottom of the Auto Attendant screen in the Toktumi web interface. You need to change Ring time-out for forwarded calls to the max. I have mine set to 8 Rings. Problem solved!
If you want Toktumi to act as your voicemail system, you’ll want to set it to a smaller number so your cell phone voicemail doesn’t have time to kick in before Toktumi sends the caller to it’s own voicemail system.
As I mentioned before I’m a happy Toktumi customer and look forward to a long relationship with them. If you’re wondering, no, they didn’t pay me for this review or offer me anything to try their service. In fact, I signed up originally because I saw a Shoemoney post about them. You DEFINITELY need to give them a try though. You won’t regret it.
Check them out here: Toktumi.com.
December 5th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
My life is still quite simple and I do not wish to complicate it with more gadgets than I already have. This is a very tempting review, but I need to show some will power and keep away from this. Thank you.
December 5th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
great post. thanks.
December 6th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Yea I would highly agree with the #2…there is nothing more annoying to answer to no one and than wait for no one forever. This is what AT&T does to me every time I call and I hate it and I just feel like a number not even a customer to them.
December 6th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Wow…the service sounds excellent. You don't often get the CEO of a company contacting you personally…thanks for the heads up.
December 6th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Thanks for good tips
December 6th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
great post. thank you very much
December 7th, 2009 at 5:23 am
Toktumi sounds really interesting, this is the first time I have heard about them. I run a small business, will definitely like to give them a try. Thanks for the review!
December 7th, 2009 at 11:53 am
very good tips.
December 7th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Thanks for sharing the tips . These tips would be very helpful for me
December 7th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
I also have used this service and would recomend it to anyone. Yes you can have problems but their customer relations skills are great and that's more than most
December 8th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
great post. thanks.
December 8th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Thanks for this resource, I have to agree with you cashbackcreditcards, I hate being placed on hold like that, takes forever for me to get though to most big companies
December 11th, 2009 at 2:15 am
great
. thanks
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:42 am
great post. thanks.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:34 am
This is really first rate. Can’t wait for new posts from you. Thank you so much for this.
December 26th, 2009 at 6:16 am
It sounds Interesting, let me check this out. Thanks for sharing.
December 27th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
I really don't like waiting when making phone calls because am too don't like to make my callers wait. It's not healthy especially in business. As much as possible, at the first ring, answer it. For automatic answering machines, make it a point to response immediately.
December 27th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Your post has helped me fix some issues on mine. Thanks for the valuable insight.
December 27th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Wow, thanks for the great content your providing
December 29th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
I like your service very good…
January 1st, 2010 at 4:08 pm
great post. thanks men.
January 5th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Thanks for the great tips! They are good.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
This really is a very good information and very useful.Thanks
January 8th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Thanks for the info on both sides of you experinces, I have a 800 number I need to transfer somewhere so I will check them out.
January 12th, 2010 at 4:55 am
Cheers for the posts
January 13th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Nice tips, thanks a lot for sharing these. Waiting for your updates
January 14th, 2010 at 1:22 am
It's a great review. Anyways, is it still working fine even if had a bulk of call-load?
January 14th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Very good tips. great post. Thanks for all!
January 19th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Well written post, nice work you have done there.
thumns up from here.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
thanks for the great post. i love it.
January 21st, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I haven't had great experience with Toktumi but I might try again.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:59 am
Thanks 4 the info. I will give it a try when i'll have some cash, hehe .
January 26th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
great tips, thanks alot some excellent information.
January 26th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
great post. thanks.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Thanks for all the tips. That was of great help.
January 29th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Great information about Toktumi. I had the same call forwarding problem but it was resolved. Thanks for the info!
January 31st, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Wow…the service sounds excellent. You don't often get the CEO of a company contacting you personally…thanks for the heads up.
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:30 am
you have really good tips! thanks for your share.
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Thank you very much for your great post…
February 4th, 2010 at 6:55 am
Awesome and mind boggling tips has been given really very useful and prolific.
February 7th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Yes you certainly can have problems but their customer relations skills are great and that's more than most …
February 9th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
I think when making phone calls because am too don't like to make my callers wait. It's not healthy especially in business. As much as possible, at the first ring, answer it. For automatic answering machines, make it a point to response immediately
February 10th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Ohh really awesome blog! As you said that you are using the Toktumi service for one of your business phone numbers , i was also searching the service to find phone numbers.Really i will use the toktumi service and will give you feedback.Thanks for sharing useful info,very important to me.I will try to recommend your post to all of my friends.
February 17th, 2010 at 9:43 am
It sounds Interesting, let me check this out. Thanks for sharing.
antalya homes
February 17th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
I've had toktumi for about a year. It was great in the beginning. Now I can't use my phone to dial out since the new soft ware update. When I use their service that I can access through my cell phone I cannot make calls out. Toktumi can't give me a time line when they will fix the problems. I'm now looking into another service because I think the next problem to come up is my customers not being able to reach me. I can use my cell to call my customer but if the customer has call block I will have to show my cell number which I prefer to keep private. I recommend people think twice before going with this service.
February 18th, 2010 at 7:52 pm
Thanks for sharing the tips . These tips would be very helpful for me
February 20th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
I like your service very good.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:42 am
very good tips.
May 20th, 2010 at 2:08 am
Sincerely speaking, voice mail causes is able to make me angry because it usually changes the voice so much!
June 28th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I've had a great experience with their customer service. They gave me their phone number, they respond whenever I call, and the service has been just great. I'm not easy to please, by the way.
July 3rd, 2010 at 7:05 am
very good article,thans for your sharing
August 11th, 2010 at 7:21 am
Hey there, thanks a lot!
October 11th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Wow, this is incredible to hear. I can't believe the CEO called you after you cancelled your service
February 24th, 2011 at 4:20 am
Thanks for sharing tips are cool n qualitative
April 18th, 2011 at 11:41 am
I've been looking into Toktumi for quite some time. I think I'm going to give it a try with my new business venture.
June 9th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Thanks for the info on both sides of you experinces, I have a 800 number I need to transfer somewhere so I will check them out.
August 19th, 2011 at 6:06 am
I'm currently using Vonage with a wireless phone, and I dont think i'm ready to be strapped to my machine. If I want to walk out back with my phone currently, no problem. But bluetooth wireless headsets will limit my range to about 20-30 feet max. I also dont want my service to look like a magicJack.