SHORT ON TIME? HERE’S A QUICK SUMMARY
Talkroute is a cloud-based business phone system designed to help businesses of all sizes manage calls, text messaging, online conferences, and voicemails seamlessly from desktops, browsers, or smartphones. It offers a comprehensive set of features, including call forwarding, reporting, user permissions, voicemail transcription, call stacking, audio library, and screen sharing. With flexible monthly subscription plans and responsive support via chat, email, phone, FAQs, and a knowledge base, Talkroute provides a reliable solution for streamlined communication and effective call management.
Talkroute is a cloud-based business phone system designed to help businesses of all sizes manage calls, text messaging, online conferences, and voicemails seamlessly from desktops, browsers, or smartphones. It offers a comprehensive set of features, including call forwarding, reporting, user permissions, voicemail transcription, call stacking, audio library, and screen sharing. With flexible monthly subscription plans and responsive support via chat, email, phone, FAQs, and a knowledge base, Talkroute provides a reliable solution for streamlined communication and effective call management.
👍 PROS:
- No equipment needed – use existing devices for calls and texts
- User-friendly interface with easy setup
- Unlimited minutes for toll-free and local calls
- Text-to-email notifications
- Comprehensive call management features
- Video meetings with screen sharing and whiteboard features
- Voicemail transcription and unlimited storage
- Customizable call routing and schedules
- No downloads needed for meeting guests
- Competitive pricing plans
- Responsive customer support
- Supports both desktop and mobile applications
- Scalable solution trusted by 100,000+ businesses
👎 CONS:
- No support for international calling
- Lacks faxing capabilities
- Limited integration options, relying on Zapier without open API access
- Meeting capacity is limited to 100 participants
Get Talkroute - The best phone system for your business!
WHAT IS TALKROUTE?
Talkroute is a cloud-based virtual phone system founded in 2013 that enables businesses to manage calls, text messages, and video meetings seamlessly through an easy-to-use app. Designed for start-ups, entrepreneurs, expanding enterprises, and remote teams, Talkroute serves thousands of businesses across the US, offering comprehensive business plans that include call recording, call routing, extensions, and more. You can choose from local, toll-free, and vanity numbers or port your existing business numbers, maintaining brand consistency and professionalism.
Talkroute’s platform is accessible across desktops, browsers, and smartphones, ensuring connectivity from anywhere. It enables you to recognize business calls easily and maintain a professional image with outgoing calls and texts displaying your business number. Its flexible features streamline customer interactions and team collaboration, supporting remote work environments effectively.
With competitive pricing, Talkroute is an ideal choice for small and medium-sized businesses seeking an affordable, integrated communication solution. However, larger enterprises might find it lacking in advanced features like single sign-on and integration with CRM or helpdesk software. Despite this, Talkroute remains a robust and scalable communication platform that caters to growing businesses’ needs.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Talkroute is easy to set up and use, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to streamline communication. You start by choosing a phone number, either by selecting a new one or transferring your existing business number to Talkroute. This flexibility lets you maintain your brand’s identity without changing contact details.
Next, you download the Talkroute apps, which are compatible with MacOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, allowing you to manage calls, messages, and meetings across all devices. The cross-platform compatibility ensures that you and your team can stay connected wherever you are, whether at home, in the office, or on the go.
Once the app is installed, you configure your settings by customizing various aspects of the system. This includes setting up greetings, call menus, extensions, voicemail, and business hours. You can tailor the phone system to fit your operational needs, ensuring that calls are routed efficiently and professionally. This customization enhances customer interactions and optimizes your team’s workflow.
After setup, you can talk, text, and meet from anywhere. Talkroute enables seamless communication through its call forwarding, SMS/MMS messaging, and video conferencing features. You can make and receive business calls, send messages, and hold virtual meetings effortlessly, no matter your location. The platform keeps all communication under one unified system, promoting efficient and organized business interactions.
WHAT ARE THE KEY FEATURES?
Talkroute offers a wide array of features designed to enhance your business communications:
Phone Numbers
Talkroute provides a variety of phone number options, including toll-free, vanity, 800, and local numbers. You can easily port your existing numbers or add and remove numbers as needed, ensuring flexibility in managing your business communications.
Call Forwarding & Routing
Talkroute offers advanced call forwarding and routing features that allow you to direct incoming calls to any phone or device, ensuring you never miss a call. You can set up sequential or simultaneous call forwarding, routing calls to team members based on availability or priority. This feature also supports custom routing schedules, so calls can be redirected based on the time of day or day of the week, allowing you to manage peak hours more efficiently.
Menus and Extensions
Talkroute offers customizable call menus with single-digit and multi-digit extensions, enabling callers to navigate to the right department or team member quickly. You can also add submenus for multi-level navigation and informational extensions to provide recorded messages.
Call Stacking
Talkroute supports call stacking, allowing multiple callers to wait in a virtual queue when all lines are busy. This feature helps manage high call volumes without sending callers directly to voicemail. Call stacking includes hold music and custom messages, ensuring a professional experience while customers wait for the next available team member.
Custom Greetings
Talkroute lets you create custom greetings to provide a personalized experience for your callers. You can record professional welcome messages, on-hold messages, and after-hours notifications. These greetings can be tailored to fit your brand's tone and messaging, enhancing your business's professional image.
Caller ID Name
This feature displays the caller's name along with their phone number, allowing you to identify who is calling before answering. It provides better context for incoming calls, helping your team prepare for customer inquiries or support requests more effectively.
Voicemail
Talkroute's voicemail system allows you to receive and manage voicemails through multiple channels, including email notifications with audio file attachments. You can customize voicemail greetings and create separate voicemail boxes for different team members or departments, ensuring messages reach the right people.
Dial-by-Name Directories
This feature allows callers to find and connect with specific team members by entering the first few letters of their name. It simplifies call navigation for customers, providing a professional and efficient way to reach the right person without needing to memorize extension numbers.
Hours of Operation
Talkroute enables you to set custom hours of operation, automatically routing calls based on your business schedule. You can create separate routing rules for business hours, after-hours, weekends, and holidays, ensuring that callers receive appropriate messages or are directed to voicemail when your team is unavailable.
Single-Digit Extensions
This feature simplifies call routing by allowing callers to reach specific departments or team members by pressing a single digit. For example, pressing “1” for sales or “2” for customer support. It provides a user-friendly navigation experience for callers while streamlining call management for your team.
SMS and MMS Messaging
Talkroute supports SMS and MMS messaging, allowing you to send and receive text messages and multimedia files directly from your business phone number. This feature is particularly useful for communicating with customers who prefer texting over calling. You can manage text conversations through the Talkroute app, ensuring consistent and professional communication across all channels.
Video Conferencing
Talkroute offers integrated video conferencing to facilitate virtual meetings and team collaboration. You can host high-quality video calls with up to 100 participants, making it ideal for remote team meetings, client consultations, and webinars. The platform includes essential features like screen sharing, meeting scheduling, and chat during video calls, enhancing communication and productivity. However, it's important to note that the participant capacity is capped at 100 people, which may be limiting for larger organizations.
Call Recording
Talkroute provides call recording capabilities, allowing you to record incoming and outgoing calls for training, quality assurance, or compliance purposes. These recordings are stored securely in the cloud, and you can access and review them at any time through the Talkroute dashboard. The feature is easy to activate and can be customized to record all calls or only specific ones, giving you flexibility and control over your call recording strategy.
Reporting
Talkroute includes comprehensive reporting tools that provide detailed insights into your call activity and team performance. You can access metrics such as call volume, call duration, missed calls, and call routing efficiency, helping you understand customer interactions and optimize your communication strategy. The reports are easy to interpret and can be filtered by date, time, or user, making it simple to track performance trends and make data-driven decisions.
ARE THERE ADDITIONAL FEATURES?
While Talkroute does not offer international calling or international numbers, which may limit its appeal for small businesses with global clients, it excels in advanced features that enhance communication and customer service. It provides virtual numbers, SMS messaging, and an auto-attendant/IVR system, streamlining client interactions and improving overall call management. These features contribute to a professional and efficient customer experience.
To explore the advanced features Talkroute offers, check out the details below:
Live Call Transfer
Talkroute’s live call transfer feature enhances call management by allowing you to forward active calls to another number, menu option, extension, or voicemail without interrupting the conversation. You can choose between two types of transfers: blind transfer, which instantly connects the caller to the new destination, or attended transfer, where you can speak to the recipient before completing the transfer, ensuring a smooth handoff. Transfer codes are easily accessible in the settings menu, enabling you to quickly direct customers and team members to the right department. This feature provides seamless call routing, improving overall communication efficiency.
Voice Studio
Talkroute’s Voice Studio adds a professional touch to your phone system by creating high-quality audio prompts that align with your brand’s identity. This service covers various audio needs, including welcome and voicemail greetings, call menu options, announcements, and dial-by-name directories. Simply submit a 50-word script, and Talkroute’s professional voice talent will produce a polished recording within three business days. This feature ensures that your customers are greeted with clear and consistent messaging, enhancing your brand’s image and delivering a professional caller experience.
Auto-Attendant & IVR Submenu
Talkroute’s auto-attendant and IVR submenu feature lets you create custom call menus and multilevel navigation options, enhancing the caller experience by efficiently directing them to the appropriate department or team member. You can customize these submenus for different scenarios, such as offering multiple language options or routing calls based on various office locations. These submenus can be applied to call menus, extensions, and after-hours destinations, ensuring a seamless and organized navigation experience. This feature empowers your business to provide clear, professional, and efficient call routing, improving overall customer satisfaction.
IS IT SAFE AND RELIABLE?
Yes, Talkroute is designed to be safe and reliable for business communications. It employs secure communication protocols to protect calls and messages, safeguarding data from unauthorized access. Talkroute also ensures voicemail encryption and secure data storage, maintaining privacy for all communications.
Reliability is ensured through high uptime and consistent service performance. The platform is built to handle business-level communication demands with minimal interruptions, making it a dependable choice for companies of all sizes.
IS THERE A TALKROUTE APP?
Yes, Talkroute offers apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, as well as for iOS and Android smartphones.
The Talkroute mobile app allows you to make and receive calls, send texts, join video meetings, and access your voicemail, call recordings, and call history. It features a user-friendly interface that feels similar to native phone and messaging apps on smartphones.
You can also customize your VoIP system settings directly from the app, including recording menus and greetings, setting up call forwarding rules, and managing user permissions, giving you full control over your communication system on the go.
HOW MUCH IS IT?
Talkroute offers four pricing plans tailored to different business needs:
1. Basic Plan ($19/month) – Ideal for small businesses needing essential phone service. Includes 1 user, 1 phone number, unlimited calling, text messaging, video meetings, and basic call routing.
2. Plus Plan ($39/month) – Designed for growing teams, with 3 users, 2 phone numbers, and additional features like single-digit extensions, simultaneous ring, and live call transfer.
3. Pro Plan ($59/month) – Best for medium-sized businesses, supporting 10 users, 3 phone numbers, and advanced features like multi-digit extensions, call recording, and reporting.
4. Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing) – Tailored for large organizations with 20+ users, 10+ phone numbers, and premium features such as service-level agreements (SLA) and account management.
Add-ons include additional users, phone numbers, and voicemail boxes, each costing $5/month.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Talkroute provides customer support via phone, live chat, and email from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (CT) Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. In our experience, wait times were minimal, with calls and live chats connecting to an agent within a minute. Email responses were typically received within a few hours.
The online help center is also highly useful, featuring FAQs and detailed tutorials for setting up your account. The tutorials include step-by-step guides with screenshots, making them easy to follow.
BOTTOMLINE
In conclusion, Talkroute is an excellent choice for small businesses seeking reliable call management without the need for advanced features like virtual fax or international calling. Our experience confirmed that its robust call routing, voicemail, and auto-attendant features streamline customer communication, delivering a professional experience. With affordable pricing and flexible single-user or multiuser plans, it’s ideal for growing teams. The easy-to-use platform and responsive customer service make it especially beneficial for teams transitioning from landlines to virtual phone systems. It's a solid foundation for businesses looking to scale.
Talkroute is a cloud-based virtual phone system founded in 2013 that enables businesses to manage calls, text messages, and video meetings seamlessly through an easy-to-use app. Designed for start-ups, entrepreneurs, expanding enterprises, and remote teams, Talkroute serves thousands of businesses across the US, offering comprehensive business plans that include call recording, call routing, extensions, and more. You can choose from local, toll-free, and vanity numbers or port your existing business numbers, maintaining brand consistency and professionalism.
Talkroute’s platform is accessible across desktops, browsers, and smartphones, ensuring connectivity from anywhere. It enables you to recognize business calls easily and maintain a professional image with outgoing calls and texts displaying your business number. Its flexible features streamline customer interactions and team collaboration, supporting remote work environments effectively.
With competitive pricing, Talkroute is an ideal choice for small and medium-sized businesses seeking an affordable, integrated communication solution. However, larger enterprises might find it lacking in advanced features like single sign-on and integration with CRM or helpdesk software. Despite this, Talkroute remains a robust and scalable communication platform that caters to growing businesses’ needs.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Talkroute is easy to set up and use, making it an ideal choice for businesses looking to streamline communication. You start by choosing a phone number, either by selecting a new one or transferring your existing business number to Talkroute. This flexibility lets you maintain your brand’s identity without changing contact details.
Next, you download the Talkroute apps, which are compatible with MacOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, allowing you to manage calls, messages, and meetings across all devices. The cross-platform compatibility ensures that you and your team can stay connected wherever you are, whether at home, in the office, or on the go.
Once the app is installed, you configure your settings by customizing various aspects of the system. This includes setting up greetings, call menus, extensions, voicemail, and business hours. You can tailor the phone system to fit your operational needs, ensuring that calls are routed efficiently and professionally. This customization enhances customer interactions and optimizes your team’s workflow.
After setup, you can talk, text, and meet from anywhere. Talkroute enables seamless communication through its call forwarding, SMS/MMS messaging, and video conferencing features. You can make and receive business calls, send messages, and hold virtual meetings effortlessly, no matter your location. The platform keeps all communication under one unified system, promoting efficient and organized business interactions.
WHAT ARE THE KEY FEATURES?
Talkroute offers a wide array of features designed to enhance your business communications:
Phone Numbers
Talkroute provides a variety of phone number options, including toll-free, vanity, 800, and local numbers. You can easily port your existing numbers or add and remove numbers as needed, ensuring flexibility in managing your business communications.
Call Forwarding & Routing
Talkroute offers advanced call forwarding and routing features that allow you to direct incoming calls to any phone or device, ensuring you never miss a call. You can set up sequential or simultaneous call forwarding, routing calls to team members based on availability or priority. This feature also supports custom routing schedules, so calls can be redirected based on the time of day or day of the week, allowing you to manage peak hours more efficiently.
Menus and Extensions
Talkroute offers customizable call menus with single-digit and multi-digit extensions, enabling callers to navigate to the right department or team member quickly. You can also add submenus for multi-level navigation and informational extensions to provide recorded messages.
Call Stacking
Talkroute supports call stacking, allowing multiple callers to wait in a virtual queue when all lines are busy. This feature helps manage high call volumes without sending callers directly to voicemail. Call stacking includes hold music and custom messages, ensuring a professional experience while customers wait for the next available team member.
Custom Greetings
Talkroute lets you create custom greetings to provide a personalized experience for your callers. You can record professional welcome messages, on-hold messages, and after-hours notifications. These greetings can be tailored to fit your brand's tone and messaging, enhancing your business's professional image.
Caller ID Name
This feature displays the caller's name along with their phone number, allowing you to identify who is calling before answering. It provides better context for incoming calls, helping your team prepare for customer inquiries or support requests more effectively.
Voicemail
Talkroute's voicemail system allows you to receive and manage voicemails through multiple channels, including email notifications with audio file attachments. You can customize voicemail greetings and create separate voicemail boxes for different team members or departments, ensuring messages reach the right people.
Dial-by-Name Directories
This feature allows callers to find and connect with specific team members by entering the first few letters of their name. It simplifies call navigation for customers, providing a professional and efficient way to reach the right person without needing to memorize extension numbers.
Hours of Operation
Talkroute enables you to set custom hours of operation, automatically routing calls based on your business schedule. You can create separate routing rules for business hours, after-hours, weekends, and holidays, ensuring that callers receive appropriate messages or are directed to voicemail when your team is unavailable.
Single-Digit Extensions
This feature simplifies call routing by allowing callers to reach specific departments or team members by pressing a single digit. For example, pressing “1” for sales or “2” for customer support. It provides a user-friendly navigation experience for callers while streamlining call management for your team.
SMS and MMS Messaging
Talkroute supports SMS and MMS messaging, allowing you to send and receive text messages and multimedia files directly from your business phone number. This feature is particularly useful for communicating with customers who prefer texting over calling. You can manage text conversations through the Talkroute app, ensuring consistent and professional communication across all channels.
Video Conferencing
Talkroute offers integrated video conferencing to facilitate virtual meetings and team collaboration. You can host high-quality video calls with up to 100 participants, making it ideal for remote team meetings, client consultations, and webinars. The platform includes essential features like screen sharing, meeting scheduling, and chat during video calls, enhancing communication and productivity. However, it's important to note that the participant capacity is capped at 100 people, which may be limiting for larger organizations.
Call Recording
Talkroute provides call recording capabilities, allowing you to record incoming and outgoing calls for training, quality assurance, or compliance purposes. These recordings are stored securely in the cloud, and you can access and review them at any time through the Talkroute dashboard. The feature is easy to activate and can be customized to record all calls or only specific ones, giving you flexibility and control over your call recording strategy.
Reporting
Talkroute includes comprehensive reporting tools that provide detailed insights into your call activity and team performance. You can access metrics such as call volume, call duration, missed calls, and call routing efficiency, helping you understand customer interactions and optimize your communication strategy. The reports are easy to interpret and can be filtered by date, time, or user, making it simple to track performance trends and make data-driven decisions.
ARE THERE ADDITIONAL FEATURES?
While Talkroute does not offer international calling or international numbers, which may limit its appeal for small businesses with global clients, it excels in advanced features that enhance communication and customer service. It provides virtual numbers, SMS messaging, and an auto-attendant/IVR system, streamlining client interactions and improving overall call management. These features contribute to a professional and efficient customer experience.
To explore the advanced features Talkroute offers, check out the details below:
Live Call Transfer
Talkroute’s live call transfer feature enhances call management by allowing you to forward active calls to another number, menu option, extension, or voicemail without interrupting the conversation. You can choose between two types of transfers: blind transfer, which instantly connects the caller to the new destination, or attended transfer, where you can speak to the recipient before completing the transfer, ensuring a smooth handoff. Transfer codes are easily accessible in the settings menu, enabling you to quickly direct customers and team members to the right department. This feature provides seamless call routing, improving overall communication efficiency.
Voice Studio
Talkroute’s Voice Studio adds a professional touch to your phone system by creating high-quality audio prompts that align with your brand’s identity. This service covers various audio needs, including welcome and voicemail greetings, call menu options, announcements, and dial-by-name directories. Simply submit a 50-word script, and Talkroute’s professional voice talent will produce a polished recording within three business days. This feature ensures that your customers are greeted with clear and consistent messaging, enhancing your brand’s image and delivering a professional caller experience.
Auto-Attendant & IVR Submenu
Talkroute’s auto-attendant and IVR submenu feature lets you create custom call menus and multilevel navigation options, enhancing the caller experience by efficiently directing them to the appropriate department or team member. You can customize these submenus for different scenarios, such as offering multiple language options or routing calls based on various office locations. These submenus can be applied to call menus, extensions, and after-hours destinations, ensuring a seamless and organized navigation experience. This feature empowers your business to provide clear, professional, and efficient call routing, improving overall customer satisfaction.
IS IT SAFE AND RELIABLE?
Yes, Talkroute is designed to be safe and reliable for business communications. It employs secure communication protocols to protect calls and messages, safeguarding data from unauthorized access. Talkroute also ensures voicemail encryption and secure data storage, maintaining privacy for all communications.
Reliability is ensured through high uptime and consistent service performance. The platform is built to handle business-level communication demands with minimal interruptions, making it a dependable choice for companies of all sizes.
IS THERE A TALKROUTE APP?
Yes, Talkroute offers apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, as well as for iOS and Android smartphones.
The Talkroute mobile app allows you to make and receive calls, send texts, join video meetings, and access your voicemail, call recordings, and call history. It features a user-friendly interface that feels similar to native phone and messaging apps on smartphones.
You can also customize your VoIP system settings directly from the app, including recording menus and greetings, setting up call forwarding rules, and managing user permissions, giving you full control over your communication system on the go.
HOW MUCH IS IT?
Talkroute offers four pricing plans tailored to different business needs:
1. Basic Plan ($19/month) – Ideal for small businesses needing essential phone service. Includes 1 user, 1 phone number, unlimited calling, text messaging, video meetings, and basic call routing.
2. Plus Plan ($39/month) – Designed for growing teams, with 3 users, 2 phone numbers, and additional features like single-digit extensions, simultaneous ring, and live call transfer.
3. Pro Plan ($59/month) – Best for medium-sized businesses, supporting 10 users, 3 phone numbers, and advanced features like multi-digit extensions, call recording, and reporting.
4. Enterprise Plan (Custom Pricing) – Tailored for large organizations with 20+ users, 10+ phone numbers, and premium features such as service-level agreements (SLA) and account management.
Add-ons include additional users, phone numbers, and voicemail boxes, each costing $5/month.
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Talkroute provides customer support via phone, live chat, and email from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. (CT) Monday to Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. In our experience, wait times were minimal, with calls and live chats connecting to an agent within a minute. Email responses were typically received within a few hours.
The online help center is also highly useful, featuring FAQs and detailed tutorials for setting up your account. The tutorials include step-by-step guides with screenshots, making them easy to follow.
BOTTOMLINE
In conclusion, Talkroute is an excellent choice for small businesses seeking reliable call management without the need for advanced features like virtual fax or international calling. Our experience confirmed that its robust call routing, voicemail, and auto-attendant features streamline customer communication, delivering a professional experience. With affordable pricing and flexible single-user or multiuser plans, it’s ideal for growing teams. The easy-to-use platform and responsive customer service make it especially beneficial for teams transitioning from landlines to virtual phone systems. It's a solid foundation for businesses looking to scale.
