How do I set up a business phone system?

Unlike some business phone services, there’s practically no technical setup you have to do to configure Nextiva. Out of the box, it works — and if you have a mobile device or computer (bet you do!), just sign in with your username and password to begin calling. Business owners choose Nextiva because it’s so easy to use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service: Test your network and internet connection Choose optional VoIP desk phones Pick a business phone number Create usernames and passwords Test your new business phone lines When ready, adjust your incoming call flows, call waiting, voicemail, and international calling rules. We’ve tested everything and hand-picked a catalog of high-quality desk phones and hardware. Our basic small business VoIP plan starts at $18.95 per month. It has all the features a growing business needs — business text messaging, local and toll-free numbers, voicemail transcription, 99.999% uptime, and more.

How reliable is a VoIP phone system?

The short answer is business phone services are very reliable, so long as you don’t have a power outage. You might also want to consider other factors like: Uptime — The percentage of time that a provider is online and is functioning. Nextiva provides customers with 99.999% uptime. This means service may not be available for about six minutes a year. Security — Call encryption is a newer enhancement to VoIP. Through TLS and SRTP, data exchanged between SIP phones and the cloud PBX are encrypted upon request. HD call quality — With twice the audio bandwidth, everyone can hear a wider range of sound in every business call. Enterprise-grade redundancy — Ensure that your calls stay online even through network interruptions using call forwarding, call queues, and automatic fail-over.

How do I get a toll-free number for my business?

Many businesses prefer to use a toll-free phone number instead of a local number to handle inbound phone calls. Most business phone service providers (Nextiva included) offer different types of phone numbers: Local phone numbers — These numbers are based in certain geographic areas, also known as rate centers or area codes. Toll-free numbers — Phone numbers that begin with 800, 888, 866, 877, 855, 844, and 833 allow anyone to call it without toll charges or add-on fees from a landline. Vanity numbers — These numbers are memorable numbers like 1-800-FLOWERS. In most cases, it’s best to purchase first and port them into your business phone system provider. The upside of using a toll-free number is that team members can dial out with a shared caller ID on behalf of the company. Incoming calls go through an auto attendant to ensure they reach live agents.

Can I use a phone answering service with Nextiva?

Yes, you can direct calls to your after-hours answering service with Nextiva. Incoming calls are routed by a third-party answering service that enables people to work from home with its audio conferencing and VoIP solutions. Nextiva supports employees working remotely and in the office as one of the top unified communications solutions. Here are some essential features included with its business phone system: Virtual Phone System — Manage your company’s phone system over the internet while keeping your staff connected. No on-premises hardware needed. Conference Calling — Connect multiple people over a phone line to participate in a conference call, so you can hold essential meetings even when people are working remotely. Call Queues — Handle more calls and answer them efficiently with call queuing. Let callers hear on-hold music or announcements until the next available agent can answer their call. This way, calls aren’t dropped and employees can work efficiently. Video Calling — You don’t need a cell phone or desk phone when you can manage calls directly from the app on your computer. Advanced Features — As your business grows, so do your business communication needs. Take advantage of robust call analytics, business text messaging, hold music, multi-level auto attendants, call recording, call forwarding, custom caller ID , and more. For more scalability, set up an inbound call center for your customer support or sales team.

Small Business Phone Service: Top Provider for 2024

Digital

$20 $25

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For startups

Omnichannel digital customer sales & service to connect and engage with customers on the channels they prefer and track social engagement and customer reviews.

Digital features:

Turn prospect and visitors into customers and provide customer service on your website by engaging with them in real-time through live chat. Start with automated prompts to gather essential information, then seamlessly transition to a live-agent interaction for a personalized experience or use AI Chatbot to interact with prospects or customers.

Website live chat
Support and sell using social messaging platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more. All messages route to a single inbox so you won’t miss a thing.

Messaging apps
Monitor, respond, listen, and publish on the most meaningful social platforms including: Facebook, Instagram, X (Formerly Twitter), TikTok, Linkedin, YouTube, and your Google Business profile.

Social media channels
Protect your brand and control your reputation by automatically keeping tabs on key review sites. Set alerts so high-importance comments are handled immediately.

Review Management
Sell more and support efficiently by routing all conversations to a single inbox. Channels include email, webchat, messengers, SMS, social media and review sites.

Digital Service Helpdesk

Core

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For small teams

Connect and engage with customers on digital, voice, video, and SMS. Never miss an interaction with AI-powered voicemail transcription. Empower all workers with desktop, mobile, and browser-based apps for customer conversations, collaboration, and contact management.

Core features:

Turn prospect and visitors into customers and provide customer service on your website by engaging with them in real-time through live chat. Start with automated prompts to gather essential information, then seamlessly transition to a live-agent interaction for a personalized experience or use AI Chatbot to interact with prospects or customers.

Website live chat
Support and sell using social messaging platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more. All messages route to a single inbox so you won’t miss a thing.

Messaging apps
Monitor, respond, listen, and publish on the most meaningful social platforms including: Facebook, Instagram, X (Formerly Twitter), TikTok, Linkedin, YouTube, and your Google Business profile.

Social media channels
Protect your brand and control your reputation by automatically keeping tabs on key review sites. Set alerts so high-importance comments are handled immediately.

Review Management
Sell more and support efficiently by routing all conversations to a single inbox. Channels include email, webchat, messengers, SMS, social media and review sites.

Digital Service Helpdesk
Connect with customers and your team using award-winning, reliable voice conversations within the U.S. and CA*. Get a new number or bring over your existing number for free.

Inbound & Outbound Voice
Send and receive SMS text messages from your business phone number using the desktop and mobile app.

Business SMS
Collaborate face-to-face with video meetings. Share your screen, engage in sidebar chats, share files, and record for future reference.

Video meetings
Collaborate face-to-face with video meetings. Share your screen, engage in sidebar chats, share files, and record for future reference.

Screenshare & file share
Ensure all calls are professionally answered and properly routed using a virtual receptionist recording that directs callers to, for instance, “press one for Sales and two for Service.”

Call routing and queueing

Engage

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For growing teams

Create amazing customer experiences across all channels with AI-powered intelligent routing, AI chatbots, analytics, insights, and integrations with CRM systems.

Everything in Core, plus:

Advanced IVR enables customer engagement inside your IVR to quickly and efficiently route customers to the right place, the first time. Enable CRM/CDP integrations to offer high-touch customer experiences.

Advanced IVR
Give your business a professional edge by offering a universal, non-local, toll-free number.

Toll-free number and minutes
Move your business forward with insight gained from data found within your advanced IVR and queueing metrics.

Advanced reporting
Sync data between your core software, such as Salesforce HubSpot, and Zendesk.

Core integrations
Offer 24/7 support and efficiently manage responses to FAQs with web chatbot automation.

Website chatbot

Power Suite

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For sales & service teams

Everything a small business needs to run a successful sales & service organization and to operate like a Fortune 500 company — including inbound voice, advanced routing with an AI-powered interactive voice bot, agent skills-based routing, data dips, and supervisor assist.

Everything in Engage, plus:

Manage high-volume inbound calls, use voice prompts and AI to route calls to best-fit agents. Queue calls and surface caller history for quick resolution.

Inbound call center
Process high-volume inbound calls by auto-answering and prompting callers to ask questions or provide routing requests using an Intelligent Virtual Assistant.

Intelligent Virtual Assistant
Route callers to best-fit agents based on demographic, language, affinity, hard skills, etc.

Intelligent skills routing
Increase efficiency and collaboration by connect agents and supervisors in a single inferface.

Unified team interface
Focus on what metrics matter most with a customizable real-time dashboard for supervisors.

Supervisor dashboard

Keep the apps you love.

Connect your VoIP phone system with popular business applications:
Microsoft Outlook, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and many more.

Cloud of logos inlcuding Google Workspase, Five9, Microsoft Teams, Hubspot, Salesforce and more

Small business phone service FAQs

Unlike some business phone services, there’s practically no technical setup you have to do to configure Nextiva. Out of the box, it works — and if you have a mobile device or computer (bet you do!), just sign in with your username and password to begin calling.

Business owners choose Nextiva because it’s so easy to use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service:

Test your network and internet connection
Choose optional VoIP desk phones
Pick a business phone number
Create usernames and passwords
Test your new business phone lines
When ready, adjust your incoming call flows, call waiting, voicemail, and international calling rules.

We've tested everything and hand-picked a catalog of high-quality desk phones and hardware.

Our basic small business VoIP plan starts at $18.95 per month. It has all the features a growing business needs — business text messaging, local and toll-free numbers, voicemail transcription, 99.999% uptime, and more.

Yes, it's easy to transfer phone numbers to Nextiva through a process known as porting. Porting lets you assign your number to a VoIP service provider like Nextiva.

You can transfer any number you use, including:

Landline numbers
Wireless/cell phone numbers
Virtual numbers (Google Voice, TextNow, etc.)
VoIP phone numbers
Toll-free numbers

Nextiva handles everything related to moving your phone numbers over. Our porting team will inform you of the port-in date. From there, you can begin placing and receiving unlimited calls through Nextiva's cloud phone system.

Transferring business phone numbers will take approximately 2–4 weeks, depending on the previous carrier. In the meantime, you can use temporary phone numbers.

Watch this short video to see how to transfer your phone numbers to Nextiva:

The short answer is business phone services are very reliable, so long as you don’t have a power outage.

You might also want to consider other factors like:

Uptime — the percentage of time that a provider is online and is functioning. Nextiva provides customers with 99.999% uptime. This means service may not be available for about six minutes a year.
Security — Call encryption is a newer enhancement to VoIP. Through TLS and SRTP, data exchanged between SIP phones and the cloud PBX are encrypted upon request.
HD call quality — With twice the audio bandwidth, everyone can hear a wider range of sound in every business call.
Enterprise-grade redundancy — Ensure that your calls stay online even through network interruptions using call forwarding, call queues, and automatic fail-over.

Many businesses prefer to use a toll-free phone number instead of a local number to handle inbound phone calls.

Most business phone service providers (Nextiva included) offer different types of phone numbers:

Local phone numbers — These numbers are based in certain geographic areas, also known as rate centers or area codes.
Toll-free numbers — Phone numbers that begin with 800, 888, 866, 877, 855, 844, and 833 allow anyone to call it without toll charges or add-on fees from a landline.
Vanity numbers — These numbers are memorable numbers like 1-800-FLOWERS. In most cases, it's best to purchase first and port them into your business phone system provider.

The upside of using a toll-free number is that team members can dial out with a shared caller ID on behalf of the company. Incoming calls go through an auto attendant to ensure they reach live agents.

Yes, we do both! Nextiva lets you buy or rent many top-rated VoIP phones and headsets that work perfectly with your phone system.

We offer many VoIP devices to purchase or lease, including desk phones, cordless phones, conference phones, and analog adapters.

The best part is that we pre-configure the devices so that you can use them instantly.

Yes, you can direct calls to your after-hours answering service with Nextiva. Incoming calls are routed by a third-party answering service that enables people to work from home with its audio conferencing and VoIP solutions.

Nextiva supports employees working remotely and in the office as one of the top unified communications solutions. Here are some essential features included with its business phone system:

Virtual Phone System — Manage your company’s phone system over the internet while keeping your staff connected. No on-premises hardware needed.
Conference Calling — Connect multiple people over a phone line to participate in a conference call, so you can hold essential meetings even when people are working remotely.
Call Queues — Handle more calls and answer them efficiently with call queuing. Let callers hear on-hold music or announcements until the next available agent can answer their call. This way, calls aren’t dropped and employees can work efficiently.
Video Calling — You don’t need a cell phone or desk phone when you can manage calls directly from the app on your computer.
Advanced Features — As your business grows, so do your business communication needs. Take advantage of robust call analytics, business text messaging, hold music, multi-level auto attendants, call recording, call forwarding, custom caller ID, and more. For more scalability, set up an inbound call center for your customer support or sales team.

Here’s a primer on how VoIP phone service helps small businesses grow.

When you get a small business phone service, you'll want to know a few things about Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). You should be keen on exactly what your VoIP service includes.

You’ll also want to be mindful of the advantages of cloud phone systems for small businesses and enterprises.

Differences between business phone services and business phone systems

While they may sound similar, a small business phone system and a business phone service are actually two different but related aspects of business communications. All companies, small and large, need phone service to communicate with customers, vendors, suppliers, and employees. A business phone system provides a business phone number and helps you stay connected with all the right people through unified communication functionality.

Benefits of VoIP phone service for small businesses

Small business phone service comes full of benefits to allow your business to grow. Switching to a cloud-based phone service can save up to 60% of your phone bill. Traditional phone service is vulnerable to outages, while a business phone service has considerably better uptimes and is resistant to risks like bad weather. Call quality and security both maintain integrity in the eyes of your customers.

When is the best time to upgrade to VoIP service?

Nextiva delivers a VoIP phone service solution designed to provide small businesses with the tools they need to manage their voice communications. It includes the ability to scale through fully integrated business communications that allows you to plug in tools to improve customer management and employee productivity.

The best time to switch to business VoIP is before you buy on-premises telephone equipment, or get locked into lengthy maintenance agreements. Why? VoIP can save businesses over 60% versus their local telephone provider — and you get all the advanced calling features the pros have.

Nextiva’s award-winning VoIP phone system uses the internet rather than analog landlines, making setup turnkey and allowing users to seamlessly switch between desk phones or mobile devices to communicate with each other and with customers.

Nextiva provides small businesses with the ability to increase productivity by making everything available all in one tool, from business SMS to chat and from video conferencing to customer experience tools. The top business phone service for small businesses includes:

Complete phone service that includes mobile and desktop apps, voicemail, toll-free numbers, number porting, and online faxing
More than phone service. Nextiva delivers chat, audio and video meetings, auto-attendant, texts
A highly reliable network that delivers 99.999% uptime through Tier-1 providers with strong failover redundancy
Certified VoIP phone hardware guaranteed to work out of the box
Guided online account setup or live with customer support team member
Amazing Service®️ delivered by real people, not bots.
Scalable features are easy to use, easy to add and work instantly. As your business grows, you can use add-ons to manage your sales pipeline, helpdesk, contact center, call recordings, and auto-attendants