Your company needs a phone number, not a phone system.

An auto attendant is the recorded menu that answers a business line and sends the caller where they need to go. It is the "press 1 for sales, press 2 for service" you have heard a thousand times. The industry also calls it an automated attendant, a virtual receptionist or a phone tree.

Traditionally it was a feature buried inside an expensive office phone system. Here you get it on its own: one business number, the menu and your team's own mobiles, for $29 a month.

No. Everyone on your team keeps using the phone already in their pocket, with their normal dialler and their normal mobile plan. Nobody on the team installs anything, logs into anything or charges anything overnight. Calls arrive as ordinary incoming calls.

Yes, and it is the default path. After you sign in, the app asks which number your customers call today, checks it instantly and asks only what that number needs; the one signature is a transfer authorization, signed online. Nothing is charged until the number has moved, and your old line keeps working the whole time, so do not cancel it until we confirm the move. The carriers set the date. For the rules, see porting your existing number.

No. Callers dial your business number and that is the only number involved on their side. Your mobile number is never displayed, never published and never given out. That is the main reason most people buy this: you can put a number on your website, your van and your Google Business Profile without handing your personal line to the entire internet. When a call is forwarded to you, your phone shows the business number, so you know it is a business call.

If a number you already use for the business is being labelled Spam Likely when you call customers, this diagnostic guide explains why and lists the free ways to get it corrected.

The menu has up to seven options and each option can ring up to three phones one after another, each for 10 to 60 seconds: the employee for 20 seconds, then the owner, for example. If nobody answers, the caller leaves a voicemail. You are not billed per person. It never rings several phones at once.

How many people you ring and how many calls can arrive at once are different questions; this worksheet sizes the second one.

You set business hours for each day. Outside them, and all day on the holidays you set, callers hear your closed message, then either leave a voicemail or the call ends after the message. Calls are not forwarded to a mobile after hours. Voicemails arrive in your inbox as a recording, with a written transcript.

Planning night cover for a trade? An on-call plan sets out what it involves. Missed calls and after hours covers what an unanswered call costs and the options for covering one.

No. With an auto attendant your callers reach your own team: the menu routes each call and the right person picks it up on their own mobile, so customers talk to the people who know the work. Auto attendant vs answering service sets out the difference.

Google Voice is two things. The free plan is for personal, consumer use and has no attendant menu. Google Workspace Voice Standard and Premier do include an auto attendant and ring groups, and they are billed per licence on top of a Workspace subscription.

Auto Attendant is built for a team that shares one number and should not pay per person: a menu, ringing the right mobiles, $29 flat. The Google Voice comparison sets the two side by side.

Yes. The service is for businesses in both the United States and Canada, with local numbers by area code across Canada (availability varies), toll-free numbers, and porting of an existing Canadian number. The price is the same $29 a month, billed in US dollars. Serving Canada covers 9-1-1, porting, privacy and billing for Canadian customers.

Yes, and in Spanish too. The greeting and menu can be in English, French and Spanish, up to all three on one line. Callers choose a language first ("For English, press 1. Para español, oprima el 2."), or with a key at the end of the menu (7 Spanish, 8 French, 9 English), and callers from Quebec area codes still start in French. Multilingual menus explains the layout, and you can read this site in French.

One level, with up to seven options. Each option rings up to three phones in turn, takes a voicemail or plays a message, so every caller reaches the right place in a single key press. Most small teams use three or four options.

Thinking about recording calls? The call recording checklist links the consent law for every US state.