Your client likes to text you. Her attorney prefers e-mail. The loan officer leaves you voicemail and that other agent sends you docs via fax.
The people you’re working with to get the deal closed can contact you in a number of ways, so you need an easy way to check all messages and keep all your communication organized.
That’s where these great applications come in. All of them translate information into text and/or forward it to your email inbox, making it easy for you to receive and organize.
Fax to email applications let you send faxes from your computer or mobile phone and receive them in your email inbox:
- The eFax basic plan lets you receive faxes in your email inbox from a local number (or, for an additional fee, from a toll-free number). The upgrade plan also converts voicemail messages to text and sends them to your inbox. Pricing for the basic plan starts as low as $14.13 per month with a $10 set up fee.
- With myFax, you can receive up to 200 incoming fax pages as email and send up to 100 fax pages for $10 per month with no set-up fee. Choose a local or toll free fax number for the same price. Upgrade plans allow for more pages.
Phone-to-email applications manage and route incoming calls, and convert voicemail, texts, and faxes to e-mail:
- RingCentral virtually manages your phones by answering calls 24/7 and routing them to the requested person, even if that person is not in the office. It can send voicemail, text messages, and faxes to the agent’s email inbox for easy retrieval and storage. It can also give a team or small brokerage a professional feel without the need for a receptionist or expensive phone equipment. The basic plan allows for unlimited phone, fax, and voicemail for one user and starts at $49.99 per month; a plan for four users is $99.99.
- Feature-rich Grasshopper managers your calls and routes faxes and voicemails to your inbox. In addition, it lets you choose your on-hold music, create an extension with additional information for callers, and easily set up conference calls. An upgrade feature can even read your voicemails to you while you’re, say, driving. The basic plans starts at $9.99 per month with a $25 activation fee.
- If you’re willing to use a number assigned to you by Google Voice, you can set it up so that number rings all of your phones, translates your voicemail and text messages to email, reads your voicemail to you, records your phone calls while you’re on the line, and blocks calls you designate by sending them directly to voicemail. And because it’s Google, it’s free, but it does require an invitation and it’s only available in the U.S.
