Pick your team’s number

The first time you sign in with a new team, Soja walks you through setup at app.sojabean.com/setup: name your team, pick its number, name the number and say who’s calling, then start. The number is your team’s: customers call and text it, and everyone answers from it.

Name your team

1. Under Business name, type your business’s name. Everyone you invite works in it, and it’s the name your calls can show.
2. Choose Continue.

Pick your number

Choose Local for a number in your customers’ area code, which looks like a neighbour calling, or Toll-free for one number for the whole country, free for customers to call.

• Area code. Type a code, a city or a state or province, and pick from the list. The flag before it switches between the United States and Canada. Under the field, Near you offers the area codes around where you seem to be: pick one to use it. Use my location asks your browser for your position to find the closest codes, and the position stays on your device.
• Starts with. For a toll-free number, choose a prefix (800, 833, 844, 855, 866, 877 or 888) or Any.
• Digits or a word (optional). Narrow the search to numbers that have, start with or end with some digits or a word, such as 00, 2024 or BEAN. Letters count as the keys they sit on, so BEAN dials as 2326, and a number that has the word shows it: (628) 234-BEAN.

The numbers found come in two groups. Easiest to remember, marked Picked by Soja, are the few customers will keep in their heads, each with the reason under it, such as ending in a round number or saying the area code twice. More numbers lists the rest, ten at a time, with Show more, each with where it rings from. Pick one and choose Continue.

If none is free in that area code, setup shows numbers from nearby area codes and says so.

Ask Soja

Ask Soja, at the bottom right, opens a chat. Tell Soja who your customers are and where, or what you’d like the number to say, and it looks up area codes and numbers, fills the form in as you watch, and picks when you ask. What it did shows under its reply, such as Searched 512 · Austin, TX and Picked (512) 555-0100, and the part of the form it touched lights up for a moment. It only ever picks a number that is for sale. If you close the chat while Soja is still answering, the reply waits beside the key until you open it again.

Name it, and say who’s calling

1. Under Name, call the line what your team will see. Main line, Sales, Support, Front desk and Billing are there to pick.
2. Under Business caller ID, put up to 15 letters, numbers and spaces: what customers’ phones show when you call. It’s included free with every local number. Carriers pick it up within three days, and most landlines and many mobiles show it. A toll-free number can’t carry one, so calls from it show the number alone.
3. Choose Continue.

Start

The last step sums up the number, its name and its caller ID. Choose Start free trial: Stripe’s checkout opens, takes a card for when the free days end, and brings you back, and the number is yours as soon as the trial starts. The first 14 days are free, and if you cancel before they end, you pay nothing. A team whose plan already covers it chooses Get this number instead. If the number went to someone else meanwhile, setup says it couldn’t be bought and you pick another: your trial isn’t affected.