Welcome to Northwest Phone Service!
Here’s a quick-start guide to using your new phone line.
Ready to make some business calls, record a professional voicemail greeting, or send a string of emojis to your friend for no reason? It’s super easy to get started.
- Log into your Northwest client account
- visit the Phones tab
- and use this page as a quick reference if you need it!
Configuring Your Phone Service
Setting up the basics only takes a couple minutes, but you’ll need to make some big decisions about your Phone Service—including which area code you’d like and how you want to receive incoming calls.
You’ll be logged into your client portal as soon as you place your order with us. Here, you’ll be prompted to select a state (we offer numbers in all 50!), tell us your desired area code within that state, and then choose from a variety of available phone numbers.
After you’ve selected your phone number, you’ll see another pop-up window prompting you to enter a name for your phone line. This name is for your reference only—your clients won’t see it on their caller ID. To change the name of your phone line at any point, go to the Phones tab (in the top menu of your desktop app), then click on Settings → Phone Settings.
A final pop-up window will prompt you to enter your call forwarding preferences. You can forward incoming calls to a secondary phone number, which can be any U.S. cell or landline.
Your call forwarding configuration won’t be set in stone—you can easily adjust your preferences by visiting the Phones tab in your account, then clicking on Settings → Phone Settings → Set up inbound calls.
Corporate Phone®, the Northwest Phone Service mobile app, is available for iOS and Android devices. To get started, you’ll need to enable mobile access within your client portal (we recommend using your laptop or desktop computer for this part).
- Log into your Northwest client portal.
- Click Phones → Settings.
- Once in Settings go to Mobile App Access.
- Enable mobile access, then create a mobile username and password.
- Scan the iOS or Android QR Code, and you’ll be taken to the app store.
- Download Corporate Phone® (it’s free!)
- Sign in with your mobile username and password.
- Go to Settings (in the app) and allow notifications.
- Incoming calls and texts to your Northwest line will now pop up on your cell!
Customizing Your Number
On to the fun part—it’s time to customize your VoIP phone line. You can choose a in-browser ringtone, record a voicemail greeting and add a name to your outbound Caller ID. All of these steps are completely optional, so if you’re feeling lazy you can skip this section and come back later.
Want to take calls on your desktop while also jumping between 17 different tabs? No problem—your in-browser ringtone will alert you when a call is coming in. (Just make your client dashboard is open in one of those tabs.)
To choose a ringtone (or change it at any point), go to Settings → Phone Settings → In-browser ringtone.
For maximum anonymity, you can use our pre-recorded voicemail greeting, or go the single-beep route. But if you’re a business owner, you’ll probably want to make a stronger first impression.
To record a professional voicemail greeting for your business, head to the Phones tab in your client account, then click on Settings → Voicemail Settings → Custom Greeting.
Business owners, take note: this feature can help boost your local cred. To add your business name to your outbound Caller ID display (what people will see when you call them), go to Settings → Caller ID Settings → Caller ID. Note that if your business name is over 14 characters, you’ll need to shorten it a bit.
To add your Caller ID settings to the database, we’ll need an address, which you’ll enter right below your business name. But rest easy—we won’t make this address publicly available unless you tell us to (by clicking the ‘Make this address publicly available’ box).
Managing Your Voicemail
Our fully-customizable voicemail feature makes it easy to stay on top of your business (or personal) communications. To set your voicemail preferences, head to the Phones tab in your client account, then click on Settings → Voicemail Settings. Here, you can:
You can select a retention period of 2 weeks, 6 weeks or 6 months. Have a message you want to download and save forever? Or delete immediately? The buttons above the message itself will help you do so.
You can set the maximum length of incoming voicemail messages to 1, 3 or 5 minutes.
You’ll actually adjust this feature under Settings → Phone Settings (as opposed to Voicemail Settings). You can choose between 3, 5 or 6 rings. (Most business owners go with 3).
Our voicemail transcription feature translates every voicemail you receive into instantly-readable text. To test it out, ask a friend to call your new number and leave a message. Then click on Voicemail (in the left hand column under the Phones tab), wait a couple of minutes, and watch the magic unfold.
Have questions we haven’t addressed here? Reach out to our Corporate Guides® by phone or email. We’re more than happy to walk you through the ins and outs of your new Phone Service.
Northwest Phone Service FAQs
Yes! You can add as many phone numbers for your business (or yourself) as you need to, for just $9 per line.
To order an additional number from within your client account, go to the Hire Us tab (in the main menu), select your company name, then click Other Corporate Products & Services → Phone Service – Monthly.
When you make calls with your Phone Service, your clients and business contacts will see an incoming call from the local number you selected when you set up your phone line. If you added a name (or business name) to your Caller ID, they’ll see that too.
But the best part is what they won’t see: your personal number, which will be safely out of view.
Your Phone Service is a monthly subscription, with a price of $9 a month. We use auto-pay and bill the card you have on file with us, but there’s no contract. Should your needs change, you can cancel anytime (more on this below).
Canceling your virtual phone service is simple—just go to the Services tab in your client account, select the phone number you wish to cancel, and click the red Cancel button.