The newly launched Scotty BusinessLine service is gaining traction in South Africa on the back of “work from home”, with over 2 000 customers signed up since its launch earlier this year. Scotty dramatically reduces costs and addresses the softer issues of employee cellphone call allowances.

Making business calls from your cellphone has always had several drawbacks:

The telephone number shown is not a company number, which can look unprofessional (especially an obvious cellphone number);
The calls are not automatically charged to your company account and require personal reimbursement (either by tax inefficient “cell allowances”, or by admin-intensive manual claim forms); and
Possibly the most important, your company gets no record of the business numbers that are being called on its behalf and using its rands.

The proudly South African-developed Scotty BusinessLine service solves all these problems and more.

The Scotty phone app allows you to choose, in real time, whether to make each call through your Sim card or through your Scotty number, using a choice of two separate dial-out buttons. “SIM” calls go via your Sim as usual, but “Scotty” calls are made from your Scotty phone number and use neither your Sim card’s airtime nor data — instead, they are billed directly to your Scotty (or company) account.

Inbound calls to your Scotty number are automatically identified by the Scotty app and shown as a “Scotty Call” on the inbound call screen so that you can answer with your best “business voice” (a useful feature in today’s work-from-home environment).

The critical differentiator

While on the subject of work from home, the fundamental difference between Scotty and a voice-over-data or VoIP phone system is that Scotty uses real GSM calls to connect you to the other party, using Trabel’s unique, locally developed “seamless callback” technology. This means your Scotty call quality is perfect every time, regardless of what your phone’s data connection may be like, even while you are mobile.

It also means a quick and easy app installation that automatically authenticates against your cellphone number, without the need for any usernames, passwords, or other cumbersome and insecure VoIP security measures. This means literally hundreds of Scotty users can be rolled out in the time it takes them to download and install the Scotty app, with no IT support needed.

Call savings

In addition to all its feature benefits, Scotty is also a compelling financial proposition: The Scotty smartphone app is free, and there are no monthly line rentals or fixed charges for the service at all. Call rates are low (currently 79c/minute including VAT to South African numbers), on pure per-second billing with no call setup, minimum or hidden charges, and Scotty airtime credit never expires.

For larger accounts, the administrator can set monthly call limits for each user, restrict time-of-day use of the Scotty lines (for both inbound and outbound calls), and even upload the company name and logo to display on the app.

New customers can sign up online at www.scottyapp.mobi, and their Scotty service will immediately be active and working. All account and user administration can be done online and is in real time.

With large parts of South Africa still working from home for the foreseeable future, Scotty BusinessLine offers a fresh new approach to providing remote voice connectivity to employees that does not depend on decent data connectivity or on staff having airtime of their own in hand, and solves all the existing drawbacks of making business calls on cellphones.

About Trabel (Pty) Ltd and Scotty BusinessLine:
Trabel (Pty) Ltd is a South African technology development company founded in 2019 and based primarily in Cape Town. Scotty BusinessLine is a telecommunications product of Trabel, fronted by an Android smartphone app. More information can be found at www.scottyapp.mobi.