Eccentric financial guru George Samuel Clason once described opportunity as a "haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared." This certainly holds true for California-based real estate agents like Roger Flowers, where a missed call can mean a missed sale.

Similarly, opportunity can go knocking elsewhere when, say, a routine phone call for basic listing information can tie Flowers down when he could be closing a deal.

A six-year veteran of Century 21, who runs "about 90 percent" of his brokerage out of his home, Flowers felt that his legacy voice-mail system fell short of his clients' needs.

"I wasn't available all the time to route the calls to where they wanted to go or answer the questions that needed to be answered," he says. "I only had voice mail, and it didn't have any features at all. It was outdated. I base my business on being tech savvy, and just having plain VM didn't do."

Flowers and a growing number of other Realtors at Coldwell Banker and Century 21 have turned to RingCentral (www.ring central.com), a software firm based in San Mateo, Calif., that provides on-demand telecommunications services to small businesses and mobile executives.

"Connecting with buyers and sellers is at the core of my business," says Flowers. "But before RingCentral Online, I relied on voice mail for most communications. Now I am able to more effectively manage calls and connect with my most important clients at any time, from any location-all through one local number."

Flowers wanted something to route calls to him while he was in the field, or to have those calls go to an assistant to answer basic questions. Last August, he chose RingCentral Online. Through the online account, real-estate agents can configure their service, forwarding calls to multiple phones in their home, office, or cell and setting up greetings and recorded audio tours with property information.

Through an intuitive interface, Realtors can configure and manage their own virtual PBX, including phone extensions, a dial-by-name directory, call forwarding, call screening, and voice mail. All plans also include Internet fax, free fax-editing software, Microsoft Office integration, a real-time call management tool, and more.

Flowers has configured the service so that he can be reached every day when real estate is active, even on the weekends. The strongest advantage is pushing information and communication to wherever Flowers happens to be. This flexibility has already come in handy.

"A situation came up-I was attending to an out-of-state family emergency and because of the find-me/follow-me feature, my customer was able to find me, and we were able to close the deal as a result," says Flowers.

Realtors can also allow customers to call directly from the Web site, view a log of calls for sales leads, send and receive faxes, and receive message alerts. Currently, 25,000 customers use RingCentral's inexpensive hosted phone system to unify landline, wireless, VoIP, fax, and e-mail communications. "There are rules set up, but VIP clients can bypass the rules," he says. "Advanced features like the click-to-call RingMe capability encourage prospective clients to make that first call, and the ability to set up and manage audio property tours saves me valuable time."

Call logs provide busy mobile professionals advanced sorting capabilities that allow them to filter according to date, call type, and caller ID. RingCentral's RingMe is an embedded click-tocall button that subscribers can put on their Web site or in an e-mail signature. This service allows online visitors worldwide to initiate a toll-free call by clicking on a link.

Flowers is able to project a more corporate image through his East Coast virtual assistant.

"She uses the service to transfer phone calls because she can't deal with real-estate specific questions," he says. "She can press number one and transfer the call directly to me. This gives the impression that we are in the same place to customers and prospective real-estate clients."

Flowers feels liberated because he doesn't have to answer every call, and he doesn't have to give information about every listing on every call. He has hired voice talent to describe house listings and other things clients want to know. Flowers credits RingCentral and his hired voice talent with increasing the professionalism of his brokerage.

"If they need a document, it goes straight to my assistant," Flowers says. "Also, if a call comes to me, I can press number two and it goes to my assistant, and I don't have to deal with it while I'm driving." V

Greg Tally can be reached at gtally@vonmag.com.