So, I got a GoogleVoice # for my freelance business, and just put it up on my portfolio. I just got it, so I haven't had to deal with long distance calls yet, but it still costs money, at least with overseas calls, if you call them back using google voice. I put a little discretionary message on my contact page that I can't guarantee returning long distance calls, and especially if they are from outside the US I recommend contacting me via email instead. Long distance calls can just get really expensive. So do you think that's an appropriate way to deal with them? How do you deal with them?
Get a cheaper phone service! I for sure wouldn't do business with a person or company which refused to call me back. It's just a normal cost of doing business. Eat it and be happy you have customers!
Skype. We've been using skype for voice chat when talking to our clients. It's free and it works really great.
I'll look into Skype, but I've heard that's video and audio together, am I correct? Is there something similar that's just audio? I doubt I'll get many long distance calls anyhow, so far I've been focussing just on clients that live within driving range of where I live, but it's certainly possible I could get a few here and there. I also just looked through some of Google Voice's international rates... a lot of them actually aren't bad.
Skype is the best way to talk online anywhere on the world. Its cheap but there are certain countries that prohibited Skype to be utilize just like United Arab Emirates and many others.