Are you a small business owner with a confused idea as to what is a virtual phone number? If so, you may make the mistake of thinking it’s a waste of money or something only useful to large corporations.
That’s not the case, however. You can actually get a lot out of your own virtual number, provided you know their multiple functions.
In the following article, we’ll be covering the eight major benefits. First, though, let’s look at the core question of usefulness.
Do You Really Need One?
Whether you really need a virtual phone number depends on your goals and objectives as a business. There are three drivers that can help you determine whether your small business could benefit from taking that step of setting up such a number. They are:
Your Geographic Footprint
Using a team of remote workers will inevitably lead to your company being fragmented into separate locations. This can be confusing to your customers and search engines, as online listings might get confused as to why you’re calling from Georgia when you’re based in New York.
Small business owners rely on more remote workers than ever before. Those workers can be operational in any country. A virtual phone number that’s more connected to the primary areas of operation will keep things uniform and less confusing.
Your Feelings About Mixing Business With Pleasure
We’ll discuss this more in a bit, but for now, it’s worth noting that virtual numbers can easily be routed through a personal smartphone. If you want to keep those callers from knowing your personal information, the virtual setup is a great way to go.
Your Attention to Details
Virtual phone numbers, as you are about to find out, are worth more than just serving as a portal for sending and receiving calls and messages. They create significant amounts of data that can tell you about your customers. You can use that data to build your sales and marketing platforms to new heights.
Now that you know what the main drivers are of getting a virtual phone number, it’s time to look at the reasons you need to stop contemplating it and start doing it. Let’s continue!
1. Make and Receive Calls Professionally
When pondering the question of how do I get a virtual phone number, you might be tempted to get hung up on the sending and receiving calls feature. Yes, this is a great reason to get a virtual number, but it goes beyond simple communications.
Being able to route all numbers through a single entity helps you keep the lines of communication clear for customers and online marketing purposes. So, send and receive away!
2. Send Business Texts
More businesses are embracing texts every day as a means of connecting with their customers. With the sheer amount of smartphone users out there who prefer texting to phone calls, it only makes sense.
Using your virtual number to automate texts can make it easy to send payment reminders (or even offer a way to pay). It also can give your customers the feeling that they are closer to getting the help they need. It’s much preferable to waiting on hold and listening to elevator music anyway!
3. Catch Missed Calls for Your Business
Many prospective customers find themselves asking can I use a virtual number for this-or-that? Voicemail is near the top of the wishlist, and, yes, the answer is you can use your virtual phone number as a voice mailbox strictly for your business. This helps a great deal with the next advantage as well.
4. Keep Personal Time Your Own
A virtual phone number gives you the ability to keep your personal time from becoming tainted. It does this by routing calls and texts to a separate-but-linked number through an application on your smartphone.
You can quiet notifications to your virtual phone number outside of business hours, automatically sending calls to voicemail. This prevents them from interrupting time with family, nights out with friends, and quiet time of your choosing.
5. Avoid More Expensive and Unnecessary Setups
There are other ways of fielding calls and texts that involve staff and contracts, but that becomes much more expensive and unnecessary. You also could keep the equipment and staff on-site yourself, but that’s a waste of money when cloud and automation services can do it for you at a fraction of the cost.
6. Bring Remote Workers and Departments Together
Remote workers and departments within your company can use virtual phone numbers to represent a single source. Instead of calls appearing on customers’ phones from around the country or world, those customers can know instantly that it’s your company calling.
This gives your workers more confidence in their approach towards the caller because they are not having to spend so much time explaining who they are or from where they are operating. It’s a trust, reputation, and branding issue all rolled into one!
7. Go Local in Your Busiest Areas
Every company has an area that is its primary revenue source. A virtual phone number with a local prefix does much to build on the trust of those customers in that specific area. People are just more apt to pick up a local number than one from a region with which they are unfamiliar.
8. Measure Success Rates
Last but definitely not least is the metric component. How do you measure the behaviors and other key data of the people in your ecosystem?
Buying virtual phone numbers to the areas in which you’re doing business will give you a sense of busiest times, main sources of revenue, and unique challenges you may be facing in certain parts of the country or world.
Learning What Is a Virtual Phone Number Offers Your Business More Flexibility
Once you know the answer to the what is a virtual phone number question, you’ll be in a position to put one to work for you. That’s true no matter what the size of your business is: from a single proprietor who outsources to large corporations with thousands of employees.
Best of luck as you pursue the available options. For more business tips and advice, keep it here at Express Digest.
