Heard about virtual telephone providers before? Virtual communication is no longer a thing of the future – the virtual age is now. A virtual telephone provider will promote a virtual phone number, but how do they differ from the phone number we know and use daily? Here is what a virtual telephone number is and how it can help you and your business develop.
What Is a Virtual Telephone Number?
A Virtual telephone number is basically the same as a regular telephone number. They are, however, not connected to a physical cellular device, or telephone line in any way. Gone are the days of having to use a telephone number for an individual, specific device, with a dedicated line of wires. A huge downside of this system was that incoming calls to that number could only be sent to that one particular destination, and in the case of business phone numbers, a business would have to set up hardware that would configure routing rules, voicemail, and extensions, which was time-consuming on both the consumer and business end.
With the introduction of a virtual phone number for a business, the days of endless “let me refer you, please hold” responses are severely cut down. The physical limitations that an old school phone system imposes disappear and businesses are now allowed to have better flexibility and control in the way they process and receive calls.
When virtual phone numbers are used in conjunction with cloud phone systems one can purchase them directly from the cloud service provider. This way everything can be managed through an admin portal. Having a multitude of virtual phone numbers for your business allows you to set and adjust the destination of each number and modify them in real-time without having to wait for your service provider to get around to the task.
How A Virtual Phone Number Benefits Your Business
Link Employees Across States to Streamline Incoming Calls
So what can it do for your business? So much. Does your company have multiple branches scattered around the country? A virtual phone number can Connect Communications Services and unify your business with ease. If you have departments that are across different states or cities, or if your business has multiple office branches, a virtual phone number can bring together your dispersed workforce. Rather than having all incoming calls ringing a phone in just one office, a virtual phone number enables and allows the incoming call to ring the phones across multiple separate offices.
What does this mean? You are able to decide on whether the destination of a virtual phone number will be a call to queue or if it will ring a group. This means that the virtual number will call all of the necessary representatives’ phones, who are either responsible for answering calls placed in the queue or group option. It does this all at the same time or successively – you decide. Depending on which of the call strategies you choose, either queue or group, a representative anywhere, completely regardless of their physical location, can then answer the call and provide assistance to the customer or consumer.
Employ A Local Phone Number Where You Have A Lot Of Clients
If your business headquarters are located in one part of the country, but your biggest customer base has developed elsewhere, you can let your clients call you with a local phone number, making you even more desirable and growing your market further.
Having a virtual phone number for your business can help you establish a presence in an area where you are not located, increasing your market reach and presence across the country, all the while keeping the cost of all your incoming calls to a minimum. You can do this by buying a virtual phone number from your service provider and setting the destination to the phones in your offices. This is a possibility even if your business is not in the area serviced by the numbers area code. This makes it easier and more desirable for people to call you.
Fully Enjoy Geographic Flexibility And Remote Working
As you now know, a virtual phone number means that you don’t have a fixed phone line. This means that you have geographic flexibility, which means that you have the freedom to play around with remote working, something put into the spotlight due to the pandemic.
Virtual numbers are a great tool to implement and can be very useful if you want to be reachable on your cell phone while you are away from the office. This is great if you do not want to share your personal contact details with the entire company and your clients. With the use of a virtual phone number service, you can set a number, separate from your personal number, to be receivable on your cell phone. This way your employees and clients can reach you by dialing a virtual phone number.
Evaluate The Performance of Your Campaigns
If you are running ads and sales campaigns, then you must evaluate the overall success of these campaigns. Instead of funneling all of the calls through the main line of your business, you can assign a different virtual number to every campaign you are running. This makes it much easier to track the popularity of a specific campaign just by looking at the phone numbers that have been dialed.
This way when the campaign is over you are able to download and review all business reports of past calls that have come through a specific virtual number. You could very well find that one of the data points will help you in evaluating the success of your campaigns and what sort to go with in the future.
A virtual number can really help increase and extend the reach of your business. From bringing your scattered workforce together, to providing new ways for you and your business to answer incoming calls, a virtual phone number allows your business to meet the requirements of your employees and to be accessible to your customers.