It may seem like a good starting point but using a mobile number for your small business but can be detrimental to your brand and relations with prospective callers. A study revealed that 85% of small business owners use mobile phones for business-related tasks regularly. As your business grows over the years you’ll soon start to feel the pain and limitations.
What is a Dedicated Business Phone Number?
A dedicated business phone number is an exclusive business phone number that separates business calls from personal calls. With a dedicated number, you encourage growth for your business by allowing professional calls without worrying about mixing personal updates. Unlike personal phone numbers, dedicated business phone numbers come with features such as call forwarding, voicemail to email services and other services to help make call management easier.
How to Get a Business Phone Number?
Business phone numbers have become easier and cheaper to obtain with VoIP phones, otherwise known as digital phone systems.
Pick the Right Type of Number
Depending on your audience, you can get a local, national or even an international number. If your business is focused on a community, a local number is a great choice.
Choosing a Provider
Find a trustworthy business phone provider with digital or cloud-based options. Call routing, mobile applications, voicemail and scalability are all important features.
Choose the Right Plan and Features
Find a plan that works best for you. Call forwarding, business hours and team access are examples of features that many providers include in their flexible bundles.
Configure Your System
After signing up, you can, in mere minutes, customise your phone number, business hours, voicemail greetings and team assignments.
Begin Call Flexibility
Managing business phone calls with most of the latest systems can be done via mobile device, laptop or desk phone.
Here’s Why It’s Time To Keep Your Personal and Business Numbers Separate and Move Away From Mobile Phone Use Altogether.
1. Keep Personal Calls, Well, Personal!
Providing business cards to potential prospects with your mobile number on them isn’t professional when networking. It’s important to be able to differentiate personal from professional in order to keep matters separate. Going further, most people wouldn’t want to call a mobile number when wanting to deal with business matters, a landline number is much better suited.
In fact, many customers feel more confident calling a dedicated business number rather than a personal mobile. A landline or virtual business number instantly builds trust and credibility.
2. Maintain Consistent Business Hours
Keeping a dedicated business phone number will allow you to easily maintain business hours. This telephone line will then become a number solely for business use, using a personal mobile number doesn’t allow the same structure and it can be a hassle to also answer personal calls in between.
Using a digital phone line, out-of-hour calls will be greeted with a personal message allowing them to leave their contact details.
3. Call Screening
Having a separate business number allows you to easily screen work calls rather than answering on your personal phone. Allowing you more time to decide what to do and how to treat the call. A designated line solely for business use is great for dealing with enquiries efficiently and you’ll know it’s a business call so you can treat it with more professionalism and care.
4. Forward Calls To Multiple People
As your business grows the need for calls to be monitored more closely grows with it. A separate business phone number will allow you the opportunity to forward calls you cannot currently take to ensure calls are taken. A shared business line comes with a digital phone line, allowing a representative of your business to handle the query and reduce the risk of customer dissatisfaction.
5. Keep Your Brand Consistent
Consistency is important to the future of your small business. A personal mobile line doesn’t afford that and it can get pretty confusing trying to work out which call is personal and which is a legitimate business enquiry. A separate business line can be shared with other staff members ensuring that every person who has a work phone number is operating under the same number.
6. Consumer Trust
Having a personal mobile number to deal with business matters can have customers questioning the legitimacy of your business. 44% of consumers will prefer to call a landline number rather than a mobile when visiting a website. A business phone line adds credibility to your business and gives a more professional look when dealing with the people who matter to your business.
Furthermore, a local number can also help get consumers to reach out to your services making it cheaper on both ends.
7. The Flexibility To Work From Anywhere
A separate digital business line allows you to work from anywhere. Whether in the office or at home with a handy mobile app that allows you to take calls or forward them to voicemail. This is key when an emergency comes up and you can handle calls with ease without losing customers or risking poor customer service.
8. Have a Personal and Work Phone Number On The Same Phone
A digital phone line allows you to have your personal and work phone number in the same place. Unlimited calling and chat messaging on your smartphone eliminate the need to carry multiple devices or get attached to a fixed location. A handy mobile app has every you need to continue business as usual and opens up further to more remote working capabilities.
Final Thoughts
A switch to a digital business phone line is the perfect solution for moving away from a personal number. Digital phone lines are built to protect personal data, promote work-life balance and improve caller the customer journey.
Build a professional front and customer rapport with a cloud phone that’s accessible anywhere with 50+ features to enhance customer journeys. For a free bOnline phone demo speak to an expert on 0203 697 4166.
