A lot of Virtual Telephone Numbers providers promote virtual telephone numbers as a part of their feature platform. Whilst we all are familiar with telephone numbers and the way they work. Some might not have an idea what actually a virtual phone number is?
Virtual Telephone Numbers
Virtual telephone numbers are just like regular telephone numbers which are not connected to any phone line or device. Formerly, a telephone number was provision to work through a dedicated line and that phone line was connected physically to the telephone company to the destination by wires.
Any incoming calls to that number could be sent only to that particular destination. Furthermore, in the case of business phone numbers, the business would have a telephone hardware system in the workplace to configure call routing rules, voicemail, and extensions etc.
Virtual phone numbers for business remove the physical limitations which were formerly tied down with telephone numbers and it allows businesses to have better flexibility and control in the way they receive calls. When virtual phone numbers are used with a cloud phone system they can be purchased directly from the service provider and can be managed through the admin portal. Virtual phone numbers for business also allows you to set the destination of the number and then modify it in real-time without waiting for the provider to get around the task.
What can businesses do with virtual phone numbers?
With Virtual phone numbers for business, you can unite support or sales departments that are scattered over different states or cities. If your business has multiple office branches, then a virtual phone number can seamlessly unite your scattered workforce. Rather than the incoming calls ringing telephone in just one office, a virtual phone number can have the incoming call ring phones across separate officers.
How? If you have a sales representative in different cities, then you can make the destination of the virtual phone number be a call queue or a ring group. All the incoming calls to that virtual phone number will then ring all your representatives’ phones, who are in the group or queue at the same time or successively. Depending on the ring strategy which you choose or setup, any representative can then answer the call regardless of the location they are in.
Employ a local phone number where you have a lot of clients
If your business has a lot of customers located in different states or cities, then you can let them call you by just by dialling a local phone number. Virtual phone numbers for business can help you in establishing a presence in that area where you are not located whilst also decreasing the cost of all your incoming calls. You just have to buy the virtual phone number from your service provider and set the destination to the phones in your offices, even if your workplace is not in the area which is serviced by the numbers area code.
Enjoy Geographic flexibility and remote working
You can use virtual phone numbers for geography flexibility and remote working. Virtual numbers can be useful if you want to be reachable on your cell phone while you are away from the office. However, if you do not want to reveal your personal number to the whole company, through a virtual phone number you can set your destination to your cell phone then all of the employees can reach you just by dialling that virtual phone number.
Evaluate the performance of marketing, advertising or sales campaign
If you are running sales and Advertising campaigns, then it is important that you evaluate all the overall success and health of these efforts. Instead of funnelling all the calls through the main line of your business, you can allocate a different virtual number to every campaign which you are running. This way you will know whenever a call is coming for a particular campaign just by the phone number they have dialled. For the future, when the campaign is over you can download and review all your businesses reports of past calls to know the exact number of calls that have come through to a specific virtual phone number, it could be one of the data points that will help you in evaluating the success of your efforts.
Increase the reach of your business with the help of a virtual phone number
From uniting your distributed workforce to providing new ways for your business to answer incoming calls a virtual phone number can allow your business to meet the requirements of your employees while remaining available to customers.
