Need to expand access to your business globally or locally?
Virtual numbers are a special type of phone number. Because they are “virtual,” these numbers can ring to any phone that you choose worldwide.
They do not need to be installed at your office or permanently associated with a local or mobile phone number. In fact, you can change a virtual number’s ring-to-number as often as you’d like – in real-time.
This flexibility makes virtual numbers extremely portable and beneficial to businesses. Here are five ways (of many) that you can use virtual numbers in your business.
1. Use virtual numbers to test advertising
As you know, advertising is expensive. It is imperative to find out which ads work and which ones don’t. One way to do this is to use a unique virtual phone number with each advertisement. From there, you can look at each number’s activities to see which advertisements are resulting in actual phone calls.
In addition to looking at the total number of calls each advertisement generates, consider the duration of the calls. Six-second calls, for example, are likely hang-ups whereas five-minute calls may indicate a closed sale.
While your phone records can provide robust insights into the performance of each ad, it’s also wise to have your customer service representatives source each sale. With some services, it’s possible to set up incoming calls from virtual numbers to display the virtual number in the caller ID field.
2. Use virtual numbers to create a local presence in a distant city or country
If your business is physically located in Miami, Florida, it makes sense to have a local number as well as a toll-free number for your business. Callers from other cities and states would most likely opt to use your toll-free number when calling your main office. However, what if you specifically serve cities outside of Miami such as Orlando, Florida, or Los Angeles, California? You could get virtual numbers for those cities and then route the calls to your Miami office. By establishing local phone numbers in the cities that you serve, your business instantly appears to be a local company. This strategy can be applied internationally as well. Simply order international virtual numbers and use global call forwarding to route those calls to your main office.
3. Use virtual numbers to ensure you never lose your “main” number due to an office move
Publishing your main office number allows local callers to call your business directly. Many business owners prefer that local callers use their main number instead of their toll-free numbers due to costs. However, if you have to move your office, you could lose your main phone number. When that happens, you will have to either re-do all of your advertising, stationary, business cards and invoices so that they have your new phone number or pay the phone company the going rate to forward your calls to your new number. By using virtual numbers from the beginning, you can keep your “main” number regardless of where your office is located. In fact, you can switch your main office on the fly if so desired. For example, if you want to work from home one day and then work from the office the next, you could instantly switch the ring-to number to ring to your physical location.
4. Use virtual numbers to receive calls on your mobile phone while keeping your mobile phone number private.
If you need to be accessible occasionally but hesitate to give out your cell phone number due to concerns about people calling your cell phone 24/7, consider using a virtual number. When you need to accept calls on the go, you could route the virtual number to your mobile phone without having to give out your private phone number. This is a great way to ensure availability when it’s warranted without being subjected to intrusive calls on your cell phone when it’s not. When you are not on a call or when you want to have uninterrupted family time, you can route your virtual number to your assistant, voicemail, an answering service, or some other alternative.
5. Use virtual numbers to control international calling costs.
Since you can change the virtual number’s destination number to any phone number in the world, consider using your virtual number when making an international phone call. Of course, you’ll want to compare per-minute rates to ensure that using your virtual number is the cheaper option. In many cases, it will be, especially if you have an international virtual number plan with low per-minute rates. When the time comes to make the international call, simply change the ring-to number to the number of the person you need to call. From there, dial your virtual phone number. After the call, make sure to change the ring-to number back to your regular ring-to number or voicemail.
These are but a few of the many ways you can use call-forwarding virtual phone numbers for your business. Test advertising,
Here’s a UK virtual phone number database that displays all UK virtual phone number choices. You could use this to view available UK phone numbers if, for example, you wanted to create a UK phone presence for your business and take those UK calls at your phone located anywhere globally.
