How to Get a Virtual Number in India and Divert the Calls to the US

Businesses and individuals alike with interests in both India and USA can benefit from getting a virtual number in India and diverting calls to the US.

India to US Call DivertIndia is an attractive market for many companies in the United States. Not only does it have a huge population and emerging marketplace, English is one of the two official languages spoken in India.

Thus, communicating with partners, suppliers, trade officials, or customers in India is much easier for American business people. It’s even easier thanks to the availability of virtual numbers local to India. The telephone calls made using a virtual number can then be diverted to an office or call center in the United States.

Here’s how to take advantage of this convenient and affordable service.

 

Get a virtual number for India. First, you’ll need to obtain the virtual phone number itself. Toll free virtual numbers for India are available and work in much the same way that they do in the United States. That is, callers are not charged for their calls.

Use the drop-down list to select India from the list of available countries. You’ll be presented with a list of available toll free numbers that start with the prefix 080010.  Browse the list to see if any of the numbers are especially memorable or meaningful and choose the one you like best.

Enter the destination phone number. Since you will be diverting your India phone calls to the US, choose United States as the destination country followed by the phone number where you intend to receive the phone calls.

Note: you can change your destination phone number as needed, which will be discussed in further detail below.

Choose your plan. At this point, you’ll need to choose either a trial plan or an India call divert plan with a monthly allotment of minutes. There are a variety of plans to fit virtually any budget along with some helpful optional features.

Complete the form. Follow the prompts to enter your contact and payment information, view and agree to the terms of service, and complete the transaction. Upon activation, your contacts in India will be able to dial a local or toll free number that will then be diverted to your designated phone in the US.

Advanced India to US Call Forwarding Techniques

As you can see, getting a virtual number in India and diverting calls to USA is a simple process where you can begin receiving phone calls quickly and easily. Advanced features provide even more flexibility should you need it such as:

  • Voicemail — Time differences between USA and India mean that many calls will come in after hours. Voicemail is one way to handle this problem.
  • Time of day routing — Another option is to set up time of day routing so that calls from India are handled a specific way based on the current time. For example, you configure an alternate destination number (such as an answering service) to receive calls that come in after 6:00pm and before 7:00am local time.
  • Interactive Voice Response — Depending on the size and type of business you run, it might make sense to take advantage of the virtual number’s interactive voice response (IVR) system. This provides the caller with a PBX-like experience such as “Press 1 for sales, 2 for technical support.”
  • Local ring tones — Ring tones vary from one country to the next and can be disorienting to callers accustomed to hearing a certain sound when using the phone.  You’ll need to go into your account’s control panel to configure the India virtual number with the ringtone for India. It’s a simple step that can help put callers at ease.
  • Simultaneous ringing and/or sequential forwarding — These two features are helpful in making sure that calls are not missed. With simultaneous ringing, you can configure two or more destinations numbers to ring at the same time. Sequential forwarding involves routing incoming calls through a sequence of destination numbers. For example, if the first number doesn’t answer within a certain number of rings, the call will be forwarded to the next number in the sequence. If that number goes unanswered for a certain number of rings, the call will be forwarded once again.
  • Changing the destination number as needed — One of the most flexible features of a virtual number is the ability to change the destination phone number as needed. For example, you may want your virtual number in India  to ring to your main US phone number most of the time. However, severe weather or a staffing shortage may disrupt operations temporarily. Instead of relying on voicemail, you could change the destination number and have one of your other offices or a third-party call center handle those calls.

Businesses and individuals alike with interests in both India and USA can benefit from getting a virtual number in India and diverting calls to the US.

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