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The road to profitability for small businesses is rarely straightforward, and yet you can build toward sustainable growth if you take a customer-first approach to communication. This is where a virtual phone number has a lot to offer.
So what is it about virtual phone numbers which makes a difference to ambitious companies?
Automatic forwarding ensures no calls go unanswered
If you want to keep customers on-site and convert prospects efficiently, you have to answer the calls that are made to your business.
With a virtual number, you can have inbound calls forwarded to whatever device or location you please, rather than a single landline connection being the endpoint.
So whether you’re working from home, on the move with your mobile, or you need to distribute calls to team members in different parts of the country or the world, a virtual phone number makes this a breeze and feeds into the value of phone calls for businesses.
Costs are kept to a minimum
You don’t need to pay through the nose to set up a virtual phone number for your business. Most services of this kind tend to be subscription-based, so you don’t even need to splash out on new hardware to get it set up, which is doubly important for cash-strapped startups.
You can also make it cheaper or even free for customers to get in touch, depending on the package you pick. This will encourage more people to call you because it won’t put a financial burden on them, which in turn reflects positively on your brand.
A local phone number helps build trust with customers
When you sign up for a local number, you’re signaling to customers in a particular geographic area that you’re a trusted business that knows all about their unique needs.
Rather than being a company that hides behind a generic, non-geographic dialing code or worse still has a geographic number that’s based elsewhere, you’ll come across as a friendly and approachable brand with a local number.
This will get you over the initial hurdle of winning customer trust. Without this, you’ll struggle to attract newcomers who aren’t familiar with your business.
Extensive capabilities for handling customer calls are available
It’s not just automatic forwarding and seamless redirecting that applies when you’ve got a virtual phone number. By taking telephony into the digital realm, a whole heap of other features and functions become available.
For instance, many providers offer business users the ability to transcribe voicemail messages left by callers and have these integrated with your CRM.
You can even create call logs and capture data on every phone conversation that takes place so that you can measure performance, improve customer service quality and troubleshoot imperfect business processes.
Professionalism is conveyed
You won’t bring customers into the fold if you can’t demonstrate that your small business is a highly professional operator.
Having a virtual phone number that’s separate from any personal number you might also be using is a good way of going about this.
Too many small business owners don’t make this all-important separation and pay the price. So much of growing a brand and making money is about ensuring you’re perceived in the right way, even if it’s more of an aspirational stance than a reflection of the reality of your position right now.
Conclusion
You’d be surprised by just how many businesses are already using virtual phone numbers, so this is not some niche service, but rather the established norm. Now’s the time to take advantage of all that virtual phone numbers have to offer, creating new opportunities for your company to grow as a result.
