Posted on 17/10/23 04:39 am
As businesses increasingly opt for remote work, they are rapidly transitioning to virtual phone numbers. For instance, many customer service teams now work from home instead of a centralized office location. To maintain efficient call processing, you can utilize a virtual phone service, also known as a VoIP phone, to direct business calls to each employee's computer or phone.
With a virtual phone system, you can access all the features of traditional landline phones at a much more cost-effective rate, without the need for additional equipment expenses.
In this post, we will delve into how virtual phone systems operate, how to set up a virtual phone system, and why your business can benefit from virtual numbers.
Acquire a virtual phone number in minutes: Obtain a virtual phone number You can obtain a virtual phone number with smspinverify in three straightforward steps:
Now, you have a virtual phone number. If you encounter any issues during the registration process, feel free to reach out to our support team by completing this form.
What exactly is a virtual phone number? A virtual phone number is akin to a regular phone number hosted online, as opposed to being linked to a specific phone or location. It can be used for making business calls, sending texts, and receiving them, all without revealing your personal number.
Virtual phone numbers are an excellent way to safeguard your actual number's privacy while staying connected with your customers. You can also employ them to establish shared numbers, allowing your team to distribute the responsibility for incoming calls. Virtual phone numbers are powered by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, meaning your provider routes phone calls over the internet, as opposed to traditional phone lines. Consequently, VoIP phone systems are more scalable, portable, and affordable than traditional phone systems.
Eleven powerful benefits of obtaining a virtual phone number: Virtual phone numbers offer numerous advantages to businesses that use them. Lower costs, user-friendliness, and innovative features can help you scale your business without being confined to an office.
Let's explore 11 benefits of using virtual phone numbers:
Collaborative Teamwork: Virtual phone numbers facilitate the efficient distribution of incoming calls among your team. After purchasing a local or toll-free number for your business, you can create shared numbers with simultaneous ringing, ensuring that everyone on the number is notified of incoming calls. You can also configure simultaneous ringing or set up a hunt group to determine specific order preferences for receiving incoming calls. This aids callers in obtaining the assistance they require promptly, while helping team members balance their daily call loads.
Cost-Effective Alternative to Landlines: With many small businesses and startups embracing remote work, virtual phone numbers enable you to save money while offering the essential features for managing your business. Small businesses can potentially save thousands of dollars by opting for virtual phone systems over traditional phone services. These savings can be reinvested in more advanced features like call transfers, AI transcriptions, analytics, and reporting (more on these later).
Versatile Work Locations with WiFi: Virtual numbers provide a level of convenience that conventional phone numbers cannot match. Traditional business phone numbers often require team members to be physically present in an office to make calls, limiting the flexibility in hiring talent. In contrast, virtual phone systems use your existing mobile devices and computers for making calls and sending texts. Team members can utilize virtual numbers from any location, whether it's a home office, a field site, or even a beach, to complete their work. To access your phone service, all that's needed is an internet connection along with a mobile app or web/desktop app. While some virtual phone providers offer additional hardware options, these are often proprietary and more of an upsell than a necessity.
Shared Numbers: Anyone with shared access to your business phone number can answer incoming calls and messages as a team. Shared numbers also provide access to a shared inbox, enabling everyone on your team to review all the calls and messages that pass through the platform. This ensures that everyone on your team can quickly gain context and stay on the same page, regardless of their location. To delegate tasks among your teams, team members can utilize internal threads to involve colleagues in the conversation. They can also pose clarifying questions or seek input on complex situations, ensuring better customer experiences.
Enhanced Messaging Functionality: Traditional phone service providers typically offer limited messaging features, if any. With a virtual business phone number, you can leverage modern features to automate your messaging capabilities, reducing the workload for your teams. These features include:
Comprehensive Contact Information: Customers dislike having to repeat themselves during phone conversations. With the assistance of a virtual phone number, you can take detailed notes on each contact and personalize every call. Modern VoIP platforms offer contact management tools that allow you to save contact information with custom properties and contact notes. They also feature tagging systems to prioritize customers with more urgent needs. For instance, if you have a new business contact seeking pricing information, a virtual phone number lets you add and update their personal phone number, sales stage, or follow-up date. You can tag them under a custom property such as 'pricing' to easily prioritize their place in your queue.
AI Summaries and Transcripts: To enhance the efficiency of your business, automating routine tasks is essential, allowing your team to focus on more complex work. This involves the creation of AI summaries and transcripts to help monitor call performance and efficiency. AI call summaries, for instance, provide written summaries of each interaction, enabling you to quickly review conversations at a glance. AI-generated action items can help you identify necessary follow-ups. Additionally, AI call transcripts can make call reviews more efficient, enabling managers to provide personalized coaching to agents in training and other team members.
Performance Analytics: A virtual phone number can help capture and store valuable insights for your business. You'll likely want robust analytics that display the number of calls made, identify unused phone numbers, track call times, and more. You may also require audit logs to monitor where calls are made, as well as data for general record-keeping. With smspinverify, you can track handle times and unique conversations on a daily or weekly basis. You can also identify peak call times during the week, helping you determine which days require additional staff availability.
Business Support: Although rare, issues can arise with virtual phone systems. Fortunately, top providers offer extensive support, including email, text, and phone support, to assist when problems occur. It's surprising how many virtual phone system providers don't offer customer support. Some may not provide any support unless you have a certain number of users on your team. On the other hand, others can assign a dedicated account manager to help set up your account and provide