More businesses than ever are using virtual numbers, as they offer a multitude of advantages to the businesses that use them. A virtual number is a telephone number without a fixed telephone line, so it’s a flexible solution that can be of use to any business big or small.

Here are the 5 main advantages of virtual numbers:

• Greater flexibility
• An essential part of a business continuity plan
• Helps establish a presence in any location
• Direct calls to wherever you’re situated
• Detailed stats making them excellent for marketing campaigns

Our handy infographic below explains each of these advantages a bit more. Virtual numbers can be a great asset and tool for any business. Best of all, they don’t cost very much, starting at only £5 per month! If you’d like to speak to us about sorting out virtual numbers for your business, please contact us today.

5 Big Advantages of Virtual Numbers

Virtual numbers can be an asset for a business of any size. Virtual numbers are advantageous to the businesses that use them in numerous ways – such as these big advantages:

• Greater flexibility
• An essential part of a business continuity plan
• Helps establish a presence in any location
• Direct calls to wherever you’re situated
• Detailed stats making them excellent for marketing campaigns

Greater Flexibility

Virtual numbers are a flexible solution when compared with fixed numbers, such as mobile numbers. Using virtual numbers, your number is no longer tied to a certain device or office. Instead, you can point calls anywhere you like.

Virtual numbers are usually managed through a portal accessible to your business. You can go in and change a range of settings for the number, including where calls are directed to.

Changing these settings takes literally seconds, so you can divert your calls in no time at all. If you’re leaving the office for a while and need to point the calls to your mobile, it’s a quick 10-second change and then all calls to that virtual number will come through to your mobile phone.

This flexibility is essential for a lot of small businesses in particular. For example, if you’re popping out for a meeting and leaving the office empty, you risk missing calls. With a virtual number, you can simply point all calls to your mobile phone.

Essential Part of a Business Continuity Plan

Business continuity planning is vital. You never know when the worst could happen, from natural disasters to technology failures. You must ensure your business can continue operating no matter what hits you, and virtual numbers can help with that.

There’s a lot more to a business continuity plan than ensuring you can still receive calls, but the ability to take calls is essential for many businesses.

Calls to virtual numbers can be directed to any fixed number, whether that’s the number of another office or a mobile phone. Furthermore, most providers allow you to point calls to numerous numbers. If one person/office is unable to answer the phone, this allows you to ensure the call isn’t missed.

With virtual numbers, you know you don’t lose the ability to receive calls, regardless of what happens. If you have separate providers for your telephone system and your virtual numbers, you could feasibly continue to receive calls even if something went wrong with your telephone system.

Helps Establish A Presence in Any Location

With virtual numbers, you can establish a presence in any location without having an actual physical presence there.

You can get virtual geographic numbers, so you can give the impression that you have an office in any location without actually having an office there. For example, you could have virtual numbers for Manchester and Sheffield, but point the calls to your Glasgow office.

This is a great way of making your business appear larger than it is while taking advantage of business leaders’ inclination to call local businesses.

Direct Calls to Wherever You’re Situated

No matter where you are situated, you can receive calls if you are using a virtual number. As long as a fixed number is accessible to you – such as a mobile phone number – you can point all calls to it and operate no matter where you are in the world.

If you work for yourself and you decide you want to work at home for the day, just point calls to your mobile. Similarly, if you can’t make it into the office for whatever reason, point calls to your mobile.

Wherever you are situated, you can point calls to that location. You’ll never miss an important call again while retaining the flexibility of working wherever you want to.

Detailed Stats, Making Them Excellent for Marketing Campaigns

You get a ton of statistics with virtual numbers, which makes them ideal for marketing campaigns. Some of the statistics you get include:

• Number of calls
• Call time
• Calls answered

The best statistic – in terms of marketing – is the number of calls. If you’re creating marketing campaigns with phone numbers on them, the number of calls is going to be a good determiner of whether or not the campaign is producing results.

You can use virtual numbers as part of A/B testing, for example, so you can determine which of two marketing campaigns is most effective.

The statistics are also handy for other purposes. For example, you can use them to determine which team members are operating most effectively by seeing who is answering the most phone calls.