As business technology continues to progress, it’s telecoms where many businesses say they are increasingly yielding tangible benefits.
And with an increasing emphasis on all things virtual, it’s no surprise that virtual phone lines are increasingly popular, providing significant advantages to business.
Virtual phone numbers provide a wide range of benefits to allow you to compete more readily.
With the capacity for cost savings, flexibility and improved ways of working, virtual phone numbers are quickly becoming a natural option for businesses of all sizes.
Move beyond fixed location telephony
Traditional fixed wire PBX commercial phone hardware relies on a location-based telephone system, with the inherent costs of equipment and maintenance. This set-up also has limitations on call routing, particularly now that more employees are working from home or multiple locations.
In a sentence, the key benefit of a virtual phone line is that calls are managed across the internet, to any internet device, in any location. Which means that the versatility and range of your telephone system is infinitely greater.
So, a virtual phone line (or cloud-based phone) enables your employees to connect to calls from wherever they are on your premises, in your district, across the UK or even globally.
Reduced call costs
Virtual phones operate across the internet rather than fixed phone lines, so you can step away from national and international call charges. If your business is based on speaking with overseas suppliers, partners or customers, this can prove a major cost benefit.
Versatile call routing
Call re-direction is a key benefit of virtual phone lines but there are additional advantages. A cloud- based telecom platform allows call routing to be managed with ease.
So, when a colleague is away on planned or unplanned leave, their calls can be routed to another member of your team, by the colleague themself, or from a central desk. This helps to ensure that calls are managed personally, rather than defaulting to voicemail.
A virtual phone also allows call routing to reflect your daily operations. For example, out-of-hours call traffic can be programmed to re-direct to a call handling service.
Porting your current number
Your current phone number can be converted to a virtual one using a process known as ‘porting’, which is offered by most providers of virtual numbers.
Unified communications
Cloud-based telephony accelerates your business beyond call routing. Internet technology means that cloud-based telephony can offer multi-party calling, online voicemail, and integration with office data management platforms, including voice-to-email and voice-to-text capabilities. Our blog on Unified Communications provides more detail.
So, there are some clear benefits of a virtual phone line which include moving beyond fixed location telephony; a reduction in call costs; versatile call routing; porting your current number and unified communications.
With these factors in mind, it’s easy to see now a virtual phone number provides a simple affordable means of growing your business, beyond the constrains of a hard-wired phone system.
Speak to an experienced telecoms provider who can help you understand the specific benefits for your business.
If you would like to learn more about virtual phone lines, Time Communications would be happy to talk you through the options available to you. Contact our expert team on 0113 2059640, you can request a callback on our home page, email at [email protected] or message us here.