Every business in the world is looking to optimize its business dealings. It doesn’t matter which industry you belong to; a business relies on effective communication to be efficient. Running a business in today’s world isn’t like it used to be in the past. Where in the past, you could get away with a lot of things, right now, you have to use all the technology available to stay one step ahead of your competitors. As businesses are always looking for improvement, I am going to provide you with a guide to virtual phones for small businesses.
The internet has brought about many changes in how a business works. It does more than just a source to do Google searches, use social media, and read articles. The internet has also enabled the use of virtual phones, which give more features than any landline could ever provide.
One of the main advantages these phone systems offer is that they enable virtual call forwarding, allowing incoming calls to be redirected to a phone number of your choosing. EasyRinger mentions that phone number forwarding is useful for both individuals and businesses that want to receive calls to both an existing phone number and an additional local number. They also enable users to receive calls and make calls anywhere while giving your small business a strong local presence.
Because of its many benefits, getting a virtual phone system is a must for small businesses. Before diving deep into the world of virtual phones, let’s look at what they actually are.
What is a Virtual Phone System?
Just like the name suggests, a virtual phone system is a communication tool used to handle all your phone calls via a virtual system, i.e., the internet. It is quite different from virtual phone systems as you don’t need the traditional desk phones, wires, and cables, which changes your entire working structure.
Let me give you a brief review for laymen who have no idea how it works. Callers call your toll-free number and are greeted with a custom greeting message. If someone picks up the call, well, and if the call doesn’t get picked up, it goes to another extension where you have an employee.
Calls can also go to voicemail if you have enabled the feature, and these voicemails get emailed to you. Pretty simple, huh? However, the best thing about such systems is that there is no limit to how many features you can get, as you can enhance the system to do different things on demand.
What Features Can You Get?
A virtual phone system is all about the extra benefits that it provides. You can choose between a standard package like voicemails to your emails, call transfers, call logs, call screening, call forwarding, address book, local numbers, user extensions, toll-free numbers, automated transcripts, caller ID, business SMS, menus, etc.
You can also get some premium features like call recording, where you can check on the calls that take place between the customers and your clients so that you can review employee performance and ensure that everything is done as you want it to, have a live receptionist so that you can focus your manpower elsewhere, and get a customs number for your business so that it is unique from the rest of your competitors. A virtual phone system provides you with different ways to improve efficiency in your company.
Getting Started
Now that you know what a virtual phone system is and what different features you can get let me tell you how you can get one for your business. The process is rather simple and different from getting a traditional phone system, as you don’t have to wait for someone to come over and install it.
The first thing that you need to do is research a little bit and find a local and toll-free number for your business. All your calls will go through this number, so you need to be very careful when choosing this number. You can also get an international number for your business if you want to target a diverse community.
If you already have a number for your business, you don’t need to worry, as with the help of number porting; you can get it shifted to the new system without any trouble. You can also get multiple numbers for one system, so keep that in mind.
When you have decided on everything, you can get everything done virtually. You can acquire these services and update them so that you aren’t stuck with the same features. If you already have some phones, you can use this service on them; if not, you can also use these services with the help of mobile phones or an app.
If you are using cell phones as your virtual system, you can customize everything, like deciding where you want the call to go and a certain schedule where no one disturbs you. You can also make your personal calls go to your voicemail during business hours and vice versa. The best thing about the virtual system is that, depending on the company you go for, you can get customer support 24/7 so there is no downtime.
