A bigger percentage of small business owners do not have a separate phone number for their businesses. They use their personal phone numbers when running their business operations.
Some limitations with this might include receiving texts from strangers, late-night calls, and not being able to differentiate personal calls from business ones, among others.
Fortunately, business owners can now get separate phone numbers for their businesses without any problems. In this article, we will discuss reasons why having a separate work phone number is important. But before then, how do you get a second phone number?
How To Get a Second Phone Number
There are different ways through which you can get a second phone number. Depending on your requirements, you can choose from the available options such as OpenPhone, Google Voice, Burner App, and TextMe among others.
To get started, read this guide to learn how to get a second phone number for your business. This will be important in helping your business grow and separating your personal interactions from those of your business.
Importance of Having a Separate Work Phone Number
Gives You Control Over Your Personal Life
If you are using the same phone number for private and business interactions, there is no way you can be able to turn one of them off. If you turn your business phone number off, then the private one will also be off.
During holidays and over the weekends, you might find yourself in a situation where you do not want to answer business calls but want to talk with your friends. You cannot do this without a separate work phone number.
It allows you to run a business and also have a life by setting timelines when you can interact with your customers. In addition, your customers would appreciate knowing when to call you compared to having to call anytime and getting no response.
Differentiating Personal and Business Calls
Using the same phone number for your personal life and business makes it difficult for you to differentiate personal from business calls. For instance, you might find it difficult to differentiate a call from a potential customer from that of your child’s school.
In such a case, it gets challenging to respond to the call or even decide whether to respond or not. If you are at a noisy restaurant, you do not want to receive a call from your customer. You can, however, receive one from your friend.
Having a separate work phone number eliminates these challenges. You can even answer business calls with your business name. For example, “Thank you for calling XYZ Holdings. My name is Michael, how are you?”
Shows How Professional a Business Operates
When meeting a customer for the first time, whether via a phone or physically, the first few seconds are very important and can be one of the reasons why some businesses fail while others succeed.
This is because they dictate the kind of impression you are going to show. Your voicemail and phone greeting need to be professional when a customer calls you.
What would you do if you called a business whose voicemail inbox is full or does not exist? Chances are that you would not be interested in the services of such a business anymore.
With a separate work phone number, you can configure a customized voicemail message that tells your customers what to do next if you are not available. You do not need to do this with your personal phone number.
Allows You to Forward Calls to Multiple People Simultaneously
Call forwarding is important for growing and big businesses that receive many calls from their customers. Such businesses do not have to list different phone numbers on their websites or social media pages.
With a separate work phone number, businesses can easily forward calls to different team members. This ensures that customers do not stay on the line for long before their calls are answered.
Sometimes, you might not be available for work but your business remains operational. Other times, you might be overwhelmed by the number of calls and messages you are getting from your customers.
When that happens, you cannot share your phone with a team member since they will also be receiving your personal calls. If you decide to forward the calls, you will also be forwarding personal calls.
Having a separate work phone number allows you to share responsibility with other team members when you are not available. This is important for business continuity.
Get a Work Phone Number Immediately
In conclusion, it is important to get a separate work phone as early as possible. This is because it gets more difficult to switch when your business has already grown. Having given your personal phone number out and used it for business, it will no longer be your personal phone number but a business one.
