NEW PHONE SERVICE

In recent years the choice of telecoms products and services has grown significantly, and trying to decipher which product or service fits your needs the best can be confusing and time consuming.

Here are some important questions you should ask yourself before purchasing

Do I work from a fixed location or remotely or both?

Do I want to attract local business or national business?

Do I want my clients to call me or email me?

Do I use an iOS or Android smartphone?

Can I get access to a broadband that is suitable to make VOIP calls

Do I need to distribute calls to staff remotely?

Do I want customers to perceive my company as bigger than it actually is?

Do I want to be able to retain my local business number if I move area?

Ok so let’s look at the first question. Basically if you work remotely you probably want to avoid installing & renting a fixed phone line. There are a number of reasons for this.   The general objection for small business owners is the cost of installing and managing a physical line into a bricks and mortar premises, particularly if you are growing and may need to move. If you don’t have a phone system that can handle call diverts and you want to divert the calls to another location such as your mobile you will need to do this at site every time you leave the office, which can become tedious.  Fixed line operators may also charge a higher call rate for diverted calls as opposed to outbound dialling to a mobile.  BT charge for diverted calls from a fixed line whereas most Hosted & Inbound virtual number suppliers will probably include diverted calls as part of their rental fee.

So what are the alternatives to a fixed line?

Anything that’s virtual, either a virtual number or Hosted number, often described as cloud based are a future proof flexible option and you can often get the number connected within a day or two, always useful if business cards need printing.  To attract businesses who divert to mobile Virtual number operators tend to include an allowance of calls to landlines and mobiles within the rental charge, however it’s best to shop around to see what fits you best.  Don’t forget to review the service provider and be sure you can port the number to another provider. This ensures if you have any issues with the current provider you can move your number to another supplier, in the same way you can move your 07 number to an alternative mobile provider.

One of the major benefits of a cloud based number is the ability to choose any UK area code no matter your businesses geographic location. So if you are based in Brighton and want to attract business from London you can use a virtual London 0207, 0208 or 0203 number targeted to your mobile or landline or you could even answer the call via a iOS or Android softphone APP.  We’ll cover smartphone apps further down this article.  If you prefer a non-geographic number to market to the whole of the UK you could opt for a mobile and landline friendly 03 number.  03 calls are included in most mobile bundles so your customers won’t get annoyed or be charged anything extra to call your 03 number.  Basically if you think of 01, 02, 03 or 0800 numbers – this means happy clients.

If you want to discourage clients from calling you then you could use an 084* or 087* number.  Just so we are clear here 084* & 087* numbers are not Local Rate as they are often advertised.  084*/087* are ‘Service numbers’ and subject to costly access charges from landlines & mobiles. For instance calling an 084* number from a Vodafone mobile will cost the caller a 55ppm ‘Access Charge’ plus the ‘Service Charge’ ppm (ppm – pence per minute) rate set by the telecom operator who rents it to the business.  These range from 7ppm-13ppm.  Add those two together and you have the total pence per minute rate to call the number. As you can see if you are trying to attract business using an 084* number will likely do you more damage than good.  One to avoid unless you don’t want to speak to anyone.

Miss-selling of 084* numbers