This week we are going to have a look at some of the more common features available to accompany your virtual phone number.
Firstly, there is what is often called a whisper, where a message is played before the call giving you necessary information. For example, whether it is a call to your business or personal number, which business they are calling if you have more than one, or which branch they are calling if you have lots of numbers pointing to one phone.
There is also the “Press 1” feature, whereby your caller will be welcomed with a message and then invited to press the appropriate button depending on which department they wish to speak to.
Fax to email is a handy service which converts your faxes to emails and sends them to your inbox so that you can store your fax correspondence on your PC.
Queuing places your callers in a queue when your lines are busy, greets them, tells them their call is important, plays them comforting music etc.
Finally, there is recording, which records your calls for you and emails them to you so that you can play them back on your computer to save you taking notes or forgetting any important details.
There are of course lots more out there, but these are five of the best!
We're continuing our series this week of virtual phone number providers by looking at one of the leaders in the field - The Virtual Number Company. If you put virtual numbers into search engines they're one of the companies most likely to come up. Founded over 15 years ago, they offer virtual numbers for 479 UK towns and cities, covering Penzance to Perth and Cardiff to Coventry. In particular they have a special focus on virtual London phone numbers, which is hardly surprising considering London is the capital of the UK and accounts for approximately 1/8th of the general population.
The Virtual Number Company provides virtual numbers to small, medium and large UK businesses. They offer numbers which can be pointed to landlines, mobiles or a fax to email service. They're open 9am-5.30pm Monday-Friday, only require 30 days written notice to end your contract with them, will generally connect your new phone number within 24 hours, use pay per second billing (so you’re only charged for exactly what you use) and have a range of added value features such as call whisper. You can call them any time during working hours to change where your number is pointed to and they will do that as soon as possible for you. All in all, a great company!
