Extra features for virtual numbers

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!

Virtual Phone Numbers provider profile: The Virtual Number Company

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!

O2 down for over a day

If you’re an O2 customer then it will not come as news to you to hear that the O2 network was down for over 24 hours across the country, leaving O2 customers unable to make or receive phone calls. Even if you’re not an O2 customer, what happened can hardly have escaped your notice, as Facebook or Twitter feeds were filled with friends and acquaintances complaining about not being able to use their mobile phones.

In typical IT support style, a statement from O2, 25 hours after the problem started, said “Our tests now show that all our 2G and 3G services have been fully restored for affected customers. If any customers are still having problems we recommend they turn their phone off and on again.”

There is still some confusion as to what caused the crash, which caused this response from Askar Sheibani, Chief Executive of Comtek, an IT and telecoms repair company: “To have an entire network down is a poor show for the company ... The failure to deliver basic 2G and 3G services indicates that O2 may have taken its eye off the ball – ignoring the maintenance of its existing service in the rush to deliver 4G.

We quite. I’m only glad I left O2 earlier in the year!

Virtual numbers - state side

We thought we’d look internationally this week when we noticed this press release on PR Web from iTeleCenter.

The press release starts: “iTeleCenter announces the release of more Virtual Phone Numbers. With more small and home-based businesses on the rise, these numbers are the perfect solution for a total business communications system.” Whilst there is nothing particularly newsworthy in this, it was an interesting read. Its description of virtual numbers is also pretty good:

“The word ‘virtual’ often conjures thoughts of something hi-tech which many people tend to shy away from. However, here is a simple explanation that should remove any anxiety - a virtual phone number is a real phone number. It can be either a local number with an area code in a specific city/state or a toll free number with an 800, 855, 866, 877, or 888 area code. What makes it virtual is that it does not ring to a specific line – it is not tied to a landline or a mobile phone. Instead, it rings to a virtual phone system like iTeleCenter.”

The explanations and reasons for using were all basically identical to what we use over here, apart from the actual numbers themselves. Nothing too exciting, but good reassurance that we must be doing the right thing! There is lots more to read here.

Shares in TalkTalk rise

In amongst all the doom and gloom when it comes to financial reports, it is nice to see some good news for the telecoms sector. Many telecoms companies are reporting that they are doing quite well, and one such report that caught our eye last week was about TalkTalk. Shares in the telephone and broadband company rose by more than 20% last week after it doubled its pre-tax profit for the year and increased its full year dividend by almost two thirds.

It has also seen a slowing down in customer departures, as it has been trying to loose the reputation that is had had for poor customer service. This came to public attention when it was fined £3million by the telecoms regulator, OFCOM, for billing ex-customers. Losses reduced to 13,000 last quarter, down from the 43,000 of the previous quarter.

TalkTalk plans to launch YouView in the summer, a new version of Freeview which it feels will help it compete better with BT, Virgin Media and B-Sky-B. It is clear that TalkTalk isn’t out of the woods yet, but it is good to see things are looking better for them and hope that this continues.

Virtual Phone Numbers provider profile: Gold Local Numbers

This week we’re going to look at an old favourite from the list of virtual number providers – Gold Local Numbers. Gold Local Numbers is a nice little site, with a line of water along the top of each page, and a happy looking goldfish beneath the waterline.

Further down the page, a talking goldfish appears with speech bubbles highlighting some of their key selling points, such as:
 
•    pay per second billing, where you only pay for exactly what you use
 
•    fully itemised billing, so you have the full details of all your calls

•     no long term contracts, so you only have to give 30 days written notice to cancel
 
•    a range of optional features, with amusing names like Whisper Gold and Golden Greeting
 
Everything on their site is as standard – so they offer STD codes for around 500 different UK towns & cities, all of which are listed on the site, and can be viewed either alphabetically or numerically. Their local numbers are not VOIP (voice over internet protocol), so you get a higher quality phone call. Their numbers can be pointed to a landline or a mobile, and they offer fax to email numbers too.

Virtual Phone Numbers provider profile: Organic Local Numbers

Occasionally we want to you bring you profiles of those providers of virtual local phone numbers that we think are good companies and that have been helpful and informative to us when creating this blog. Today we are giving a brief profile of Organic Local Numbers.

Organic Numbers, like many telecoms providers, also offer 0800, 0845 and 0844 numbers, as well as London phone numbers. They also offer fax to email as well as telephone numbers in all of these categories, and a range of extra features.

They have a nice environmentally friendly focus to their business, highlighted perhaps best by their very green website with pictures of leaves. They cover around 470 different area codes around the UK, which means a large majority of area codes in Great Britain and Northern Ireland are covered. They don’t use VOIP, which is always good news, their prices are fair and reasonable, and they have pay per second billing which is also always good news.

The rhetoric on the site about the numbers having been “carefully raised and nurtured in beautiful English countryside”, containing “no sugar, dyes or artificial ingredients” and having “no carbon footprint” is all quite fun and brings the site to life. If you’re looking for virtual numbers, their site is well worth a visit.