Having only one cell phone is great. You only have one bill and you don’t look like MacGyver trying to tackle the world of mobile technology. But as a small business owner, using the same phone for personal and business calls can get a little hazy –especially when you’re receiving both types of calls to the same number.
Imagine a new client calls your cell and gets sent to a personal voicemail that mentions nothing about your business. Chances are, they’ll start to doubt your professionalism and reliability.
However, there are services (such as Cloud Phone!) that enable you to establish a dedicated business phone line that routes to your cellphone. This has great advantages for customizing your "voice presence" for your business. Here are some key customization benefits to consider as part of having a dedicated business phone line:
1. Corporate phone number: the first impression
The first thing your customers see when they want to make contact with you through the voice channel is your business phone number. When getting a dedicated business line, you can opt to have a toll free number or a local number or even multiple numbers for different customer segments. Each type of number has different uses, for example: toll free numbers could be great if you have a national customer-base or an e-commerce website, local numbers can help small shops or those new to the area establish a local presence.
2. Business greeting: the right message for your customers
Make sure you take full advantage of customizing your voicemail greeting when you have a dedicated business line. When you record a customized voicemail greeting for your business contacts, you can reinforce the image of your brand. Your greeting sets the tone for your business and it's a great way to also convey your key messages.
3. Voicemail settings: extra attention for your VIP clients
Since customer calls are very important and can be time-sensitive, you may want to customize your settings for your business voicemails. When you have a dedicated business line, this should be easy to do. For example, Cloud Phone allows users to set up voicemail transcription, send notifications via SMS and email, and more.
4. Extensions: smooth transitions for your business contacts
If you have multiple employees, departments, or just want to make your business appear more professional, some services offer business extensions, which will help you guide your business callers to the appropriate channel without the hassle of tracking them down or taking messages that can eventually get lost in the shuffle. As your business grows, you can assign employees their very own extension to route calls from your main business number. Each employee can customize their own settings and manage them with their own login.
You’ve worked hard to establish your business so it’s important to make the right impression when your customers, prospects, business partners, and employees call. Having the right voice presence is an easy step in building trust for your company and an effective way to communicate your business style. Plus, once your voice communications are in order, you can stop worrying about missing a call or answering the wrong cell phone and can focus on more important things like running your business!
For more tips on how to advance your small business voice presence, check out our CMO's recent contributed article that published on MarketingProfs.com.
How does voice fit into your small business communications? Share your stories, challenges and ideas with us – Facebook, Twitter, Google+.