If you’re starting a new business today, then chances are, you’re running it from your cell phone. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and it can work for you for a long time.
As your business begins to grow, however, it will probably demand some kind of a system that is capable of managing your calls professionally and efficiently, no matter how many calls you’re getting. Here’s how you can handle your success as your company exceeds the capacity of your cell phone.
Make Sure Callers Don’t Get a Busy Signal
As your business gets bigger and call volume goes up, the first thing you need to be concerned about is making sure that you don’t miss any of those calls. When all of your business calls are coming into your cell phone and multiple calls are coming in at once, some of those calls are going to get either your voicemail, or a busy signal.
If a new customer calls in and hears a busy signal, then the chances that they will call back drop sharply. This is why you need a phone system that can handle multiple calls simultaneously and stack them in a queue until you are free to answer them.
Beef Up Your Voicemail
Your personal voicemail on your cell phone might work for a while, but as your daily calls increase, so do the number of voicemail messages you’re receiving. At that point, it’s just a bad idea to use your personal voicemail.
Many mobile carriers even auto-delete messages after a certain amount of time, which messages you may never be able to recover—and that can be disastrous if the voicemail was the only information you had for the customer. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. For more reasons why you need separate business voicemail, check out this informative article:
6 Ways Your Voicemail Can Make or Break Your Business
Stay Mobile with a Virtual Phone System
A virtual phone system like Talkroute lets you continue to run your business from anywhere using your cell phone while adding the power of professional features.
You can still take your business calls on your cell, but unlike the cell phone by itself, a virtual phone system allows you to add a welcome greeting, a call menu (auto attendant) with menu options the caller can choose from, on-hold music, and a lot more. It’s basically like carrying a full office phone system in the palm of your hand.
When you reach the point where you can no longer sustain call management through your personal phone, you’ll start reaching for a new solution. There are a lot of systems out there which are a good fit for some businesses, but not for others.
It’s reasonable to consider all of your options, virtual as well as conventional, before you sign on with one of the big providers like Verizon or AT&T to fill the need because you could end up paying far more than you need to. A virtual phone system is a good place to start as you learn the best way to manage your business calls moving forward.
Stephanie
Stephanie is the Marketing Director at Talkroute and has been featured in Forbes, Inc, and Entrepreneur as a leading authority on business and telecommunications.
Stephanie is also the chief editor and contributing author for the Talkroute blog helping more than 100k entrepreneurs to start, run, and grow their businesses.