If you’re given a choice to address a query or a problem, are you more likely to email or to call a business?

People who need to resolve the issue would call right away. Here’s why:

• They get an answer in real-time.

• It’s the only surefire way to not get a canned response.

• The business can better understand the issue (thus be able to solve it more effectively) because clarifications can be made in one conversation.

Despite all the fancy technology that we have today, we’re still wired to crave human contact. And service providers like Telnum understand this craving intimately. That’s why they offer virtual phone numbers to enterprises that want to maintain a close relationship with their customers.

But that’s not all it’s good for…

You can use it to boost your website optimization

Yes, it’s something that a lot of entrepreneurs seem to miss. Although having a website is pretty much a must-have now, it’s not necessarily how potential customers would want to speak with you.

As much as 80% of your market still prefers to reach you with a call. If that’s not motivation enough, research showed that nearly 90% of customers are willing to pay extra for excellent customer service.

It’s common for businesses to direct people to their websites. And that’s totally fine. After all, it’s very effective in introducing who you are as a brand and what your company offers to site visitors. But since they’re already on the site, why not take it up a notch?

Having a phone number there can do wonders for your sales, and you don’t have to pay extra to have it up there.

But a virtual number and not a regular number?

Even for the older businesses that have already invested in now-antiquated phone systems (and thus have sunk costs), it doesn’t make sense to keep using a regular number. There are far too many benefits to switching:

1. It gives you access to cheap labor

With hard-wired phones, you’re forced to employ people in your location. And depending on where you are, that will reach significant sums very quickly.

But because a virtual number isn’t required to be assigned to any specific location, you can hire people where labor is much cheaper and save costs in the long run.

2. It makes scaling up or down cheap and nearly instantaneous

Imagine having to let go of people to adjust to changing business needs. Imagine the opposite.

Regardless of whether you have to lay people off or get more on board, it’s going to be a nightmare for communications because the number of phone lines you have wouldn’t be the same as what you actually need.

And the result? Cost inefficiency. The resources you have can’t be maximized.

3. You never have to pay for maintenance/repair costs

No matter how good your equipment may be, it will still break down eventually. You can prolong its life through regular maintenance and repairs, but that will still cost money.

By going through the virtual alternative, you don’t have to do any of that because everything exists in the cloud.

How does having a number on your website help?

It’s an extremely important asset to your website and your business. Here’s how it helps:

1. Your market will be more likely to connect with you

We already know that people prefer to talk over the phone. But people miss the important implication of this preference. Those just browsing through your website will be more likely to contact you for their questions (and perhaps for their orders too) if you have a number posted.

Without that little detail on your website, you’re definitely missing out.

2. It sets expectations, thus improving customer satisfaction

You can set the availability of your virtual lines and have those published on your website as well. In so doing, customers won’t feel let down if no one answers the call at a particular time.

Granted, it’s better to be available 24/7. But by creating expectations for them, you set realistic standards.

3. It helps track results

By itself, it already can monitor the number of calls made and help you analyze agent performance. The results of these allow you to better allocate resources within the organization to improve profit margins.

But on a website, it also opens up a new marketing channel. You can use your website to drive calls for inquiries and purchases. And the number of new calls made would be your measure of success.

And because more people are browsing through their smartphones nowadays, it can also make the number clickable so you can test different number placements on your website to see which is the most effective.

If you have a virtual number and don’t publish it on your site, please do so now. Connecting the virtual world to the “real” world can help extend your brand presence and as a result, your influence as well.