If your work telephone number is your personal cell phone number, we’re going to have to fix that. Immediately.
Using a free app like PhoneHub means you can have a dedicated business phone number to hand out to customers, clients, and colleagues anytime at all. Since all your calls and texts stay within the PhoneHub app, you can keep your business communications separate and never have to worry about getting work calls on your personal number.
You might not see an issue with giving out your personal phone number, so let’s review all of the places your so-called work telephone number (a.k.a. your personal cell phone number) might wind up, when and why you might get phone calls outside of business hours, and why we believe it’s important to use a separate phone number.
Where is your work telephone number shared?
• Business cards
• Email signatures
• Corporate documents
• Contact pages of websites
• Databases like ZoomInfo and LinkedIn Sales Navigator
• Phone number look-up tools like RocketReach
• Internal and external contact lists
• Referrals from clients, customers, and colleagues
When can you potentially receive business calls?
When you give your personal phone number to customers, clients, or colleagues, you’re inviting your career into every moment of your life and could potentially receive business telephone calls during the worst possible moments …
• Early mornings
• Late at night
• Family time
• Mealtimes
• Vacations
• Bereavement leave
• Holidays
• After changing jobs
Think of it like plucking a dandelion flower, taking out a huge breath, and blowing thousands of microscopic seeds into the wind. Once your work telephone number is “out in the world,” you can’t take it back.
Whether you want them or not, you could potentially receive work-related phone calls or texts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Evenings, weekends, holidays. Even after you’re no longer working for that company!
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” you might be thinking. “People don’t tend to make business calls outside of business hours.”
Unfortunately, that’s not true.
Why business calls aren’t limited to business hours
While we’d like to think we live in a (fairly) polite society that respects that business hours are 9-5, here are a couple of reasons why your business telephone number might be inundated with calls any time of the day or night.
Time zone issues: The middle of the night for you might be “daytime working hours” for the person calling you. And nope, people don’t always take the time to figure out time zones and make sure they’re contacting you during an appropriate time of day.
Robo-calling: If your so-called work telephone number ends up in a sales sequence, you might get calls and voicemail dings at random intervals. The sequence isn’t always set to prevent calls from going through at 3 a.m.
Spam calls: Depending on where your business telephone number winds up, you might be getting spam calls by the hour. (Psst! Here’s how to stop spam calls.)
Pushy salespeople: Unfortunately, sometimes people think they’ll have a better chance of getting your attention if they call at unconventional times. (Ugh, right?)
Support: When a client or customer needs assistance, they might consider you their first point of contact and ‘go straight to the source’ or ‘bypass the wait’ rather than going through the appropriate channels. And depending on what your business offers, this might be technical support, customer support, or emotional support.
Complaints: If someone’s angry at your company and they come across your phone number first, guess who’s bearing the brunt of their rage?
Use PhoneHub for a dedicated work number
If your career involves calling or texting with clients, customers, or colleagues, we encourage you to use the free PhoneHub app to get a dedicated business telephone number.
You can choose from 300+ area codes, and have your new number working in minutes. All calls, texts, and contacts stay within the PhoneHub app, so you can separate your business life from your personal life
Five reasons to use PhoneHub
1. It’s budget-friendly. Don’t spend $60 a month on a business phone plan. With PhoneHub, you can get a separate phone number just for work, for less than $4/week.
2. It’s local (or international). Choose a number in your local area code, or set up international business phone numbers in different terriorities. We have numbers in 300+ area codes.
3. It’s personalized. Every number includes with premium features, including custom voicemail. If you work for multiple brands, use a different PhoneHub number for each brand and create unique voicemail greetings.
4. It keeps your work communication separate. Since everything takes place within the PhoneHub app, you can control how/when you’re notified about calls and texts, and repeat calls won’t ‘breakthrough’ your phone’s Do Not Disturb settings.
5. It’s flexible. Short-term or long-term, PhoneHub is the perfect business phone solution. Create separate phone numbers for limited-time gigs, and then cancel them once the project wraps. You can keep your phone numbers as long as you want.
How to use PhoneHub
Install the app. PhoneHub will be available on the App Store and Google Play. Please sign up to receive email updates so you’re the first to know when it’s available for download.
Choose a phone number. We have phone numbers in 300+ area codes. Choose a number that’s close to home, or pick numbers in different cities/countries to give your business an international presence.
Pick a phone plan. We believe a business telephone number should be affordable, so our plans start at less than $4/week, with the freedom to cancel anytime.
