Whatever country your business is in, the best way to communicate with US markets is to establish a virtual office in the US. You can do so by having one or more US virtual phone numbers. It makes sense to do this because virtual US phone numbers allow you to connect with your customer base wherever you are in the world.
When you buy a US virtual number from a company like Global Call Forwarding, you can select where you want your calls to that number to be routed. This could be your mobile number (in whatever country you are located), your office number, or even your home number. For example, let’s say that your business is located in London, but you have customer bases in New York and Atlanta. You can subscribe to local virtual numbers in both of those states, which means that your customers will always be able to get in touch with you no matter what time of day it is or where you are. Whenever the call is routed to you, it is still a local rate call for your customers in the US. Additionally, because these numbers are specific to these locations, your customers will never know they aren’t calling a local number.
Why Your Business Needs a US Telephone Number
Many of Global Call Forwarding’s customers subscribe to US virtual numbers because they want to establish a local presence in a country that is populated with more than 328 million people. Although America does trade with many countries throughout the world, many American customers prefer to do business directly with a local company. US telephone numbers from Global Call Forwarding help to create a sense of trust that will strengthen your US business relationships. The team at Global Call Forwarding can set you up with virtual phone numbers anywhere in the US and have all calls to that number routed to your existing landline or smartphone.
Having virtual numbers in the US also allows you to test the market for new customer bases in different cities. That way you can expand and begin to attract customers in a wider local market. These endeavors will be more successful if you are providing a US local number.
How Virtual US Phone Numbers Work
When you subscribe to virtual phone numbers from Global Call Forwarding, you can choose local numbers in the city or cities anywhere in the United States or internationally. Your virtual numbers allow incoming calls from your customers to be delivered worldwide. You can change the numbers as and when you need to, using the online console which allows you to control your numbers and all their additional features. Additional features include:
- Call recording: Choose which calls you want to record. You can listen to them later to make sure your team is providing the best possible customer service. Use the recorded calls for training new team members and improving existing services. You can also use the call recordings to settle any customer disputes which may arise.
- Time of day routing: If you’re in a meeting between 2 pm and 4 pm, you can set your calls to be routed to a colleague’s number until you are available. You can also use time of day routing to suit your callers’ international time zones.
- SMS forwarding: Add SMS to your new virtual US phone number. That way you can be connected to all your customers. You can set your online console to forward each of your SMS messages to your email address so you can view them easily.
- Simultaneous ringing: There are several uses for simultaneous ringing. You could use it to have calls routed to your smartphone and desk extension at the same time. It allows you to answer calls while you are away from the office. You could also have calls routed to your VoIP number at the same time as your mobile and office phone. This gives you the ultimate in versatility and options that accommodate your callers regardless of your schedule.
- Local ringback tones: With a local ringback tone, your customers will never know that they are calling a virtual number. It will seem to them as though it is just another local number. This will make them feel comfortable and give them confidence in your company.
- Failover forwarding: This feature allows you to program your console with multiple numbers so that if the first one does not answer, or for some reason fails to connect, the call will automatically be routed to the next number in the list until it is answered.
- Fax to email: This feature allows all your virtual numbers to receive faxes. Each fax will be sent to your email as an image file.
- Voicemail to email: This voicemail extension allows you to configure your console to automatically forward your voicemail messages to your email inbox. Voicemails will arrive in your inbox as an MP3 attachment.