Widen your net with local phone numbers

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Having a series of different virtual local phone numbers pointed to the same phone number is a far cheaper option if you want to expand your business into different areas but cannot afford to buy or rent new premises there, says DBS Telecoms.

The great recession meant huge financial difficulties for a lot of companies across the UK, and indeed the world. Although the recession is now officially over, the after effects are still being felt, and for some companies the real pain is only now beginning to filter through.

Perhaps because of this, virtual local numbers have seen a huge rise in popularity. David Clarke, Director of DBS Telecoms in Lincolnshire, a leading supplier of local numbers as well as freephone 0800 numbers, has a theory as to why this is.

“When money is in tight supply, you need to make as many cut backs on non essentials as you can in order to stay afloat”, says Clarke. “There is no bigger cost than premises. Companies like to have offices everywhere they are operating in order to have a connection with that area, because people like to know that the company they are dealing with is local, and because that is what you expect a business to do. For example, if you were supplying a service such as rat catching in Lincoln, you would be expected to have an office in Lincoln that people could phone you on and that you staff would work out of. But why? Who comes into the office? The answer is most probably the staff who answer the phone, the postman and the window cleaner! Generally if you’re providing a service, customers either phone you or contact you via the internet, but are seldom going to pop into the office. In a world where everyone has a mobile phone, to have an office purely as a place where people can answer the phone is a very expensive way of doing business”.

What Clarke is effectively saying is that if you don’t need an office, don’t bother having one. Don’t have an office just for the sake of having an office, it’s a waste of money and there are better ways of doing business. “For example, if you have lots of different offices in multiple locations purely because you want to operate in those locations, but all you ever do is employ staff to answer the phone in each of those offices, then you could save money by just having one office, with a series of different virtual local phone numbers with area codes for the offices you would have had. All of these can be routed through to the same phone line, with a different call whisper on each one to let you know when you receive the call which branch the caller thinks they are calling.”

So, if you operate and wish to carry out work in Lincoln, Boston, Sleaford, Louth, Grantham, etc. and want to appear local to each of those locations, you do not need to have an office in each of those locations. DBS have 479 different area codes for virtual local numbers, so will have all of the different area codes needed for you to create as many different phone numbers as you wish. Therefore, in Sleaford you can advertise your company with a Sleaford number, in Boston with a Boston number, etc. but they would all go through to the same phone.

Of course, if you are happy with the premises you have, but would like to branch out into other areas but cannot afford more offices, then these ghost local numbers are a great way to widen your net without much additional extra cost. You can easily get some local numbers for other areas you would like to operate in to appear more local to those areas, without having to move offices or get any new ones. Local phone numbers are therefore a great way of growing and expanding your business without risking your financial stability.

Free Audio Conference Call Service from DBS Telecoms saves you time, money and helps the environment

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DBS Telecoms now offers a free audio conference call service which allows you to hold meetings over the phone, dramatically reducing your company’s carbon footprint and allowing you to spend more time working rather than travelling to meetings.

DBS Telecoms in Lincolnshire is well known for a variety of different services. They are providers of freephone 0800 numbers, 0845 numbers, and local numbers for 500 different UK towns and cities. They offer fax-to-email and a variety of other extra features on their local and non-geographic numbers, and they offer a call answering service.

Now, they are offering a free audio conference call service. This service is free, with no booking and no billing involved. This new service from DBS Telecoms allows you to hold meetings over the phone for up to 50 people at a time, and all you pay is the cost of the telephone call to the phone conference number. Calls are typically 4.3p + VAT per minute from a landline based on BT’s call tariff rate. Calls made from mobile phones and other operators may vary, but it is still considerably cheaper than travelling to and from a meeting. So, there are no set up costs, no monthly or annual service charges, and DBS do not ask for any payment details, so you will not be prompted to provide debit or credit card details or your bank details. No bills are sent out. All you are asked for when you request a PIN number is your name, your company name, your phone number and your email address, and the free PIN will then be sent to your email address. It is as simple as that.

David Clarke, Director of DBS Telecoms, said: “We are delighted to offer this service for free because of the benefit it will have on the environment, as well as on companies’ time and their budgets. It’s a fantastic green alternative to driving around the country going to numerous meetings. The carbon footprint is absolutely minimal. With fuel the price it is, it makes travelling from one side of the country all the time very expensive and as we all know it isn’t great for the environment. I think all businesses, especially in tough economic times, can appreciate that driving miles for meetings isn’t the best option any more, and that being able to have a group meeting over the phone for free is a much more environmentally friendly and cost effective solution. It also saves time. If you have to travel a long distance to see a client for a meeting, the time to get there, the time for the meeting, and the time to get back often add up to a full day’s work. Even if the phone meeting lasts two hours, you still have the remaining six hours or so of the working day, plus think of all the fuel and stress you have saved”.

The free audio conference call service is available any time someone wants to use it. You don’t have to book a slot in order to use it, as it is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It is, however, only available to UK customers. There is no minimum or maximum use clause – you can use it just to make one phone call, or use it all the time. The only maximum number involved is the amount of callers you can have in the meeting, which is 50.

To use the service, all you have to do is order your PIN number for free from the DBS website. You let people you want at the meeting know the date and time of the meeting, and then give them the phone number 0843 290 6868 to ring. Once they have dialled this number, they will be prompted to enter the PIN number, which you can provide to them when giving them the date and time of the teleconference. The PIN number is uniquely yours and means that the conference call is secure. Hopefully you will all dial the number to be at the meeting at roughly the same time, and as someone new joins the teleconference the people who have already joined the meeting will hear a beep. When you’re ready to end the phone call, you just hang up as usual. It is possible to get a recording of the meeting as well if you want one – just call 0800 046 1688 for more details.

Introducing the DBS Call Answering Service

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Leading UK telecoms company DBS is now offering a call answering service, answering calls on behalf of individuals and businesses either full time, or when they have too many calls to answer themselves.

DBS in Lincolnshire is well known nationally for providing freephone 0800 numbers, lo-call 0845 numbers, 0844 numbers and virtual local numbers. It is also known for being one of the leading internet marketing companies in the UK, and for its high quality web design services. Having been established since 1986, it has built up an extremely good reputation, being a member of the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce and having “Investor in People” status.

It is now branching into a new area of telecoms by introducing a Call Answering Service – or virtual reception. DBS Director David Clarke says that this service is already proving to be very popular. “Our call answering service is growing rapidly” says Mr Clarke. “In fact we’ve been surprised at just how popular it is and how useful many companies have found it to be”.

The basic idea behind the telecoms service is that if individuals or companies need their calls answering, then DBS’s own experienced and friendly telephone receptionists will answer those calls from their Lincolnshire based offices in the name of the business they are answering the call for. DBS set up a “call whisper” which tells the receptionists which company the call they are receiving is for, so they can answer the phone cheerfully and appropriately with the name of the business. The calls are answered quickly and professionally between 9am and 5.30pm, Monday to Friday.

The service is flexible to fit the needs of the customer. So, if a customer wants DBS to answer their calls full time, because for example they are generally out on the road or working in a building which doesn’t have a phone, then DBS will do that. They will also act as an overflow service if that is required, taking calls when nobody from the company is available to take the call, for example if they are on lunch, or if everybody else is already on a call. Thus, DBS’s service will adapt to what is needed.

The phone receptionists will usually say that the person the caller needs to speak to is unavailable at the moment (or whatever is preferred) and then take an accurate, detailed message and send it to the person they are taking the call for immediately as an email and text message. Even though they will not know the ins and outs of the business they are taking the call for, then at least the person calling will have got to speak to a human being on the other end of the phone, and will know that their query, question or complaint is being listened to and is being dealt with. Callers prefer this than to leaving a voicemail message, or to making a phone call only for the phone to ring continuously with nobody answering. The call answering service means that no calls are missed, and therefore that no potential customers are left to phone a rival company and give them trade instead.

DBS offer two different call plans. Call plan 1 is £20 + VAT per month for the service with no set up fee. This package charges 65p per minute for calls received by DBS. Call plan 2 is £50 + VAT per month, again with no set up fee, but with a lower charge per call received of 35p per minute. Call Plan 2 is for businesses that expect a larger amount of calls to be answered.  It also includes a free out of hour’s voicemail service. As with all their non-geographic and virtual local numbers, DBS do not trap their customers into any long term contracts, and just ask for 30 days written notice to cancel the service. The service is open to individuals and businesses of all shapes and sizes across the UK.

Professionalise your business with IVR

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David Clarke, Director of leading telecoms company DBS, reveals how an 0845 number coupled with IVR can give your business the professional edge.

“Many people choose to have 0845 numbers to make their business look more professional” says David Clarke, Director of DBS Telecoms in Lincolnshire, one of the leading suppliers of non-geographic 0800, 0845 and 0844 numbers in the UK. “They’re far easier and cheaper to get than most people realise. If you order an 0845 number with us, if it’s between 9am and 4pm on a normal working day then we will have the number connected, tested, up and running for you within one working hour. It only costs a one off set up fee of £5 + VAT (£9.99 if the number is being pointed to a mobile phone number), and then a monthly rental of £5 + VAT. If the 0845 number is pointed to a landline then it is free for you to receive calls, although if it is pointed to a mobile then you are charged 8p + VAT per minute to receive the call, which increases to 27p per minute if you are on the 3 Mobile network.”

So what benefit does an 0845 number give your company? “Because an 0845 number is a non-geographic number, it doesn’t tie you to one specific town, area or region” says David Clarke. “For example, if you saw a kitchen fitting company and it advertised its contact number with a geographic area code (for example, Lincoln 01522), you would naturally think that that company was Lincoln based and only operated in the Lincoln area. You probably wouldn’t bother to read on beyond that point. However, if you saw a kitchen fitting company and the contact number started 0845 you would probably think that it was a national company, as that number is non-geographic and so can apply anywhere in the country. At the least, you wouldn’t think that it only operated in one specific area, and would read on to find out what areas it did operate in.”

“As well as giving your company a national feel, 0845 numbers are generally used by large companies, so even if you’re only a one man band, having an 0845 number will make your company look larger and more professional that it potentially actually is”. David Clarke goes on to say that there are other features that you can add to your 0845 number to professionalise it further if you so wish to. “DBS offers 10 different extra features which you can add to your lo-call 0845 number if you so wish, as well as our fax-to-email service, but the key one which really gives a professional feel to a company when you phone them is IVR”.

IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. It is the system that, when you phone a company, it thanks you for your call and gives you a welcome message, and then asks you to press 1 for this department, press 2 for that department etc. Also known as auto attendant, it is more commonly known as the “Press 1 for Sales” function. The different numbers can then be routed through to different numbers, so if sales is on one phone number, 1 can be routed to that, and if accounts is on a different number 2 can be routed to that. However, if you’re just using it to look bigger than you actually are then all the options can be routed to the same place!

DBS charges a one off set up fee of £25 + VAT for this feature, and then £10 + VAT monthly rent. They offer discounts on multiple numbers.