3 Reasons You Shouldn't Rely on Residential Phone for Your Business

If you’re running a business out of your home—or work from home regularly or occasionally—you might be tempted to save a little money and rely on your residential phone line. After all, your home phone probably offers basic features, such as caller ID and call waiting.

But that can be a costly mistake, especially considering the customer experience benefits and overall convenience that come with having a dedicated business phone service.

“Having a business phone service provides you with the features and professionalism that customers expect today when calling a business,” says Holly Hinze, senior director of voice products for Spectrum Business. “If you don’t offer those, you might be compromising your customer experience—and that’s something you shouldn’t risk.”

Here are three key reasons you should avoid relying on residential phone service for your business:

1. Juggling personal and business calls on the same phone line comes off as unprofessional.

When customers call a business, they expect a reliably professional experience. If you’re juggling personal and professional calls on the same phone line, it’s not as easy to provide that. Moreover, your caller ID probably shows your personal name instead of your business name.

Having a business phone service at home ensures that calls you make and receive on that line have your business name and phone number in the caller ID.

2. Customers expect an easy, seamless caller experience—no matter where you’re working from.

Customer expectations today are higher than ever, and the value of a great customer experience can’t be downplayed. A business phone service such as Spectrum Business Voice gives you more than 35 advanced features designed specifically for business needs—including:

• Auto attendant: You can provide an automated greeting to customers when they call, answering basic questions they may have (such as your availability or hours of operations) and giving them a menu of options. This presents a professional business image plus enhanced inbound call-management options.
• Sequential ring: To ensure callers reach someone and don’t have to leave voicemails, you can set up a sequence of phone numbers that calls will be redirected to.
• Call transfer: This allows you to quickly and easily transfer calls to other employees at your business.
• Business voicemail: When callers do have to leave voicemails, you will have a dedicated voicemail account for your business (and can customize your message). Moreover, if you want to make checking voicemail hassle-free, the Voicemail-to-Email feature lets you automatically receive each voicemail message in your email inbox.

3. Today’s work environment calls for maximum flexibility.

The business world and how people work has evolved significantly in recent years. With so many people now working remotely or hybrid—splitting their time between home and office—your phone service needs to provide the utmost flexibility and convenience.

Spectrum Business Voice, for example, offers an online portal that lets you change your phone settings and access features—such as setting up a new sequential ring sequence—from wherever you have internet access.

Want to find out about getting Spectrum Business Voice at home? Contact us at 855-299-9353.