A business phone line provides existing and potential clients or customers with a direct line to your company. It can include many functions and features to route callers to the correct contact and effectively communicate answers to frequently asked questions. Most importantly, a business phone line demonstrates your business’s legitimacy to existing and prospective customers.
Here are some providers with the best business phone plans:
Best Phone Plans for Businesses
1. Community Phone
Community Phone is a wireless business landline service with solid coverage across 99% of the US. Their wireless landline base connects your phone to local cell towers providing solid connectivity, reliability, and excellent call quality.
Enjoy unlimited nationwide calling and outstanding features like call forwarding, voicemail, spam call blocking, call waiting, and 3-way calling at affordable prices. With world-class support, user-friendly cancelation policies, and no hidden charges, Community Phone is the best traditional landline alternative.
Community Phone Features for a Great Telephonic Experience
1. Call Routing
Route calls to the appropriate person or department with the Community Phone call-routing feature. You can program several phones in your business to ring simultaneously so that an available representative can answer the call. The simultaneous ring feature could reduce wait times for your customers as they get an immediate response. If the person who answered the call cannot assist the customer, they can use the live call transfer feature or 3-way calling to better assist the customer, depending on the scenario.
If the first option does not fit your business needs, you can program your phones to ring sequentially if the first number does not answer or is busy. This way, the customer will be able to receive appropriate assistance. This feature can set up call distribution equally among several representatives in your organization. Repeat callers can be routed to the same representative, increasing customer satisfaction.
2. Voicemail-to-email
Receive all your voicemails into the email associated with your Community Phone account as audio files and transcripts through the voicemail-to-email feature. Employees can review and respond to voicemails efficiently if you can make them easily accessible via a standard business mail ID.
3. Spam Call Blocking
Statistics reveal that Americans lost over $10 million more to phone scams in 2021 than in 2020. With an average scammer making nearly 200 million scam calls in a year persistently targeting victims, manual call barring and phone features to block spam are no longer effective. According to reports, scammers have found a way around the STIR/SHAKEN protocols implemented by the government, endangering consumers further.
Get the Community Phone spam-blocker to increase employee productivity, decrease distractions and protect your business from losses. The spam blocker challenges robocalls and blocks them before the call can ring your phone, ensuring protection against spam and saving your employees and your business from losses.
The "Safelist," a new Community Phone feature, allows you to list the numbers you want to accept calls from. Your phone will ring to let calls from these numbers through and block all others before the phone rings. You can update your allowed list anytime to add or delete numbers, or Community Phone specialists will be happy to assist you.
Studies report that several businesses miss legitimate calls fearing spam, resulting in a ruined business reputation and loss of revenue. Understanding the need to balance robust spam protection and legitimate calls, Community Phone is launching an iteration of the Safelist soon.
This feature will allow you to accept calls from numbers you want and route the rest to voicemail. Since Community Phone will not block other numbers, you can check your voice messages and respond to the ones you deem necessary.
The soon-to-be-launched "blocklist" is an aggressive spam blocker that blocks over 6 million spam calls based on an ever-growing database of spam numbers and a spam score. You can actively contribute to this database by adding a spam number to protect yourself and other Community Phone customers from scams and fraud.
Read more here: Spam Call Blocking.
4. Dial Menu
Create a great first impression among your customers and callers by enabling the Community Phone dial menu. You can program the automated answering service in the dial menu to custom greet your customers, share important information or announcements, and route calls to appropriate departments or voicemail through commercial voicemail greetings.
You can program the multilevel answering service to suit your business needs to help create an incredible customer experience, reduce wait time, increase employee efficiency, and enable efficient staffing and scheduling.
Have recorded FAQs in one of the 9 levels of the dial menu to help callers find information quickly without waiting for a rep. Share information on discounts, business hours, offers, and promotions on another level. Have call routing at the second level to ensure callers reach the exact person or department they need based on the options they choose. The possibilities are endless!
5. Call History
Enable the call history feature and access information on incoming and outgoing calls to and from your Community Phone landline.
You can use this feature to
1. Return missed calls from known contacts
2. Store legitimate contacts
3. Check caller information against known contacts
4. Send a message or
5. Block spam calls.
6. Landline Texting
Over 65% of customers prefer businesses texting them over calling for fear of spam. To ensure you protect your customer, and engage them in your marketing efforts, use the landline texting feature from Community Phone.
Sending bulk messages can be counterproductive to your business from a customer connect perspective. Some providers may also flag your number as spam and block it.
Engage with your customers, wish them on special occasions, inform them of product and offer launches, and collect feedback through the Community Phone personalized messaging feature that does not let the customer or service provider block your number as spam.
Benefits of Switching to Community Phone
Besides having a reliable landline service that does not require internet, Community Phone members enjoy the following benefits:
1. Unlimited nationwide calling: Stay in touch with loved ones, business associates, employees, and customers across the U.S. with Community Phone's unlimited talk and text.
Many companies and customers prefer phone calls to resolve complex issues and decrease churn. Utilize the unlimited time to launch marketing campaigns, engage with your customers, get their pulse, and decrease churn without a massive long-distance bill.
2. Unlimited text: Customers prefer texts over calls from a business, fearing spam. Send personalized texts from your Community Phone business landline to stay engaged with your customers, inform them of offers and discounts, and collect feedback.
3. No internet needed: The Community Phone landline base works off cell towers without tying your phone to the internet. Since your phones are not dependent on the internet, they will continue working during an internet outage or maintenance.
4. Number choice: You can get a new local number FREE when you sign up with Community Phone. Talk to Community Phone specialists about porting your number through their hassle-free hand-held porting process!
You can get your business a toll-free number to encourage customers to call you when they need assistance. Tie various marketing campaigns to the toll-free numbers to measure their effectiveness or run outreach campaigns. The possibilities are endless!
Get a vanity number for your business to help your customer remember your number easily to get referrals. Contact Community Phone and speak to their specialists to learn more and get a number!
5. Zero-cost Installation: The landline base does not require a technician to install it. You or anyone in your business or household can install your Community Phone landline in under 30 seconds and be ready to make calls in 5 mins.
6. 24/7 reliable customer support: Contact Community Phone customer support via phone, email, and live chat 24/7 to experience world-class support from live agents. Glowing customer reviews on BBB and Trustpilot are testimonies of their commitment to customers.
7. Works during power outages: Save money you would invest on installing costly inverters or backup power, as the 12-hour backup battery in the landline base ensures your phones continue working during power outages and blackouts.
8. No hidden charges: At Community Phone, you pay what you signed up for. They do not bundle your service or charge you exorbitant equipment fees. You will not see unexplained charges crop up on your bill, nor will you have to knock on customer support's door to get these charges waived.
9. 14-day FREE trial: Try the Community Phone landline service for 14 days FREE without obligation. You can cancel anytime without jumping through hoops if you think this is not for you.
10. Hand-held porting process: Community Phone has the quickest, hassle-free porting process among telco providers. Their unique hand-held porting process can transfer your number from the previous provider in 3-5 business days without disrupting your service.
2. Google Voice
Google Voice is ideal if you need a different business phone number. Since it is a virtual phone service, it will not work without an internet connection. Call drops, poor voice quality, phones going down during network, and power outages are common with VoIP services like Google Voice.
Google Voice Features
Free Version Available: Google Voice has free versions available for trial.
Unlimited Calling: Enjoy unlimited calls.
Unlimited SMS: Enjoy unlimited SMS messaging.
3. Verizon
Verizon is one of the most prominent phone carriers in the world. However, according to Forbes Advisor, their plans can be expensive, and customer support is unhelpful and unavailable.
Verizon Features
Nationwide coverage: Verizon offers nationwide coverage.
Unlimited Text: Texting is unlimited on select business plans.
Unlimited Calls: Calling is unlimited on select business plans.
Offers mobile VPN with specific plans: Enjoy using a mobile VPN with select plans.
4. Nextiva
Nextiva is a VoIP service provider focusing on cloud-based communication. Given the nature of their product, Nextiva does not work without high-speed internet and has all the problems VoIP-based internet phones have.
Nextiva Features
Unlimited Text: Texting is unlimited on select business plans.
Unlimited Calls: Calling is unlimited on select business plans.
Voicemail-to-email: Convert voicemails into an email for easy review.
Caller ID: The caller ID feature is available
5. RingCentral
RingCentral is another voice-over-internet-protocol company that focuses on cloud-based communication and can be expensive for sole proprietors. RingCentral provides a virtual phone number with their business phone plans.
Features of RingCentral
Unlimited Text: Texting is unlimited on select business plans.
Unlimited Calls – Calling is unlimited on select business plans.
Voicemail to Text – Convert voicemails into text messages for easy review on the go.
Free 15-Day Trial – RingCentral offers a free trial of their phone plans for businesses.
How to Choose a Business Cell Phone Plan?
1. Evaluate Your Business Needs
Choosing a business phone plan can be challenging. The first thing to do when choosing phone plans for business is to evaluate your needs. Make a checklist of your requirements by brainstorming with all stakeholders.
These questions can help you stay on track when choosing a phone plan for your business:
1. Does your business need add-ons like spam call blocking, call routing, and an answering service?
2. What is your budget for the phone system?
3. How vital are hassle-free installation and world-class support to your business?
4. Do you want future-proof telephony at affordable rates?
2. Check Network Coverage in your Area
Checking your network coverage is essential. Is your area prone to bad weather or power outages?
Talk to Community Phone business specialists who are subject matter experts and can help you zero in on the perfect phone system for your business.
3. Check Pricing
Keeping operating costs low when growing or maintaining a business is incredibly important. When choosing phone plans for business, be sure to compare pricing with the overall product provided.
4. Check Features
Lastly, check the features in the business phone plans provided for each company you are considering. Ensure you get the best deal for your budget.
FAQs
Do I need a business phone number?
Yes, your business needs a phone number. Apart from helping you balance work and personal life, business numbers help build your brand. You can build trust and enhance your company's credibility in the market.
Get a toll-free number from Community Phone to enhance your reputation and increase your customer base. Call 815-615-0667 to learn more!
Can I use my phone number for my business?
Yes, you can. However, it is not recommended. Keeping business and personal use phones separate is much more professional and can help you strike a work-life balance.
Conclusion
When choosing phone plans for business, you will have to look at getting a service that aligns with your business objectives and helps you accomplish them. Fitting a service with excellent features in your budget may sometimes be challenging.
Get Community Phone, the best wireless landline service that combines the reliability of a landline, great business calling, text and voicemail features, and the freedom of wireless access.
Talk to a Community Phone business specialist today at 866-929-0659!