For small businesses, start-ups or solopreneurs, using your mobile Number for business might feel like a no-brainer. You don’t have to spend more money and it’s convenient. But the truth is that you’ll be doing yourself and your business a huge disservice managing your calls this way.

According to a survey taken by GoDaddy, 86% of small to medium business owners are using their personal mobile numbers for their business. More worryingly, one in ten calls goes unanswered, despite ringing more than eleven times before hanging up! 

But is this any surprise when you consider what can happen when your phone rings? Your first thought, is where is it? You check your back pocket and look deep into your handbag. If it’s a faint ring, you may even consider if you’ve left it on your van’s dashboard again.

We’ve all felt that panic when you can hear your phone ring but you just can’t find it. It’s probably not a big deal to miss a personal call. But in an age where we want everything instantly, patience seems to be in short supply because 20% of people who don’t get an answer from a business the first time will go elsewhere.

Actually finding your phone and attempting to answer it before you miss the call is not the only problem that comes with using your mobile phone for business. Below we’ve got 5 more reasons that we think you should know before continuing to use your mobile number for business.

1. Using your mobile number makes your business look unprofessional.

For any business, first impressions are the decision between a sale for you or a sale for your competitor. With only a small window of seven seconds to gain your customer’s favour, the last thing you want them to face is an unprofessional voicemail greeting and a full inbox.

In amongst impressions, perception plays a major role in a consumer’s decision-making. They draw conclusions from the information they instantly see irrespective of what the unobvious facts may be.

When seeing a mobile contact number, consumers perceive that your company may be, 

• New & inexperienced. 
• Unestablished so unstable.
• (At worst) unprofessional, unreliable or even a scam. 

Surveys have also highlighted that consumers believe calls to mobiles will be charged at a premium rate. In fact, only 6% of those asked said they would call a mobile number. And when given a choice, 50% of potential customers would happily call a landline number instead of sending an email.

For any business looking to be successful and build on its reputation, these figures could be crushing. And, of course, even if your business is new, it doesn’t mean that you’re inexperienced or that there is any question about your longevity. So it might be a good idea to provide your customers with a landline number so they don’t have the chance to think any differently. 

2. The lines between business & pleasure become blurred.

From the outside, it looks like a great idea to have your business and personal number as one of the same. It would be super convenient as you always have your phone on you so will always be available to answer a call.

But therein lies the problem.

You will ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE to answer a call.

Of course, you want all the business you can get and want to appear flexible but there are better ways to do that than being essentially on call 24/7. That there my friend is the road to burnout. When running your own business it’s essential that you set up some clear boundaries and ensure a healthy work-life balance so you have some time for yourself outside of your business. 

By using your mobile and its number for both business and personal use you,

• May not be able to distinguish between a work or personal call, making it confusing how to answer your call or answer it at all.
• May inadvertently answer a business call in an inappropriate environment giving the impression that you’re unprofessional or unorganised.
• Can’t switch one element of your life off without switching off the other.
• Are unable to relinquish telephone answering responsibility to anyone else, affecting your downtime, family time & holiday time – which you should definitely take!
• Will feel compelled to answer it in any situation which could lead to dangerous predicaments if you’re a manual worker.
• Find your phone becomes your life. Your evenings will be spent answering customer calls & making callbacks. You may even feel anxiety if you don’t answer it when it rings.

Running your own business is hard, so it’s important that you take some time to rest. It’s true that you don’t have the employee perks of paid holidays and regular breaks, but there are ways you can ensure downtime. And that’s keeping your mobile phone number to yourself!

3. One mobile number = one hundred call management issues.

Ok, one hundred issues may be an exaggeration, but using your mobile number for business has its limitations! The fact that mobile phones are not designed to manage calls is a huge stumbling block. And call management is one of those things you didn’t know your business needed until you finally have it.

Managing your incoming calls means that you are less likely to miss calls and sales opportunities. It also gives your customers an efficient and pleasant experience when dealing with you and your business. 

Unfortunately, your humble mobile phone with its solitary (and possibly shared amongst your staff) 07 number won’t have the capabilities to allow you to,

• Organise voicemails & callbacks.
• Record calls for training & accountability.
• Set up call forwarding for your out-of-office service.
• Engage in conference calling.
• Transfer calls from one extension to another.
• Use a reliable caller ID to screen calls.
• Take advantage of call waiting to answer multiple calls.
• Maintain the quality of calls in poor signal areas.

Having only one phone and one number often leads to frustrated customers who experience long wait times or unanswered calls. This can be more costly in the long term than investing in a new number. Your disgruntled customers will leave bad reviews and take their money and spend it with your competitor. 

4. Your business growth will be limited.

With EVERYTHING online these days, you’d be forgiven for thinking that your customers will prefer to contact you through the Internet. With this in mind, using your mobile number for business could be the simpler solution to pick up the slack of the few who still want to call you.

The reality is that there have been many studies on the use of telephone calls within businesses. The results have been illuminating, to say the least. A balance tipping 60% of consumers confessed that they primarily use the phone to make contact with businesses. Not only that, but 70% of mobile phone users say they have used the click-to-call feature in search results to make an instant connection with a company.

If you’re not prepared for the majority of your customers to call you rather than email (for example) then you will find you and your business are limited. Using your one number attached to one phone will, 

• Restrict the flexibility for you to scale up your business by taking more calls & more scales than one number could ever offer.
• Make it harder to keep on top of ever-increasing missed calls & messages.
• Limit your time to answering calls only, rather than running & growing your business.

Even if your business is not looking to grow right now, using your mobile for business purposes places an unnecessary ceiling on your company that later you may want to be removed at a greater cost.

5. Your security could be compromised.

Displaying your mobile number on your website, social media and emails expose you to an array of unscrupulous people and activities. If you are using your mobile number for business and personal activities, you’ll be twice as susceptible to data and identity theft. Keeping your numbers separate will give you an extra layer of protection for both you and your business. 

Security breaches have become an everyday occurrence, so cybersecurity and keeping yourself safe online are paramount. Hackers are looking for more than passwords these days. The Guardian reported that through the weak mobile network interconnected system, hackers seeking to steal and cause harm have been able to track mobile phones, read text messages and listen in on calls. Scary.

Keeping your personal number private and having one or multiple business numbers is a great way to put a barrier between you and potential security risks. 

It’s not what you think…

As you can see, using your mobile number for business on the surface looks like a great idea. It doesn’t cost anything extra and is super convenient…until it costs you more than money and takes over your life.

Are we being dramatic? Maybe, but do you want to risk being the CEO who answers all the calls, and has no time for themselves? Working for yourself is supposed to give you the flexibility and freedoms that you crave in life, not tie you down more than employment did.

Once you’ve made the decision to use your mobile number and phone for business, it becomes hard to move away from it. Because your mobile number is EVERYWHERE! It’s on your website, social media channels, invoices, quotes, presentations, business cards…the list goes on!

So what is the alternative to using your mobile number for business?

Looking into using VoIP might be a good start. Because it’s cloud-based you don’t have to invest in expensive hardware. And as it uses existing networks, it’s cheap too! It often gives you savings against standard business mobile charges. 

Plus, if you’d still like to option to use your personal mobile handset, you still can with SwitchboardFREE! Whether you have an ios or Android phone, you can download our free app that allows you to present your landline number, rather than your personal number when you call out.

Benefits include:

• Scalability. Increase or decrease phone lines at the touch of a button.
• A choice of telephone numbers that will give you a local or national presence making you look established & professional.
• Complete call management system to streamline your customer experience & efficiently utilise staff.
• The flexibility for you or your staff to work from anywhere in the world using a softphone.
• Privacy, a work-life balance & peace of mind.

Here at SwitchboardFREE, we make it quick and easy for you to move from your mobile number to a number of your choosing. We give you more than 20 call management features FREE of charge and, you can give us a try for just £5 per month inclusive of a new number!

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