Making business calls from a blocked telephone number – how will your customers know who you are? 26/8/10
Posted by Cloud Net on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 @ 03:06 AM
There are a lot of people, including me, who won’t take calls from
a telephone number which shows up as blocked on my phone’s display. We all assume that the call will be an unsolicited sales call and we don’t want those.
I have never understood why anyone would want to make such calls in business. I know in a private situation you might want to call a business without them being able to phone you back. The other way round though – presumably a business would want the person who called to be able to see their number so they can be reassured that it is a business calling and call you back if they want to.
There are, however, many companies that block numbers, such as solicitors and banks. If I were being cynical, I guess this must be some kind of a comment on how they regard their customers – a bit of a nuisance from the really important stuff.
In reality, the explanation is straightforward – it is simply because they have old fashioned switchboards which don’t allow calls to be made back to the extension they originated from. So, for example, there are several solicitors in an office – one makes an outside call and the switchboard can only give out either the main number to the receiving phone or “block” the number. If the switchboard is programmed to do the former then when you call back you get reception and they have to find out who called you – if it is the latter then unfortunately you can’t call back as have no idea who called in the first place.
For companies that want to ensure that their customers know that they called, the solution is simple: use a business phone system which allows individuals to have their own numbers and gives these out when a call is made. The online switchboard system from Cloud Net is such a system and comes with a whole host of other flexible and useful features. There really isn’t any excuse or reason for business calls to come with a blocked number any more.
Written by David Hill, Chairman, Cloud Net