Keeping your business phone number when your’e moving office is one of the most vital considerations for any business. Yet with traditional telephone lines it is not always possible to retain your current published telephone numbers, if you are moving out of the area. This can present a huge problem for your business as phone numbers are valuable assets and keeping hold of the numbers that you have listed on your website, printed on business cards and stationery, stored in directories is an important factor to consider in any business relocation. Perhaps though even more important is that your valuable customers will have those numbers stored in their systems, held in address books and on personal phones and any change can prove to be not only frustrating for them but also very costly to you.
So what is the solution?
There are in fact a number of different options available to you that would allow to retain your existing telephone number when your’e moving office, either in short term or even permanently depending on:
- How far away your business is moving
- The type of telephone service you are currently using
- If you are happy to use different technology for your telephone service.
If you are remaining within the same area when your’e moving office then keeping the same number is often easier although it can depend if your new telephone line is fed from the same BT cabinet?? Telephone lines that run on the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network), also known as analogue phone lines, are all connected to a local BT exchange regardless of whether or not BT are your current supplier. If however you are moving outside of the coverage area of the local exchange that you line(s) are currently connected to, then keeping business phone numbers is not something you can do using the traditional telephone lines.
If you cannot take your telephone numbers with you when your’e moving office then there are other options we can help you consider:
- You could retain your current numbers on a constant divert to your new numbers and slowly migrate over onto your new number whilst still receiving all the calls from your old number on a divert. This can however be expensive as you will pay a pence per minute rate to receive every incoming phone call that is diverted.
- Place an announcement on your current main telephone number stating “the number has now changed, please re dial the new number which is xxxx xxxxxx”. This is an effective way of making sure you don’t miss any calls and can usually be taken out on a 3 month rolling contract with a fixed monthly cost in the region of £10 – £15. Once you are happy that all of your customers are using the new number, then the divert can be switched off.
- You might consider migrating your current phone number “into the cloud”. Businesses that are using analogue services on the PSTN, can retain their numbers by switching to a VoIP telephone service and porting their numbers to a VoIP provider.
If you choose to use a VoIP provider, then your telephone calls to that number can be routed to you anywhere you have an Internet connection and the right type of telephone system designed to use the Internet for telephone calls as well as traditional lines. For further information on keeping business phone numbers when you move office, number porting and number ownership, then please do contact us on 0345 389 2310.
