Author: Direct Numbers Team

Direct Numbers are specialists in providing quality numbers and virtual call handling services to businesses of all sizes in the UK. Our numbers and services are all hosted in the cloud so this means no expensive in-house kit is needed.

You can access all our cloud services by using our online management tool to give you full access to your numbers, services and call stats. Take control of your customer calls today.

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Virtual Phone Numbers

New Local Virtual Phone Numbers

We have just introduced a range of brand new local geographic business phone numbers.

Never miss a customer call again with our range of local phone numbers which include a wealth of call handling features.

No expensive phone system is needed as our virtual numbers can be terminated to your work, home, mobile or voice messages. This gives you the freedom of keeping your workforce connected to your customers.

Whether you’re in Canterbury or Coventry, Peterborough or Plymouth, we’ve got a range of numbers to suit your business and give that all important local presence.

You can route our numbers to any landline or mobile in the UK, ensuring you’re always able to take those all important calls.

Our new areas include:

Bath01225
Canterbury01227
Coventry024
Derby01332
Dundee01382
Durham01913
Exeter01392
Gloucester01452
Lancaster01524
Leicester0116
Newport01633
Norwich01603
Nottingham0115
Peterborough01733
Plymouth01752
Portsmouth0239
Sheffield0114
Stoke-on-Trent01782
Swansea01792
York01904

 

All of our numbers come with:

*subject to additional charge.

Our virtual numbers and the services included are the perfect tools to make working from home – as so many of us are currently doing – as simple as straight forward as possible.
With our remote working solutions your virtual number can be changed to route to your workforce, wherever they may be working. Change the destination numbers instantaneously using our online number management tool.
If you don’t see your area listed on our website, please feel free to contact us and we’ll see what we can do.

Get a local number for your business today and never miss that all important call again.

Categories
Virtual Phone Numbers

Business Phone Numbers *Special Offer*

Lady talking on the phone with text over the top saying get your first 3 months for £1.99 on all our standard numbersWe’ve updated our website to make buying a business phone number for your organisation a lot easier.

It’s been a tough year, so we want to highlight how our numbers can help keep your customer calls coming into your business no matter where your staff may be working in the UK.

All our virtual phone numbers come with a powerful online management tool that will help you manage your calls, monitor stats and set up great call handling services like call queuing, clever number routing or even an IVR menu option for your customers.

Why get a number through Direct Numbers?

  • Each business number includes a wealth of call handling services included in the price!
  • Bulletproof network reliability – no VoIP routes are used.
  • Security of a contract that’s on a 30 day rolling basis.
  • Powerful online management tool that gives you control.
  • Great pricing and team on hand to help set you up.

Choose the right number for your business :-

0800 Freephone Numbers– great for generating sales and marketing calls.

0330 Virtual Numbers – Customer friendly numbers which are cheaper to call than the old 0845/0870 numbers.

02 London Numbers – Have a London presence number for your customers!

See our full number ranges here.

Can’t see the number you want?

We have a large selection of geographic and non-geographic business phone numbers available so if you’re after a specific 01 or 02 geographic location in the UK or need a particular 08 or 03 number then contact us now on 0330 333 8755.

If you like what you see and have a business number through a different supplier, why not speak to us about porting in your number to us. It’s free and easy to do!

Speak to our team to take advantage of this great offer and get your business connected today.

*Buy any of our standard virtual business phone numbers and you’ll pay just £1.99 per month for the first three months. Use offer code 3MONTH199

Direct Numbers is a trading name of GO Telecom Ltd

 

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Call Handling Services Virtual Phone Numbers

How Can I Work From Home Effectively?

A lot of us have had to adjust to working from home recently and it can be a big change for some.

Your routine and schedule has likely completely changed and it’s thrown you completely out of sync.
We’ve compiled a list of things to try and make working from home a little easier for you.

Make sure you have set working times.

Since being at home, I’ve stuck to my usual hours so it gives some structure to the day and you have a set time to get things done which will also hopefully keep you focused on work as there are completely different distractions at home compared to in the office.

Have a dedicated workspace.

Don’t just sit in bed on your laptop – as much as you might want to!
The only space I could set up was in my bedroom, but I have a desk and a chair so that I am only working when I sit here, rather than wherever I like. You need to keep work and relax totally separate – this is more important than ever with us spending so much time at home at the moment.

Act like you’re actually going to work.

Set an alarm, have a shower, get dressed, have breakfast – keep to your normal morning routine. This then sets you up for the day and you’ll be more prepared to sit down and do work. I get up a little later than I would to go into the office, but I make sure I get dressed and have my breakfast before I start work.

Keep in touch with colleagues regularly.

Using video calling apps and programmes such as Google Hangouts is a great way to do this. You can use the instant messaging to ask questions and inform people of things quickly (quicker than an email that might get lost or forgotten) and there’s also the video chat option for team meetings which we have been using to catch up with each other every morning.

Ensure you take regular breaks.

This can be difficult when you’re at home as there’s not really anywhere to go, but make sure you get up from your desk regularly and take little walks round your home. Have a chat with another member of the household for a bit. Just take a break from work a few times a day.

Using virtual numbers can be really useful when working from home. The features that come with them enable you to receive work calls at home with ease.

  • Disaster recovery – fall back measures for your customer calls so you don’t miss them
  • Employee’s mobile becomes their work extension. Inbound customer calls routed to remote workforce to receive calls on mobiles. Routing can be set up in a variation of ways – hunt groups, multi out dial etc
  • Call queuing to handle long call answering times. Add announcement messages apologising for the longer hold times and advising of office closure
  • Call whispers on inbound customer calls to your staff so they know it’s a work call and therefore how to answer the call
  • Voicemail to email: Customer voicemails from missed or out of hours calls are emailed to the correct team so they can be listened to and called back
  • Call recording so management are able to monitor offsite calls
  • Audio conferencing so your workforce can communicate with the whole team through a conference call
  •  Call handling software means no kit or maintenance needed

There are also apps such as the one from NFON which makes your mobile act like your desk phone. You can make and receive calls using your extension/direct dial. You can also put it on ‘do not disturb’ for when you’re not working to make sure you’re getting those breaks!

Working from home and virtual offices are likely to become much more commonplace in the future. There are ways to make the transition much easier for yourself and/or your employees and the running of the business. Virtual phone systems can keep the office running like nothing has changed to ease that transition. Read more about our virtual number solutions here.

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Direct Numbers Virtual Phone Numbers

Your Portal is Changing!

As of 1st February 2018 your number management portal is changing.

What are the key changes for the new look portal?

Menu navigation has changed: when you first login, the landing page is a basic dashboard of real-time statistics for your account.

Navigation has been split into 3 distinct areas, replacing the existing tabular options:

There are now 3 main menu options which are touch screen friendly:

Personal User menu – this is where you can manage your own user settings and log out of the portal:

Dashboard is where you will be able to view and manage your real-time statistic dashboards once the development is complete – for the interim, a default basic dashboard is available.

Home is where you can access the management functions for Numbers and Accounts along with the Pulse reporting engine and new direct access to the Service Manager call plan management interface, Payphone Barring, Voicemail and Service Number Groups screens – previously navigation to these areas was through the Numbers screen:

All these menus are touch screen friendly; drop-downs can be accessed either by a mouse click or finger press.

The process of updating/maintaining your number remains the same.

Please don’t hesitate to call us on 0330 333 8755 or email us at info@directnumbers.co.uk if you have any questions or need help navigating the new layout.

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Direct Numbers

Myriad Important Information – HTML Update

As a user of KCOM’s Myriad platform, we are pleased to tell you about the launch of our re-developed Service Manager interface in the white label portal which will come into effect on 15 November 2016. 

What is changing?

We are pleased to confirm, following a successful beta release in October, that the re-developed Service Manager interface (comprising Service Builder and Service Designer) in HTML5 will replace the current Silverlight version.

Why are we making this change?

We recognise that Silverlight is not compatible with touchscreen devices and additionally Microsoft announced that they will be withdrawing support in 2020, with many non-Windows browsers already withdrawing support.

HTML5 is a universally recognised cross platform code, which doesn’t require additional software installation (such as browser plug-ins). This launch will mean that you will be able to access and use the Myriad 2 Service Manager on touchscreen devices1, in addition to all popular web browsers2 on PC’s and laptops.

How do I access the new Service Manager interface?

From launch, the HTML Service Manager can be accessed in 2 ways via the ‘Numbers’ screen in the white label portal; firstly through the ‘Service Manager’ button located in the left-hand menu and secondly through the ‘Update’ option next to any of your service numbers which show as the product type ‘Service Manager’.

Are there any significant changes to Service Manager as part of this launch?

We’ve focussed our redevelopment on aligning the HTML5 version as closely to the current interface as possible and are confident you won’t see any significant changes to how Service Builder and Service Designer work today but the attached overview document details of the key changes to Service Designer for your information.

Can I still use the Silverlight version of Service Manager?

No, after launch Silverlight will be completely withdrawn from the Service Manager interface, including the ‘out of browser’ application – if you currently use this and try to access Service Manager in this way following the launch, you will receive notification message instructing you to access Service Manager via the Numbers screen in the main portal.

Categories
Virtual Phone Numbers

How you can track your marketing ROI using our virtual numbers.

Calling virtual numbers from mobilesYou would measure your web traffic in detail and analyse your click through rates through your different forms of digital traffic – pay per click search, banner display and organic because this data is important to any business if they want to track their marketing spend.

So why aren’t more organisations doing the same with their inbound phone traffic? Many companies are still using their one main phone number for their advertising, so it’s great when a customer calls but how do you know which piece of advertising is actually generating this call?

Here’s how you can track every call from all your marketing sources:

  • Print – Use a virtual number to allocate to your print advertising to see how different ads work for you. You may want to think about using local geographic numbers for ads targeting a local market, for example, a national gym chain may want to use a local 01273 telephone number on their ads when advertising to a Brighton audience.
  • TV/Radio – If you’re running TV or radio campaigns then this is probably taking up a sizeable sum of your marketing budget so tracking is very important. In these cases it is wise to look at using unique easy to remember ‘Golden’ numbers for your audience/listeners.
  • Digital – PPC, display and organic traffic is something most organisations should be tracking. Like tracking your web click through rates, using a unique phone number will allow you to track the source of your customer calls. It can be used with your landing page split testing to allow you to really drill down to which page is converting – for serious trackers you can allocate a different number to your organic, mobile, PPC and display landing pages.

These are just some of the ways a virtual number can help track calls – the same principle applies to your email and SMS broadcasts, apps and any other form of advertising where you would display a phone number.

With our virtual numbers from Direct Numbers you’ll get a lot more than just a number:

kcom-portal

  • Add your own audio and branded messages for your callers and make them site specific, for example, ‘Thanks for calling our Brighton gym members line..’
  • Every number comes with its own online portal allowing you to run call stats reports and change services on your number. Why not set up a scheduled email report daily, weekly or monthly detailing your call traffic to be emailed directly to your marketing team.
  • Add IVR menu options and call queuing facilities on every number. This gives businesses of any size a professional sounding front-end to their phone service. Sometimes this will be the first interaction a potential customer may have with your company so make it a good one.

To find out more about any of the above then please contact us today for a demonstration

Categories
Direct Numbers

10 Reasons Why Our Customers Are Switching To A Cloud Phone System

cloud

So firstly, what is a cloud phone system? It’s basically a telephone network that runs over your internet connection and it’s hosted in the cloud on a supplier’s server which means you will not need any expensive PBX (Private Branch Exchange) kit to buy, rent or maintain.

A cloud phone system also gives businesses and organisations of any size the opportunity to have a professional and state of the art solution for the fraction of the price of a traditional legacy phone system.

We’ve highlighted below some of the key points why our customers are making the switch to a cloud:-

Cost – It’s hosted in the cloud so you won’t need to buy or lease a PBX box for your organisation. This also means you won’t have to endure any maintenance costs for the up keep of this kit. No large CAPEX commitments when making the switch!

Cheaper calls – the calls are carried over your internet connection so they work out to be a lot cheaper than your traditional telecom network charges. Calling a UK mobile is just 4 pence per minute compared to BT’s standard rate of 13.65p per minute + 17.06p set up fee*

30 Day contracts – Say goodbye to those long 3 year tie-ins that many of our customers have now managed to get out of. Rolling 30 day contracts are great for smaller businesses or start-ups that don’t want to have to commit to such a long period.

Multi-site – Got more than one work site? With a cloud phone solution you can link up all your offices, shops, restaurants etc under the one phone system without having to have kit installed at each location. All calls between these locations would be free as well.

Never miss a customer call again – Benefit from a variety of call features that are easy to use and set up. Stop missing customer calls by using services like call queuing and time of day routing. Set up a professional sounding IVR menu for your callers and redirect calls to the right department.

Clever smart phone app – The smart phone is a big part of our lives these days so benefit from having your work extension with you when you are away from the office. Make and receive work calls with our smartphone app means you can work remotely and stay in touch with your customers wherever you are.

Scalability – It’s a system that will grow with you without having to spend a fortune. Hiring new staff? New extensions can be added quickly and easily to your existing set up without having to spend a fortune doing it.

Plug n Play – If you’re like me then I still like to have a phone on my desk. With a large selection of pre-configured phones you literally just need to plug these into your available internet port and they are ready to be used.

Quality and reliability – Interconnected with BT data centres and 99.9% TUV certified means excellent crystal clear call quality.

Integration – Using a CRM like Salesforce or Zoho? Then bolt it on to our cloud phone system for a fully integrated CRM phone system. Of if you’re after full enterprise capabilities then integrate your cloud phone system with Skype for Business.

Looking to the future, BT have already announced that they will be switching off their traditional analogue PSTN and ISDN lines by 2025 so it makes sense to start looking at switching from a traditional legacy style phone system very soon.

Want more information on how to make the switch to a cloud phone system or if you would you like to see a demo then speak to us today at GO Telecom.

 

*BT call costs may vary. Always check directly with your supplier.

Categories
Direct Numbers

How Do You Monitor The Telephone Preference Service?

angry man

 

The Telephone Preference Service is a free opt out service that allows consumers to officially register their choice not be contacted by unsolicited sales or marketing calls.  In order for this to work, the telemarketing companies have to apply for a license to be able to screen their data.  This should stop the company making calls to registered numbers, and avoid large fines from the governing bodies.

The TPS ask registered consumers to allow up to 28 days for all “nuisance” calls to stop, as it then becomes a legal requirement for establishments not call these numbers, but as we have all probably experienced, sometimes there are instances where this is not the case.  The data a particular business owns could be much older than the date of the consumers registration, and coupled with a poor screening process, some of these calls are allowed to get through.

Luckily, the most efficient screening practice is now available to telemarketing companies.  Our NFON powered VoIP telephone system can be tailored to monitor the TPS database in real time for all employees making outbound calls.  A short message will play to advise the agent that the number that they are calling is a TPS registered number, and then give them the option of hanging up the call or continuing with it if they have gained explicit permission from the customer.

This feature can reassure call centres that they are sticking to the very stringent rules that govern this industry, and helps to avoid some hefty fines in the process.  With call recording , call centre monitoring, call queuing  and real time stats available to you, there really has never been a better time to switch to the cloud.

 

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Direct Numbers Virtual Phone Numbers

Big Changes to 08, 09 and 118 Numbers Happening on 1st July 2015

From the 1st of July 2015, OFCOM will be making changes to the way that service numbers charged. Service numbers are ones beginning 08, 09 or 118, so if you are using one of these numbers then the following information is very important.

UK calling info

The calls will now be charged to the caller in two parts:

Access Charge:

This part of the call is charged by the caller’s phone company, so for example Vodafone, EE, O2 etc. according to their contract rates.

Service Charge:

This part of the call is charged by the organisation offering the service, so for example if you have a number through Direct Numbers, our network provider is KCom and they will be charging this part of the call.

What This Means For You:

If you have any of these number prefixes with us, it means that you will now have to review all of your marketing materials and advertising where your number is shown to reflect the new charging in order to make it clear to the customers. You must ensure that your service charge is clearly displayed everywhere that you advertise or promote that number. The service charge should be prominent and in close proximity to the number itself. The recommended form of wording is as follows:

“Calls cost Xp (or Xp per minute) plus your company’s access charge”.

Our Numbers Starting: New Retail Service Charge Price Point (incl VAT) from 1st July 2015
Service charges

The good news for consumers –
Freephone number (0800 & 0808) will be FREE from mobiles as well as landlines from this date as well.

Full information on the changes, including what advertising needs to be reviewed, and well as a list of FAQ’s is available through this website: http://www.ukcalling.info/

There has never been a better time to start thinking about switching your 084 or 087 business number to a customer friendly 03, 01 or 02 number.

Speak to Direct Numbers to see how we can help you switch your number over.

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Direct Numbers

Let’s Do Business – Brighton Expo

A big thank you to everyone that came to see us at the Let’s Do Business Brighton Expo last week.  It was a fun show to do and it was great to meet so many people.  We went a day early to set up ready for the morning which was a nice luxury to have seeing as the beautifully set Brighton Racecourse is on our doorstep.  Despite the fact that it was the only day of the week with awful weather, the show was a big success and we wanted to say thank you to everyone involved.

The winner of our raffle, and proud new owner of a Kindle Fire HD, was Gemma Doughtyof YMCA Downslink Group.  Congratulations Gemma.  We will hopefully be doing more shows this year, follow us on Twitter for more information on upcoming events where we will be exhibiting.

We hope to see you at the next Let’s Do Business Brighton Expo!

 

LDB Brighton Stand