You open a second branch and before you know it you have two phone numbers, two voicemail boxes and twice the chance that a customer calls the wrong place. One phone number for multiple locations clears that up: a single front door for your customer, smart routing behind it. In this blog you will find out which type of number fits your business and how to spread incoming calls neatly across your branches.

Enjoy the read!

Why separate numbers slow your growth down

Growing is fun. Giving every new location its own number is not. Your customer has to work out which number they need, and when in doubt they simply dial the first one they spot.

That costs time on both sides. Your colleague in Utrecht picks up a question about the Breda branch, passes it on, and the customer calls again. On the third attempt they hang up.

There is more to it. Every separate number has to be kept up to date on your website, in your email signature, on your vans and in Google. Close a branch or move house, and you get to check all of it again.

A phone number for multiple locations: which type works best?

Three routes tend to work well in practice. Which one suits you depends on how your company is put together.

• A national number as your main line. An 085 or 088 number is not tied to a region, so it works just as well for Groningen as it does for Maastricht. Read how that works on our page about the national number.
• Your existing regional number as the central entrance. Do you have one clear home base with smaller sites around it? Then keep the number your customers already know and hang the rest of your locations behind it.
• A direct line per branch behind the main number. Customers who know exactly where they need to be reach that location straight away. See what a call forwarding number can do for you.

Torn between 085 and 088? The difference is mostly about scale. You order an 085 number one at a time, while 088 numbers are issued in blocks of at least one hundred and you apply for those through the ACM. Business.gov.nl explains exactly how that application works. For most SMEs with a handful of branches, one 085 number is plenty.

How to route calls across your branches

One number does not mean everyone answers everything. The routing happens behind the scenes, and you set it up yourself. These are the building blocks you use:

• Call menu. "Press 1 for Utrecht, 2 for Breda." Simple, and your customer lands in the right place within two seconds. Keep it to four options at most.
• Call teams per branch. Every location gets its own group of desk phones or mobiles. Whoever is in that day is set to available.
• Call distribution. Choose per team whether calls rotate, go to the colleague who has been waiting longest, or ring every device at once.
• Queue with music and a position announcement. Busy morning? Then your customer hears they are third in line instead of hanging in silence.
• Opening hours per location. If one branch opens on Saturday and the other does not, the calendar sends calls the right way on its own.
• After-hours message with voicemail to email. Nothing gets lost, because the question is in your inbox the next morning.

You will find all of these in our overview of features. Call menu, queue, opening hours and call teams are part of the SME Package, so there is nothing to bolt on separately.

Live in five steps

1. Write down which questions belong to which branch. This is the real work; the technology follows afterwards.
2. Pick your main number: a new national number or the regional one you already use.
3. Create a call team for every location and add the right colleagues to it.
4. Build the call menu, fill in the opening hours and record your welcome message.
5. Call your own number. Test every option, including the after-hours route, and rewrite the wording wherever it feels clunky.

Then fix every place your old numbers still appear in one go: website, the Google profile of each branch, invoices, signatures and your company vehicles.

What about the numbers you already have?

You do not have to throw them away. Your old regional numbers keep working and come in on the same system, so customers who still use them are never left out. Want to bring them over from your current provider? That is what number retention is for.

Do your colleagues live in Teams? Then let calls from the main number land there, without extra hardware. Find out how at calling with Teams.

Ready for the autumn

September is when the phone starts ringing again. Put your branches behind one number now and the busy season starts calmly, instead of with a round of transfers.

Take a look at the SME Package and set up your number today. Want to know which number suits you first? Browse the types of phone numbers and take your time. Good luck with scaling up!