4 Big Reasons Employees Shouldn’t Use Personal Phone Numbers for Work
Recently, we’ve seen employers nationwide quickly switch over to a remote work model due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with that rapid switch, it means we’re seeing more and more workers utilizing their personal phones for work while waiting for desk phones to be shipped over to them.
While the BYOD (bring your own device) arrangement is a fairly common, lower-cost option that tends to work out, there are significant potential issues brewing each time a remote worker uses their personal phone numbers for business purposes, especially if they are in a heavily-client facing role.
1) Difficulty distinguishing between incoming personal and business calls
This is one of the most common issues employees face when using their personal phone for business. For example, a call from their child’s school doesn’t seem any different than a call from a customer or important prospect.
Now, this leaves the employee unsure and unprepared on:
- A) How to respond
- B) Determining how urgent the call is
- C) Whether they need to move to a quieter room, or if it’s a casual call they can take with some noise in the background
Nobody likes being unprepared, especially if it’s for an important client. So, the solution to eliminating all that unnecessary guesswork? Routing your business phone number to your cell phone with ReachUC. By downloading the ReachUC softphone client on your cell phone, you can answer calls directed to your business phone number on your cell. And on the ReachUC mobile app interface, you can access your entire business call history, business contacts, voicemails and text messages with ease.
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2) Work-life balance (and overall productivity) becomes tricky
If employees start giving out their personal phone numbers instead of their business line, then it becomes nearly impossible to turn off one part of their lives without turning off the other. Taking work-related calls on the weekends or while on PTO can become very problematic because while this is sustainable in the short-term, it can lead to major burnout in the long-term. This is especially true for those who work from home and already struggle with defining boundaries between work and their personal life, since it’s all conducted in the same spot — home.
With a separate business phone number, employees are able to set boundaries and take time to recharge on their time off — and that is just another big advantage to employers utilizing a softphone like ReachUC.
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3) Important customer data travels with your employee
If an employee uses their personal phone number to conduct business with clients, you may run into tricky privacy issues. By using a personal number to call or text clients and prospects, now all of that important contact information, call logs, text messages and voicemails, travel with the employee — even after they leave the company.
That’s where the ReachUC softphone comes in handy. If an employee decides to leave their company, their business phone number can be deactivated so that they no longer have access to private customer information. This way, the company retains information that belongs to them and mitigates any customer privacy issues they could have faced.
4) Employees struggle with a cluttered, unorganized inbox
When both personal and business phone calls are coming through one line, the resulting call volume can be a lot to manage. Especially since contact with a client isn’t conducted solely over the phone, but also through text and email.
By routing a business number to your employee’s cell phone with a softphone solution like ReachUC, that no longer becomes an issue. All business calls and text messages will be housed in one space (the ReachUC mobile app) so accidentally texting a client about an upcoming weekend BBQ never happens.
SkySwitch Resellers can offer the ReachUC softphone as a great Work From Home Solution to their customers, and it is available for download on Android, iOS, PC and Mac. If you have any questions about ReachUC, please browse our extensive Knowledge Base Docs or feel free to reach out to your SkySwitch Sales or Onboarding Rep. We’re always happy to help!