Think about all the time we spend these days sending threads upon threads of emails, taking calls, and attending Zoom-meetings. Days spent working from home tend to seem longer than those you spent in the office, don’t they? It’s become normal to find yourself led astray by the myriad tempting offers we find online while casually browsing and before you know it, you might have made a purchase, yet again, prompted by Facebook or Instagram ads leading you to an online store front. After just a sliver of guilt for a leisure spend during work hours, you feel the excitement of getting your new thing, be it an article of clothing or new set of pens.

No worries, it happens to all of us.

Online retail visits and sales projections

In fact, online sales have been breaking records as the number of online retail consumers, globally, in the first six months of the global COVID-19 pandemic rose from 16.7 billion visits per day to 22 billion visits per day, between January and June 2020, respectively. Additionally, it is estimated that there are over 2 billion online retail customers – that’s a quarter of the world’s estimated population!

The difference between physical goods stores and dropshippers

So it’s been a week since you’ve made your purchase. You’ve already e-mailed the seller asking for a status update and they have kindly instructed you to be patient, we’re working on it. “How long can it possibly take?”, you think, “the address says they’re just down the road”, right?

One of the biggest changes we’re seeing in modern e-commerce is the rise of companies who use dropshipping as opposed to selling their own physical goods. Whereas the latter requires the store owner to buy and hold stock of the products they are selling, the former makes it possible for the store owner to have an e-commerce store front where orders are sent directly to wholesale suppliers who send the goods directly to the customer. This means that stores who use a dropshipping model are able to offer goods at much lower prices than traditional brick-and-mortar-turned-e-commerce stores and more often than you think, your “local deal” actually comes from a few continents away.

Who are these retailers? Well, generally, the wholesale suppliers who actually send the product to the customer are based in China (usually from large scale e-commerce platforms like aliexpress or taobao). But often the face of the companies that consumers think they are buying from seem to be local sellers; leaving consumers stumped as to why their packages take so long (4, 5, even 6 weeks) to arrive.

These seemingly local stores then tend to rely on chatbots to deal with their customer service, but in some countries, such as Germany and The Netherlands, it is required by law to have a phone number connected to your website.

The customer service dilemma

Dropshipping retailers are by definition entrepreneurs, sometimes attracted to the main benefit of not needing a large investment or space to start a dropshipping company. However, what dropshipping companies don’t realise they are missing is the essential contact between the customer and the company, whether that be for sales or support.

In order to help the increase of customer satisfaction and sales, it remains a key factor for dropshipping retailers to maintain a local presence that is accessible via phone. Luckily, a physical phone or landline system doesn’t have to be the solution here.

Business phone numbers for dropshippers

Dropshipping retailers can now choose from a wide range of customer service phone numbers:

1. 00800 numbers which expand a company’s global presence and allows customers to call companies for free from 45 countries
2. 0800 numbers which home in a company’s global presence to a national level and are available to call for free in 100+ countries
3. Local phone numbers which hone in a company’s national presence to a local level and allow consumers to call companies with local area codes, at local rates

Modern telcos like TeleForwarding offer VoIP numbers which allow companies to route their business numbers through any destination number – mobile or landline – of their choice. Our additional features offer even more flexibility to give you the best use of your business phone number:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a pre-recorded voice menu, allowing your callers to make a selection using the keypad (“Press 1 for symptom disclosure”).
• Voice2Mail offers the choice to direct calls directly to voice mail, where the voice file is converted to text and sent to your company email address. This is great for calls that come in after hours so you can get to customers first thing the next business day.
• With Sequential Ringing you can forward your incoming calls in a certain order to different destination numbers. Is employee 1 not available? Then the call will be forwarded to employee 2, or to a standardized announcement text.

For dropshippers and e-commerce entrepeneurs, there is much to be gained and we at TeleForwarding would be glad to help you.

Interested in setting up a number today? Contact us with your business information and we’ll make it happen ASAP.

Face to face meetings are not the only option when conducting business, especially during a possible pandemic. Here’s how you can continue to maintain collegial and client relationships, without travel.

Teleconferencing with International Colleagues and Clients

We need to keep up our workflows and maintain communication with our (international) partners. It is imperative if we want to maintain our economy. Now is the perfect time to (re-)implement the teleconference in your daily meetings.

Instead of cancelling already scheduled international meetings, set up a +800 number or local phone numbers so your colleagues and clients can dial-in to your conference calls. This will allow you to keep doing business as usual, despite travel and potential health restrictions.

In a local setting, it allows you to maintain communication with your direct colleagues. Perhaps your company advises to work from home. Or that only 2 people can sit together in a meeting room at the same time. The implementation of a virtual phone number allows business to continue as usual in the face of these types of decisions.

Your One-Stop-Shop Solution is… Right Here!

At TeleForwarding, we have the resources to implement free domestic or international hotline numbers and toll free phone numbers, and local phone numbers.

Our trusted specialists are happy to talk through costs and best features for the number(s) you want to implement in the wake of this Covid-19 outbreak.

There are a number of additional features available:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a pre-recorded voice menu, allowing your callers to make a selection using the keypad (“Press 1 for symptom disclosure”).
• Do you receive a large volume of simultaneous incoming calls ? The Call Queue feature allows efficient call routing, especially during busy periods. You can even add targeted messages and hold music for high volume call times.
• With Sequential Ringing you can forward your incoming calls in a certain order to different destination numbers. Is employee 1 not available? Then the call will be forwarded to employee 2, or to a standardized announcement text.

Interested in setting up a number today? Contact us with your business information and we’ll make it happen ASAP.

Check out our other articles about how hotline phone numbers, toll free numbers, and/or virtual local phone numbers can help your business through a global health crisis: Hotline Numbers for Public Health Information and Communications amidst the Coronavirus Outbreak.

Amidst the struggles of the current corona virus pandemic, your trusted telecoms specialists at TeleForwarding wanted to send out a simple reminder: in uncertain times your comms policy is important. In this article, we highlight employee comms and inventory coms.

Internal Comms: Employees

Larger companies can set up a free hotline for their employees to anonymously disclose their proximity to and/or symptoms of the novel coronavirus. This helps to keep HR and compliance teams up to date with the health of their staff. Hotline numbers can also give the option for employees to listen to a prerecorded message (via an IVR menu). Messages can have the most up to date information about health and safety policies, for instance. Or to disclose potential employee exposure to Covid-19. Global operating multinationals can have the same sort of international hotline. Extra options could include cancellation details about upcoming trainings or conferences.

External Comms: Inventory

Brands and manufacturers can also set up a hotline number for their distributors for information about expected restocking. With mass panic comes unnecessary “panic shopping”, leaving stores unprepared and out of stock. Products like non-perishable food items, medication, cleaning products, even toilet paper are the most common to sell out quickly. Having a hotline for inventory allows distributors to give the correct information to the stores they stock. Consequently, these stores can relay the information to customers looking for certain products.

Your One-Stop-Shop Solution is… Right Here!

At TeleForwarding, we have the resources to implement free domestic or international hotline numbers and toll free phone numbers, and local phone numbers.

Our trusted specialists are happy to talk through costs and best features for the number(s) you want to implement in the wake of this Covid-19 outbreak.

There are a number of additional features available:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a pre-recorded voice menu, allowing your callers to make a selection using the keypad (“Press 1 for symptom disclosure”).
• Do you receive a large volume of simultaneous incoming calls ? The Call Queue feature allows efficient call routing, especially during busy periods. You can even add targeted messages and hold music for high volume call times.
• With Sequential Ringing you can forward your incoming calls in a certain order to different destination numbers. Is employee 1 not available? Then the call will be forwarded to employee 2, or to a standardized announcement text.

Interested in setting up a number today? Contact us with your business information and we’ll make it happen ASAP.

Check out our other articles about how hotline phone numbers, toll free numbers, and/or virtual landline numbers can help your business through a global health crisis: Hotline Numbers for Public Health Information.

On the home front

Municipal Symptom Disclosure Municipalities can set up free emergency hotlines to ensure that residents can anonymously call in and notify officials when they have symptoms of Covid-19. Call agents can direct residents to self-quarantine and/or go to the closest testing facility, for instance.

National Information Hotlines Free hotline numbers can also be implemented for residents to call in and acquire the most up to date information available from municipal, state, and federal governments about how the outbreak is being handled. Implement these hotlines for information such as risk level and in the event of a (city) lockdown.

Big Pharma, Manufacturing, and Distribution

Pharmaceutical companies can first set up Freephone numbers for their distributors to disclose any changes or delays in product import/export, since manufacturers may be in highly effected countries such as Singapore or China.

Moreover, a free hotline number for coronavirus can be set up for pharmacies to call and ask about distribution delays. Having this information is beneficial to customers asking when their (regular) medications will be available to pick up.

Your One-Stop-Shop Solution is… Right Here!

At TeleForwarding, we have the resources to implement free domestic or international hotline numbers and toll free phone numbers, and local phone numbers.

Our trusted specialists are happy to talk through costs and best features for the number(s) you want to implement in the wake of this Covid-19 outbreak.

There are a number of additional features available:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a pre-recorded voice menu, allowing your callers to make a selection using the keypad (“Press 1 for symptom disclosure”).
• Do you receive a large volume of simultaneous incoming calls ? The Call Queue feature allows efficient call routing, especially during busy periods. You can even add targeted messages and hold music for high volume call times.
• With Sequential Ringing you can forward your incoming calls in a certain order to different destination numbers. Is employee 1 not available? Then the call will be forwarded to employee 2, or to a standardized announcement text.

Interested in setting up a number today? Contact us with your business information and we’ll make it happen ASAP.

Like most companies, you are constantly evaluating your investments and efforts for efficacy and target reaching, right? Marketing campaigns are some of the most important places to do these types of evaluations. Too many times we focus only on evaluating website or newsletter data because it’s easily accessible and easy to analyse. However, studies show that the phone is not dead in marketing! Consumers still prefer picking up the phone to contact a company to get advice, give their opinion or ask for information.

Phone numbers are part of the marketing strategy

With that said, it’s important to remember to evaluate the success of incoming phone calls. When investing in toll free numbers, what you want is to analyse whether the toll free numbers are being used as intended and if it’s being done efficiently. This can easily be done by implementing call tracking in your company.

You can easily run these diagnostics with our online dashboard. Our IVR landscape allows customers to view and track call statistics to do such analyses. Different functions help to analyse the call even before answering the phone, such as where the call is coming from. Here, we’ll share the many possibilities how call tracking is beneficial to your company.

Improve call centre efficiency

Prior to taking a call, a voice recording share information about the country of origin of the call, what the caller has chosen on your touch-key menu, and/or which hotline the call is coming from. Having this information is valuable for many reasons. First, it makes it possible for your team to know in which language to answer calls, perfect for multinational business dealings. Second, your team will know precisely how to help callers with the detailed information provided. This can be especially helpful for call centres receiving calls from multiple lines. 

Improve client relations

You can also improve your relationship to your existing clients. With call tracking, the caller can be identified before taking the call, allowing you to address them by name. Moreover, the client’s data can be immediately accessed in your data system as it can be coupled with the incoming calls, saving time. This kind of personalisation is priceless when it comes to customer satisfaction!

Evaluation of customer service and phone numbers

Calls can also be evaluated after they’re done. After the call, you can access statistics such as length of the call, how long the call took, how quickly it was answered, how long the caller had to wait to be answered, and if (and/or how many) calls were missed while you were on the line. 

You want to know which phone lines and products bring in the most traffic or which country the call are coming in from? Call tracking makes this possible. With access to call tracking, you can check if and where marketing campaigns are succeeding and subsequently where you should increase your marketing efforts. In case of an emergency hotline, you can also check in which countries the hotline has been called the most.

Interesting in learning about all the possibilities of call tracking and how it can increase your company’s efficiency? Contact us today!

Emergency phone numbers can be used for a number of reasons, like disasters, accidents, outings etc. However, a 0800 number for calling in ‘sexual intimidation’ is a new phenomenon and thus interesting to have a closer look at.

0800 emergency phone numbers

The French hotline that Cannes Film Festival implemented is meant to both combat and prevent sexual harassment, but if it does happen people can reach the hotline 24/7 and automated registration of the number of calls. This is important to measure the actual success.

Organisations that suspects the existence of sexual harassment or intimidation in their offices would do good to offer their staff a similar internal 0800 number which they can reach 24/7. Are you interested to know whether a 0800 emergency phone number can offer your organisation and its clients or customers the same feeling of safety and protection? Feel free to contact us for more information and take advantage of our special discount!

Since June 15, 2017, the European Roaming Regulation has been enforced whereby telecoms customers in member states of the European Economic Area (EEA) can take advantage of “roam like at home” rules. This means that wherever you may be in this geographical area, on holiday or for a work trip, you can make phone calls to local-to-you numbers on your mobile device at no extra cost. This means that you no longer have to worry about the fees you may rack up when calling home or the office in case of an emergency. However, if you need to make geographically local calls, for instance to arrange for an extra night’s stay at your hotel or to book a rental vehicle, these calls will cost you the same long-distance fees as if you were calling from home.

Foreign phone numbers: save costs

When it comes to the transportation industry, anything from small courier companies to large transportation conglomerates, it is vital for drivers and dispatch units to have an easy and affordable way to keep in touch. This is particularly important for time sensitive issues such as manufacturer delay at a pick-up location, unforeseen traffic, or a flat tire. With the vast amount of trade that happens between the EEA member states, phone calls from drivers to dispatchers can become a costly feat. The coverage that this new Roaming Regulation offers for local-to-local calling is an incredible advancement in cost savings.

Think of it this way: You are a transport company with a headquarters in Germany who does the majority of their business in France and Poland, and let’s say that the majority of your drivers are then local to France and Poland. With your dispatch headquarters in Germany, it is costly to have telephonic contact between you and your drivers. Either you are paying outrageous monthly fees for special, international mobile packages for your drivers to be able to call you, or you are spending an astronomical amount in long-distance fees on your landline.

An easy and cost beneficial solution would be to give the French drivers access to a French phone number to call, and a Polish number for the Polish drivers. Although you are located in Germany, it is possible to have local numbers to the respective geographical locations of your drivers routed to reach your German offices at no extra cost to them.

It is obvious that this kind of easy communication channel can be implemented simply by setting up local numbers in the countries where your employees already have phone numbers, so that they can call you at no extra charge.

Are you a transport company who is looking to cut down telephone costs by providing local numbers to your drivers? Contact us for more information take advantage of our special discount! Contact us for more information take advantage of our special discount!

Good news for all travelers that venture outside their borders and want to make calls from abroad! From July 1 2017 on European law forbids mobile providers to calculate extra costs for calling and using the internet abroad any more.

From now on mobile subscriptions will provide coverage against the standard tariff in all European member states. This means that calling the home front from all European member states will be settled within the call bundle, without extra costs. But be aware! When you’re abroad and calling with a local phone number (one that’s foreign for you) then costs will be calculated.

The travel business and national phone numbers

For travel organisations that serve an international clientele, this new European legislation makes it easier to serve international customers as well, and bind them by using foreign phone numbers from the home countries of these customers/travelers. The incoming call will be forward to headquarters 1:1. Think about business travel agencies, but also the rapidly emerging online travel agencies.

By implementing phone numbers from different countries travel agencies can now provide support on national phone numbers fro countries where their customer live and work, without them being confronted with extra costs in case they need assistance by phone whenever trouble or questions arise. Travelers can call their travel agents or support desks on the spot, without any extra costs.

Travel organisations only need one phone number per country for complete support, from questions about destinations to reservations and emergency assistance. This clarity will be much appreciated by travelers and contributes to an optimal travel experience.

Callers also prefer using a familiar phone number because they trust these, there’s no language barrier and the lack of fear of extra costs paves the way for travel agencies to improve loyalty to their customers.

Are you, as a provider of trips for international customers, interested to know more about what this development can mean for your organisation? Please contact us to get more information and take advantage of our special discount!

Foreign phone numbers

Make sure your foreign customers and consumers can reach your business, with phone numbers from those very countries. This creates trust, since people aren’t too keen on using foreign phone numbers to make a call. Consumers fear high phone bills and foreign companies can have their central blocked from calling to foreign numbers. Besides this everybody is afraid to be connected to someone they are unable to understand. Since it doesn’t make a difference in costs for mobile phones if someone receives a call from abroad anymore nowadays, it saves traveling consumers or expats the extra costs and thus takes away the barriers to call abroad. All the more reason to support your local business with foreign phone numbers.

Would you like to know more about foreign phone numbers? Feel free to contact us!

This is the last part in our series. We’ve guided you trough almost 200 years of telecommunications, from the invention of Morse code to digital telephony and smartphones. Now it’s time to take a look at what the future has in store for us, with the ever-accelerating technological developments. Since Apple kicked off the smartphone revolution we’ve embraced apps and gained easy access to tons of services that, prior to this smartphone age, would have required a lot more gadgets and resources. Our relationship with technology has fundamentally changed, and the possibilities are so endless it’s impossible to predict what the future of telecommunications will look like. But we can at least give it a try!

Gemalto, a global company in digital security, held a survey amongst 1,200 young adults (18-30) from all around the world. Respondents were evenly split between Brazil, China, France, Germany, the UK and the US. They were asked about their expectations, which resulted in some fascinating insights from the dominant consumers of the near future. We’ll provide you with the key findings of the full report – a whopping 18 pages summarized for your reading pleasure!

Trends for the future of mobile

Smartphones have lead to a massive rise in mobile data consumption. Technical advances and internet speeds have drastically altered what is possible, and the industry is constantly pushing these boundaries.

Respondents were asked what they think the future of mobile has in store for us. No less than 87% believes access to whatever content will be seamless, and 61% is sure that WiFi offloading will be common. The same goes for the trend of mobile payments, which recently took flight. Half of the respondents thinks it’ll be easy to make any kind of payment through your smartphone. Needless to say there are some cultural differences: only 19% of French respondents expect mobile payment, vs 69% of the Brazilians.

Generally, convenience is key. Issues regarding functionality will have been resolved as the frictionless nature of mobile is a big theme in the report. Another key element is unlocking. Fingerprints are rated as the most popular method in 2025, but facial recognition (44%) and retinal scanning (43%) have also surpassed the PIN/password method (40%). Almost a third thinks our smartphones will be equipped with a DNA scanner by then, with highest expectations amongst the Chinese (47%) and Brazilians (36%), vs an average of 32%.

A hyper-connected society

A lot has been said about the Internet of Things (IoT), but it seems inevitable that it will forever change the way we live our lives. From industrial innovations to an IoT that will simplify our daily routines, the potential is huge. Smart cities are the obvious product of an all-encompassing IoT, and transportation was the key focus of this part of the survey.

Companies like Google and Tesla are already running elaborous tests with autonomous cars and trucks, and 63% thinks that our cars will be driverless by 2025. Of course navigation can’t stay behind: 62% thinks that 3D maps will be displayed in front of you as you drive. As cars will be autonomous and intelligent, so is public transport. Nearly 70% believes that by 2025, we’ll have high-speed connections even when travelling underground. Public transport networks will be able to gauge demand on increase of decrease the frequency of service, which will this hugely benefit the environment. Again, European respondents prove to be much more conservative than their Brazilian, Chinese and American peers.

Smart living

How about connectivity and our health? 63% thinks heart-rate monitors will eventually be able to show you a 3D display of your heart, with daily reports updating you about your status. More than 50% believes we’ll have implants for monitoring purposes. This way you’ll never forget a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment again, since your devices can make an appointment when needed and remind you as well. The Brazilians and Chinese are the most optimistic about the mind-reading potential of computers, with over 40% expecting direct brain interfaces.

Technology in 2025 will help us plan our daily lives better. By now it’s already quite normal to speak to our phones, with personal assistants (PAs) like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana or the Google App. But in 10 years’ time our relationship with these PAs will be far more developed, and the increasing connectivity will have profound implications on every aspect of our lives. Despite these predictions it’s impossible to foresee what our lives will be like in 10 years. But one thing is for sure, and that is that Samuel Morse could have never expected all this to come from his invention.