A personal phone number for a business purpose? Really?
Personal phone numbers are supposed to be used for personal purposes only. But there are many people out there who are enticed to use a personal phone number for business purposes because they believe using a personal number develops a friendly connection with people and, most importantly, it saves the costs of obtaining a business line number.
But, it is the worst decision to make because it is associated with different threats. One of the most common is that it adversely impacts the employee’s privacy, leaving the information of the individual exposed.
With this post, you will closely understand several other risks associated with using personal phone numbers for business purposes and also the ways to minimize them.
So, let’s get started.
Major Risks of Using Your Personal Number for Your Business Phone Number
Using personal numbers for business can be very harmful to brands in the long term. Not just privacy concerns, it also has to deal with data security, storage, and data breach issues while using a personal phone number.
Here are some of the significant risks associated with using personal numbers for business purposes:
- Overexposed and vulnerable to threats when using personal mobile numbers
By using your personal phone number for business purposes, you are naturally putting yourself at risk. Sharing your private phone number with a large number of people increases the chances of falling information into the wrong hands, resulting in unwanted text messages, emails, and more.
Also, when your personal phone numbers are easily available to people, you are subjected more to identity theft, harassment, stalking, spam, and scams.
Thus, given the high risk of using your personal number for your business, it’s wise to choose a business phone number that separates your personal and professional lives. This will not only reduce the chances of being hacked but will also safeguard your personal information.
- Telemarketing scams are widespread, and you become bound to the number forever
Suppose you use your personal phone number for business purposes. In that case, you become obliged to use that number for the long term because it would be a hassle to re-update your contact information on websites, marketing campaigns, customers, and business partners. Furthermore, important information may be missed during the transition period. Hence, you bypass the number re-updating idea.
However, once telemarketers have your number, you might get constantly targeted with unwanted calls and texts. Also, there is a high chance that they may share your phone number with other scammers, thus exposing you to more scams that could damage your trust.
At worst, it can lead to financial losses if you fall under the trap of these telemarketers and become a victim. The most frustrating part of telemarketing calls is these calls seem to be so authentic until you pick up one.
- Controlling employee-customer interaction is difficult
Using an employee’s private number for interaction means employees have more control over the conversation. Only they know what they talk about with prospects and the progress of the conversations.
As a business owner, you have to be transparent regarding everything that goes around your business, from sales to logistics, which indeed isn’t possible through the use of personal numbers.
As long as employees use their private numbers to talk with prospects, managers and supervisors will not have any insights into how the employee handled the call, whether they misbehaved with the customer, or how long it lasted. They don’t know anything regarding the conversation or deals with the customers, too.
Likewise, there may be risks of miscommunication between employees and customers while delivering value, but it can’t be within reach of the employer.
If the employee is unethical, he/she could take advantage of this situation and put the business in a risky position, demeaning the status of the brand among the customers.
- Disrupted work-life balance
If you use a personal number for work, you are always unreachable by your friends and relatives. Do you want this to happen?
Personal phone numbers are meant for private phone calls. Using a private phone for business can completely disrupt individuals’ work-life balance. Balancing work and life is already a challenging task for individuals. To make matters worse, using a personal number means you are bound to receive business calls during personal time. You are never really free from work.
Sometimes, there might be an emergency at home, and your partner might be constantly calling you, but you are hooked up in a conversation with a client. This will create stress and adversely impact relationships with your family members at home. It creates an image for you as if you are someone who doesn’t prioritize family.
So, using a separate business phone number for professional life can probably maintain balance to some extent.
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5 Effective Ways: How do we mitigate the risks?
Employees using personal numbers does not just impact the employees alone; the organization gets affected, too, so it is essential to identify measures that will help the brands mitigate the risks.
Some of the ways businesses can consider reducing risks associated with using personal numbers for business are:
- Implement a complete mobile device policy and provide company-owned devices
A clear set of guidelines must be provided to each employee not to use personal phone numbers for business purposes. Businesses must provide company-owned devices like phone numbers, cell phones, laptops, etc, for work purposes.
This will help companies have more control over day-to-day activities and can easily get updated with business communications in real-time. Such actions also help to maintain uniformity among the employees.
- Use virtual phone numbers.
Virtual phone numbers allow businesses to separate their personal and business communications without the hassle of using two separate phones. It is a flexible and easy method. It allows you to initiate and pick up calls over the internet and isn’t limited to one device only.
Also, virtual numbers come with several call management features like call transfer, call forwarding, call recording, call analytics, etc. Moreover, the call monitoring features of virtual numbers enable businesses to monitor the communication between employees and customers while also making sure of employees’ privacy.
- Opt for dedicated business lines
It means setting up different business lines for business-related calls. Using a separate line for businesses reflects professionalism, which develops a worthy environment. It protects the privacy of the employees and sets a clear separation between work and private life.
Moreover, business lines come with enhanced features that would be very useful while extending the other business lines in the future.
- Encourage the use of work communication channels for data security
The communication through the channel provided by the employer, such as email ID, video conferencing tools, etc, is safe and secure. While sending the messages through these channels, the messages are encrypted to safeguard the content.
A work communications channel helps to centralize data, which makes its management, storage, monitoring, and imposing security policies easier. Moreover, the work communication can be integrated with security measures to prevent data loss and unauthorized access.
- Limit the collection and retention of sensitive personal information for compliance and data protection
By limiting the collection of data, one can reduce the collection of unnecessary data and also potentially reduce the exposure of data to scams and breaches. Hence, businesses must comply with the regulations established to protect data for consumer protection; otherwise, they are subjected to hefty fines and liabilities.
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Conclusion
To wrap up, individuals using their personal phone numbers for business purposes may come with several disadvantages, such as privacy concerns, telemarketing scams, disrupted work-life balance, and more.
Luckily, there are ways to resolve this issue, such as using virtual numbers, implementing policies, providing company-owned devices, using work communications channels, and more.
So, after studying some of the hazardous risks involved while using a personal phone number, Are you still thinking of using a personal phone number for business use, or are you switching to a new business phone number ?___let’s leave it up to you to decide.
