What Is a Business Phone Number on a PBX?

What a business number actually is

There was a time when a phone number was a pair of copper wires entering a building. The number and the line were the same thing: whoever moved usually lost the number, and whoever wanted another number ordered another line and waited for a technician.

Today a business number is mainly an address on the telephone network. When someone dials it, the network knows which carrier and which PBX to pass the call to, and from there the PBX decides where it goes. In the professional world this is called a DID - short for Direct Inward Dialing. It means an external number that reaches a specific destination inside the organization directly, with no operator in between.

The key point: the number itself knows nothing about phones. It doesn't "sit" on a device. All the decisions - who answers, what is played, what happens at night - are made by the virtual PBX. That is why you can change everything without touching the number, and replace all the equipment without customers noticing.

How a call gets from the number to its destination

1. The customer dials - from a cell phone, a home line, or abroad.
2. The network routes the call to the carrier where the number is registered.
3. The PBX receives the call and checks the number's rules: what time it is now, who the caller is.
4. The call continues to its destination - an IVR menu, a call queue, a hunt group, an extension, a voicemail box, or an external number.

This whole journey is called the call flow. It takes a fraction of a second, and the caller hears an ordinary ring. Behind the scenes, the same number can behave differently in the morning and in the evening, and differently for a regular customer and a new caller.

One more thing worth knowing: a single number can receive several calls at the same time. Exactly how many is a matter of channels, not of the number. A business with one number and ten agents doesn't need ten numbers.

Types of numbers in Israel

Geographic prefixes were assigned by region, but today there is no technical obstacle to a business in Bnei Brak holding a 02 number and answering it from anywhere. What remains of them is mainly the feeling: a Jerusalem customer who sees 02 feels that this is a neighborhood business.

Short numbers, 1-800 numbers and numbers abroad have separate articles: short number, 1-800 number and local number abroad.

How many numbers one organization needs

Most organizations start with one number and quickly discover that more is better. Each number can lead somewhere else, and they are all managed on the same PBX and in the same control panel.

• Main number - to the IVR menu; this is the number on the sign and on the business card.
• Direct number for a department - bookkeeping, purchasing, the office. Someone who knows what he needs gets there directly.
• Donations line - for a nonprofit that wants to separate donors from general questions.
• Recorded information line - prayer times, opening hours, updates.
• Campaign number - a separate number for a single ad, to know how many calls it brought.

Example: a yeshiva with a dormitory holds a main number for the office, a separate number for the students' phone, and a donations line that leads to a queue of volunteers. Three numbers, one PBX.

A day in the life of a number

To understand how flexible a business number can be, we'll follow the main number of an accounting firm in Bnei Brak on an ordinary day.

• 8:00 AM - the office is still closed. Callers hear a short greeting with the business hours and can leave a message.
• 9:00 AM - the number switches to the menu: 1 for bookkeeping, 2 for payroll, 0 for the office.
• 1:00 PM - during the lunch break the secretary is away from her desk, and her calls also ring on her cell phone.
• 5:00 PM - a longtime client calls, and the PBX recognizes his number and sends him straight to the accountant who handles his file.
• 7:00 PM - the office is closed. Calls go to voicemail, and the messages are sent to email.

The same number, five different behaviors - and all of it without anyone touching a phone. That is the difference between a number connected to a line and a number connected to a PBX.

The number belongs to you

A phone number in Israel is not the provider's property. The right to use it belongs to the subscriber - a person or an organization - so it can be taken to another provider in a process called number porting.

This is especially important for an established business: the number appears on signs, invoices, the website and in customers' memory. A number that changes costs customers. So make sure the number is registered in the name of the organization itself, not in the name of an employee or a family member, and that the details with the provider are up to date.

One more tip: keep your numbers in a single organized list - what each number is, where it leads, where it is published. When porting day or a change comes, that list saves a lot of guesswork.

Common mistakes

• Publishing a private cell phone as the business number. The day the employee leaves, the customers go with him. A business number that rings on a cell phone is a better solution.
• One number for everything, with no menu and no hours. At night it keeps ringing in an empty office.
• Not thinking about outside business hours. A good number knows what to do on Shabbat, on a holiday and during a break, too.
• Forgetting the outgoing side. If the customer sees an unfamiliar number when you call him, he doesn't answer. More on this in caller ID.

How to choose a number for your business

When you open a new number, you have a choice - and it's worth spending ten minutes on it, because this number will be with you for years. The first question is geographic or national. A geographic number (02, 03, 04, 08, 09) tells the customer "we're from here." For a store, a clinic, a neighborhood gemach or a yeshiva whose community is local, that is an advantage: a Jerusalem customer who sees 02 picks up without thinking. A national number (072, 073, 077 and the like) suits an organization that operates nationwide, a business that sells online, or one that knows it will move to another city and doesn't want to look "not from here" after the move.

The second question is how easy it is to remember. A number that appears in a radio ad, on a roadside sign or in a neighborhood flyer has to register after hearing it once. Numbers with repeating digits, with a sequence (1234) or with a round ending (00, 000) are remembered much better than a random number. If the number is meant for advertising, ask to choose from a list, not just to get "the next one in line." For an office's main number, where most customers come through a personal referral, it matters less.

A few more small checks before you commit:

• Say it out loud. A number that is hard to pronounce ("six-six-seven-six") is confusing on the phone and in a spoken ad.
• Check that it isn't too similar to the number of another well-known business, otherwise you'll receive its calls.
• Ask about its history. A number that was used by another business until recently will keep receiving calls meant for it. In that case it's better to take a number that has been inactive for a long time, or to prepare a short greeting explaining that the number has changed owners.
• Think about how it prints. How will the number look, grouped into digits, on a business card and on a sign?

And if you already have a long-standing number that customers know, the right choice is almost always to keep it and port it, and to open new numbers only for new roles.

A full example: five numbers on one PBX

Take an air conditioning company in Petah Tikva: two salesmen, four technicians, a bookkeeper and a secretary. At first they had one number, and every call - a sale, an urgent fault or a question about an invoice - reached the secretary. Over time they built a setup of five numbers, all on the same PBX and in the same control panel:

Note what this setup gives them. A customer whose air conditioner stopped working doesn't go through a menu - he dials the number on the sticker and reaches the technicians directly. The salesmen don't receive fault calls. The bookkeeper receives only people holding an invoice in hand. And at the end of the month the call log shows how many calls the radio ad brought, without asking any customer "Where did you hear about us?"

On the outgoing side, they set what each extension displays: the technicians call out with the service number, the salesmen with the sales number, and the secretary with the main number. That way a customer who calls back a technician reaches the technicians' queue and not the menu. More on this in caller ID.

When the company opened a branch in Haifa, it didn't build a second PBX. It added a 04 number that leads to the same service queue, with a greeting of "Northern Air Conditioning," and placed two phones at the branch that take part in the same queues. The customer in Haifa has a local number; the company has one team.

When something doesn't work: symptom, cause, fix

The rule that saves most inquiries: before you print a thousand flyers or air an ad, call the number from a cell phone and go through the whole path to the agent. A one-minute test call reveals almost every fault on the list.