What Is a Virtual Number?

A number without a line

The word "virtual" sounds like something not real. But a virtual number is a completely normal phone number: you dial it from any phone, it rings, and someone answers. The only difference is what's behind it.

A regular number used to have a line — a wire coming into a home or office, with a phone connected to it. A virtual number has no such line. It's registered in the phone network and connected to a cloud PBX, and the PBX decides where the call goes next.

The practical meaning: a virtual number isn't tied to a place. You can answer it from the office, from home, from your mobile, or from several places at once. You can move offices without changing it. And you can hold several such numbers without installing anything.

How it works

1. The number is assigned to the organization and connected to the PBX.
2. On the PBX you set a destination for it: an IVR menu, a queue, an extension, a voicemail box or an outside number such as a mobile phone.
3. You add rules — by hours, by caller, and what happens when no one answers.
4. Every call to the number is recorded in the call history, along with the route it took.

Because there's no hardware in the middle, changing a destination is a change of settings. Today the number leads to the sales queue, tomorrow to a recorded information line — with no technician and no waiting.

And one more advantage that's easy to miss: the destination doesn't have to be a single device. A call to a virtual number can ring at the desk phone, in the computer app and on the mobile at the same time — whichever answers first takes the call. A small business owner heading out to a meeting doesn't need to remember to forward the line; he simply answers from his mobile.

Common uses

• A number for a campaign or an ad. Publish a separate number in each channel — newspaper, sign, website — and count how many calls each one brought in.
• A recorded information line. Prayer times, business hours, an update on an event. A number that plays a message and doesn't require anyone to answer.
• A number for each branch. Each branch has its own number and a local feel, and they all reach the same central team.
• A number for a temporary project. A fundraising evening, camp registration, a sale. When it ends, switch the number to a message or close it.
• A number in another country. A local number abroad is a type of virtual number: it's registered there, and rings here.
• A number for a self-employed person. A business number that rings on a mobile phone — and separates work calls from private calls. In the evening and on Shabbat it goes to voicemail, and the private mobile stays quiet.

Example: a nonprofit and three numbers

A chesed organization in Jerusalem has a main number for the office, a separate number for the donations line, and a third number for an information line about distributions. All three are virtual.

The main number leads to a menu, and in the evening to voicemail. The donations line leads to a queue of volunteers, and on the night of a campaign it takes hundreds of calls. The information line plays a recorded message around the clock, and anyone who wants to speak to a person presses 0 and reaches the office.

At the end of the month, they look at the call history: how many called each line, how many were answered, how many hung up. Each number tells a different story, and they decide where to strengthen things accordingly.

How to measure advertising with separate numbers

A business that advertises in three places — a neighborhood flyer, a street sign and a website — usually doesn't know where its customers came from. "Where did you hear about us?" is a question that representatives forget to ask, and customers don't always remember to answer.

A separate virtual number for each channel solves this without asking anyone. The flyer shows one number, the sign another, and the website a third. They all reach the same queue and the same representatives, and the customer notices no difference. But in the call history you can see exactly how many calls came from each number, on which days and at what hours.

• A different greeting for each number — possible, if you want the representative to know which ad the customer came from.
• A defined period — a sale's number can lead, after the sale, to a message or to the main menu.
• A fair comparison — compare channels by answered calls, not only by incoming calls.

That way advertising budget decisions are made on real numbers, not on a feeling. And an ad that brought in no calls in a whole month? That's exactly the information that saved you the next month.

Virtual vs. a number on a line

The main limitation of a virtual number is that it depends on the internet on the answering side — if you answer from an IP phone or an app. But when the office has no internet, the call still reaches the PBX, and you can forward it to a mobile or voicemail. That's an advantage a downed physical line doesn't have.

What to check

• Where the number leads outside business hours. A campaign number forgotten after the sale keeps ringing for years.
• That the number appears correctly in the advertising. One wrong digit on a sign — and no call arrives.
• That every number is on a list. What it is, where it leads, where it was published.
• What shows on an outgoing call. A virtual number can also serve as a department's caller ID.

A full example: one number that grows with the business

The best way to understand a virtual number is to follow one over time. Take an electrician from Beit Shemesh who started a business on his own.

Stage 1 — alone, from the car. He publishes one virtual number. The destination: his mobile, through an app. Customers know a business number, not his private one. In the evening and on Shabbat the number goes to voicemail, and the messages wait for him in email. In the call history, the next day, he sees whom he didn't answer while he was up on a ladder.

Stage 2 — a secretary from home. After a year there's another employee and a secretary who works from her own home. The number's destination changes: first it rings at the secretary's softphone on her computer; if she doesn't answer within 20 seconds, it goes to the electrician's mobile. Customers didn't notice the change. No one installed anything at the secretary's home except a headset.

Stage 3 — an office and a team. After three years there's a small office, three electricians and a warehouse worker. Now the number leads to a short menu: 1 for scheduling work, 2 for invoices. "Scheduling work" is a hunt group that rings in the office and at the electrician on duty. A second number is added for invoices only. The first number — the same number from the sticker on the car three years ago — still works.

What's interesting about the story is what didn't happen: no number was replaced, no new stickers were printed, no technician came to wire a line. Each stage was a settings change on the "Numbers" screen. That's the difference between a number tied to a wire and a number tied to a PBX.

Virtual number vs. forwarding calls from a mobile phone

Many self-employed people "solve" the need for a business number another way: they publish one number and turn on call forwarding with the carrier, or simply give out their mobile. It's worth comparing this to an actual virtual number:

Forwarding suits someone who is absent for a day. A virtual number suits someone who wants the business to look like a business even when it's one person. And someone who already has a well-known number that they forward can port it and make it virtual, without changing a digit. For the difference between forwarding and the PBX's "Follow Me," see Follow Me.

Scale and common mistakes

How many virtual numbers does an organization keep? There's no rule, but there are patterns that repeat: a self-employed person — one number; a small office — two or three (main, direct, fax); a yeshiva — three to five (office, dormitory, donations, information line); a nonprofit during campaign season — sometimes ten or more, some of them temporary for a single ad; a service call center — dozens, a number for each customer or each service. All in the same control panel, and all appearing in the same call history.

And the mistakes you see again and again:

• A number with no owner. A number opened for a sale, the sale ends, and no one decided where it leads now. It keeps ringing at someone who no longer works there. Every number on the list needs a responsible person.
• The same greeting for all numbers. If you opened a separate number for the donations line, give it its own greeting; otherwise the caller doesn't know they've reached the right place, and the representative doesn't know where they came from.
• A number that rings on only one device. The whole advantage of a virtual number is that it can ring in several places. A number that leads to a single desk phone, with no continuation to a mobile and no voicemail, is really an old line in disguise.
• Forgetting the outgoing side. They opened a number for a department, but its employees still call out from the main number — and customers call back to the menu.
• A number that wasn't tested from outside. In the control panel everything looks right, but no one dialed it from a mobile before it was printed on a thousand magnets.