Separate Number For Business Calls –  Why You Need & How To Get One 

Last Updated on January 1, 2025

When starting a new business, it makes perfect sense to take phone calls either on your personal landline or mobile phone number.

Most will decide to use their mobile phone number because, of course, it offers a degree of mobility and flexibility. 

What tends to be the reason that customers get a separate number for business calls is that once your business grows, you start to get a lot more phone calls and aren’t able to regulate how many come through, what time they come through and whether you can keep a record of those phone calls. 

Here, we answer some common questions from customers when looking to get a separate phone number for business calls.

We’ll be covering the steps you need to take to create a separate number for your business calls and messages, how to get set up and get it working and the best place to get one.

What exactly is a business number?

A business number is simply a dedicated phone number that routes to you and takes dedicated calls about your business instead of having a personal landline or mobile, where you take both personal and business calls.

Should I be using my personal number for my business?

Using your personal number comes with some obvious drawbacks, such as an inability to separate work from home life, lack of privacy, inability to screen phone calls and a lack of professionalism when advertising your business.

It can be fine at the very beginning of setting up a business if you’re only receiving a few phone calls, but ultimately, if you want to come across as professional and trustworthy as possible to potential customers, it’s highly recommended that you get yourself a separate business number.

Why do I need a separate business number?

When it comes to getting your own dedicated business number, there are a range of good reasons to consider. 

We spoke to our customers and asked them the main reasons they decided to take a separate business number – Here’s what they told us: 

Future Proof

The UK’s PSTN phone network is set to be switched off by 2027, meaning traditional landlines will no longer function as they do today.

This transition marks a significant shift in telecommunications infrastructure.

Securing a VoIP telephone number now ensures your business is prepared for this change, providing a recognised and established contact number well in advance. 

This proactive step allows you to future-proof your communications strategy, avoiding potential disruption.

Businesses that delay this transition risk losing long-held phone numbers – valuable assets often tied to years of advertising investment as well as risking potential disruption to business broadband.

By joining Air Landline today, you can claim your VoIP phone number or port your existing one.

Take advantage of our free trial and make sure your business is ready for the future.

Additional Advanced Call Features

By joining Air Landline and getting a virtual business number, you can get a huge number of features that are simply not available on a personal mobile or landline. For example, with Air Landline, you get all this:

• Choose your own area code – With Air Landline, you can choose any local area code you want from anywhere in the UK, giving you hundreds of different area codes. All you need to do is select which one you want, and we’ll generate a number quickly and easily. 
• Link your phone number – Simply tell us which number(s) you want your new VoIP telephone number diverted to, and we’ll set up call forwarding almost instantly. Not only that, you can quickly and easily change this in your user panel, set up a welcome message, hold music and even call recording if you need it. 
• Advertise yourself – With your new professional business number, you can place this all over your company literature, advertising, and anywhere you need people to see it. You can, for example, link it to Google Ads with a ‘click to call’ feature that customers can dial from mobile, landline, or laptop or over the fibre internet. You can make this your main number that all your customers know. 
• Get noticed – It’s all about how you come across, and with a professional, mobile, and flexible business number, you no longer need to advertise your mobile number, which can often make you look unprofessional or too small to do business with. Air Landline allows you to choose, utilise and advertise a professional telephone number. 
• Welcome message – You can set a personalised welcome message for your customers to hear as soon as they reach your number. If you’d prefer the personal touch, then you’re able to record your own voice, which will play automatically. If you’d rather, you can use our AI voice generator to send your message directly to your customers.
• Know who’s calling from where – By getting a virtual phone number with Air Landline, you can see who’s calling you and which number they’ve called before you even pick up the phone, meaning you can be more prepared. If you’re off for the day or the weekend, you can see it’s a business call rather than a personal call and simply divert to voicemail or call back when you’re in a better position to talk. 
• Hold music – You can select hold music from our library so that if you’re not able to get to your customers straight away, they get a professional experience rather than simply hearing the phone ring and ring until the call ends. 
• Log your calls – You can select call recording so that you never miss anything in your customer interactions, with the ability to go back and listen to calls that might be important or have details you need to go back to and log. 
• Missed call notifications – If you miss a call, then you’ll get an instant email update from us telling you who called and when so that you can return the call as quickly as possible.
• Recorded Voicemail – You can record your own voicemail message so that if you do miss a call and your customers hit the voicemail, you can give it a personal touch, and they’ll know that you’ll get right back to them as soon as you can. 
• Log your voicemails – You’ll get an instant email notification if you receive a voicemail with the recording attached so that you can file these in your emails, or you can simply go back at your convenience and see what you’ve missed. 
• WhatsApp Business integration – If you’d like the ability to WhatsApp your customers with your Air Landline number, that’s not a problem. We can get that set up so that you’re able to interact over WhatsApp Business with your professional business number, which gives far superior and professional service compared to traditional methods. 
• Recorded call history – Go back through your call history via the user panel anytime you need so that if, for whatever reason, you need to go back and see who’s called you or vice versa, you can get this information whenever you need. 
• And more!

Work-life balance

If you’re taking calls on a personal number, then you’re unable to see or search who’s calling and why, and you’re not able to set hours of operation – you’re on call 24/7. 

With a dedicated business number for Air Landline, you can set when you receive calls and when they’re sent to voicemail, or you can set calls to divert to a different number or colleague out of hours, allowing you to manage your work life and personal life much more effectively.

Organisation

Aside from taking business calls via your personal number at all hours, it can become incredibly hard to track and organise those calls as well as understand who called you and when. 

If your business is busy, you may, for example, forget somebody called you on your business phone number and that you need to return the call, or you may forget what was discussed. 

With the Air Landline VoIP phone system, you’re able to track your calls, look through your history and even turn call recording on so that you can go back and see what the call was about. 

Privacy

It can be sensible and manageable to have a personal number or mobile number for your business at first but if you’re advertising your business and growing, then there comes a point where most customers prefer that their personal number isn’t a matter of public record and instead keep that private and divert business-related calls to their dedicated business number.

What customers tell us is that separating their personal and business calls allows them a much easier way to keep their personal numbers private and only available for friends and family.

How to get a separate number for business calls

With Air Landline, it couldn’t be simpler to sign up for our totally free 7-day trial and get your dedicated separate business number up and running in a matter of minutes.

Select your area code

With Air Landline, you get a choice of hundreds of area codes so that you can have your presence anywhere in the UK.

All you need to do is decide which area code you’d like your number to be generated in, and we’ll do the rest.

Decide where to divert your calls to

Enter your mobile number and email address. This lets us know where to divert your inbound calls and where to send your new number to.

That’s it! You’re ready to start receiving calls!

Your virtual number will be emailed to you within minutes!

All calls to this number will automatically be forwarded to your selected mobile phone number.

You’re all set to start receiving calls!

FAQ

If you’d like your Air Landline number displayed to your customers when you call them, you can use our App add-on.

The App add-on is £7.99 a month (+VAT) and allows you to make unlimited calls as your Air Landline number, using mobile or desktop.

With the App Add-on you can also record outbound calls via the App, put callers on hold with music, and transfer calls..

Summary – Separate Number For Business Calls

Many of our customers come to us for a separate number for business calls because they need a specifically dedicated number for their business and want to be able to divert their number to multiple mobiles. Air Landline can remove this confusion.

Frequently, we’re told that a separate number or multiple phone numbers offer a better work-life balance, a more professional appearance and a more organised way of working. 

By signing up for Air Landline’s free 7-day trial, you can get access to a separate dedicated virtual business number or multiple phone numbers in minutes and get all the benefits and features that come with it at a flat monthly price.

Moving forward, for all businesses, it’s becoming increasingly useful to have a reliable line that customers can use to reach them.