Mobile phones have become a vital piece of technology for business owners and their staff if they want to become more flexible.

With lots of us continuing to work from home in 2021, it’s important for your business to have a way to connect with your employees when they’re not in the office, without compromising the balance between their work and home life.

There are many benefits for small businesses that come with investing in dedicated phones for work, here are some of the biggest.   

You’ll have consistent contact details

If you’ve been taking business calls from your personal phone and have decided you now want to invest in dedicated business mobile,  having to change your number can be a bit of a pain. 

You’ll have to change all your marketing materials to make sure everything is up to date – if you fail to keep your clients in the loop, you could end up missing important calls and potentially lose out on new business. 

They create a work life barrier

As a small business, you might think taking business calls on your personal phone is the best option seeing as they’re always within arms reach.

But what happens as you get busier and you start taking calls out of hours while you’re trying to unwind?

If you’re taking business calls on your personal phone, the lines between work and home become blurred and you’ll find it difficult to switch off.

Since the start of the pandemic last year, 46% of employees across the country have been working remotely and in April 2020, it was reported that 30% of the UK workforce were working more hours than they were before the pandemic.

There’s a clear difference between clocking out and logging off, and those surveyed said they found it hard to draw the line between work and life and switch off at the end of the day.

With business mobile phones, you’ll create a better work life balance and you’ll never have to take out-of-office calls on your personal phone.

They encourage your employees to work independently 

Business mobiles don’t just connect you to your clients, but they help you and your employees connect better with each other out of the office.  

With a business phone, your employees are able to access information (phone calls, emails, texts, etc) wherever they are – whether they’re working from home, in the office or on the go. 

With increased connectivity there becomes a more supportive network to enable your employees to work more independently. 

Apps can increase your productivity and efficiency

Any problem you can think of probably has an app that offers you a solution. 

When giving your employees access to a business mobile, you’re offering them a world full of file sharing, data and project management, co-editing and virtual assistant apps to help them be more productive and solve any issues with ease. 

For example, if your employees are all using the same file sharing app, they can share work with their colleagues easily through the app, rather than having everything manually and sending it by email. 

It’s cheaper than you think

On the surface, investing in a set of business phones for your employees might seem like an expensive endeavor. 

Business phones count as a taxable expense on your self-assessment, so you can off-set many of the costs in your annual tax return. 

If you use your personal phone for business purposes, it’ll be harder to claim some of these expenses back.

You’ll have to show business calls separate from personal ones which can get complicated – it’s more trouble than it’s worth.  

You get more technical support

If you and your employees are using your personal phones for business and it becomes faulty or broken, you’ll probably have to take it into a shop and fork out for someone to repair it for you. 

With a business phone plan, you should get extra support from your provider to make sure that if anything goes wrong with your phone it will be up and running again in no time. 

The longer you have to wait for your phone to be repaired, the more your business will suffer.

You get free phone replacements

Sometimes damage is inevitable and your phone might not be salvageable. 

If you’re using your personal phone for business and it breaks and you can’t fix it, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to get a replacement from your provider.

It’s very possible you’ll have to pay for a new one yourself, which can get expensive. 

When you get a business phone from a specialist provider, they can include a replacement phone as part of your plan so that you’ll be able to get a replacement quicker.

You won’t have to pay hundreds for a new one and potentially miss important business calls while you wait for it to arrive. 

Are business phones really worth it? 

On the whole, there are far more positives than negatives that come with investing in a phone for your small business. 

They’ll help you work more efficiently, encourage your employees to be productive and potentially save you a lot of money.

There’s lots of deals for you to choose from to suit your business and the needs of your employees.

If you’re unsure where to start looking or which deal is best for you, get in touch with a reputable business mobile phone provider who will be able to help you make that all important decision.