If you run a small business, especially if you’re just starting out, you might be wondering why it would be worth investing in a business mobile phone.

You’ve already got a lot of expenses, a lot of admin to do, and it’s just another thing you have to sort out when you’ve already got too much to do.

But investing in a business phone early on can not only benefit you and save you time in the short term, it can also take away a lot of hassle, disruption and problems down the line when you’re trying to grow your company.

In this blog we look at the main reasons people shy away from a business phone in the early days, and suggest why it’s worth the investment in a dedicated company phone from day one.

It can work out cheaper

This is usually a surprise to people but investing money upfront on a device and mobile contract specifically for your business can actually be the cheaper option, rather than sticking with your personal phone.

That’s because if you register a business phone under your company’s name you’ll be able to claim the expenses as tax relief at the end of the year. Plus, most business mobile phone providers can offer you an insurance service to get your phone replaced quickly if something goes wrong.

If you use your personal phone, you’ll only be able to claim part of the expenses against your business, and if your phone breaks you’ll have to incur the costs yourself up front.

Barriers between home and work

There’s a lot being made right now of creating a barrier between home and work.

When you’re a small business, those barriers can be difficult to maintain, especially if you expect customers or clients to have access to a mobile number.

If you’re giving clients or customers a mobile number, then it’s important to consider whether you want them to have access to your personal number. Doing this can make it difficult to switch off during an evening or weekend, or even on holiday.

Having a different work number at least means you can switch the phone off at the end of the day.

Are you happy promoting your personal number?

In the early stages of starting your business, you’ll be using your mobile number to register for services like setting up a website or getting hosting for the site.

If you’ve ever done this before, you’ll know that this often leads to a stream of cold calls from third parties who get access to your number and start trying to sell you their services. You’ll also need to make a number public so clients and customers can get in touch with you.

Are you really willing to publicise your personal number like this?

What if you get a business phone later?

Early on you might think a business phone isn’t worth it, but as your business grows, what happens if you then decide to invest in business phones, and you’ve already publicised your personal number as your business number?

This could be a lot of work to change the number on all of your new marketing material, while your old number will still be published on older material that you won’t be able to change.

It also means you’re essentially tied to your existing number forever. Do you want to risk getting a new number with another business phone later on and customers trying to contact you on an unused number?

Limits your business’ communication options

Even if you stay a solo business, as you grow and get busier you might need to employ a virtual phone or assistant service to help you manage your calls.

Again, you’ll need to think about whether you want to attach this service to your personal number.

It’s going to take extra work with your virtual assistant to figure out which calls are personal or which are business.

Or it could even make using a VA with your own number unworkable, which means you’ll need a new business number (which we’ve already covered).

If you have a dedicated business number from the beginning, you’ll be able to avoid any extra admin later on.

What about security and privacy?

We’ve already covered the downside of opening your personal number up to sales calls and services if you publish it as part of your business.

But you also need to consider the privacy and security aspects of storing or sending commercially sensitive information on a personal device.

If you’re downloading apps onto your phone, you can’t be sure what level of security has been built in (not all apps have high security) so you’re potentially putting business information on your phone at risk.

By investing in a business phone you can keep your personal apps on your own phone and only download business apps (which usually have higher security) to your company phone.

This way you don’t have to worry about personal apps putting your business security at risk.

It also gives you the option to add encryption or higher levels of security to your business phone without adding extra layers of admin or security to your personal phone.

Easier to manage call, message or email volumes

If you or your employees are getting personal and business communication to the same phone, you could run the risk of important business messages getting lost in the volume of spam emails or personal messages coming through to the phone.

By having a separate phone for business you can at least keep the types of communication separated and deal with them differently during the day.

Ready to start using a business mobile phone?

Having a business mobile phone helps you manage your company communication more effectively and can help create a barrier between your business and personal life.

It can also help you to manage your business communication as your company grows and scales, and can help remove unnecessary admin if you need to try and change your company’s main number if you get a business phone later.

Have a look at the latest deals to see which is the best business mobile phone for your company.
If you’re already using a business phone, use our cost calculator to see how much you could save by switching to Communications Plus.