Have you ever wanted to clone yourself just to handle all the calls and messages flying your way? Or, more realistically, set up a phone number that rings multiple people on your team?
Shared phone numbers allow you to do just that — letting multiple people call and text from a single phone number.
Whether it’s for sales, customer service, or internal operations, a shared phone number leads to shorter response times and less time spent on getting caught up with your team. You can collaborate on communications, delegate tasks, and stay up to date on projects more easily.
In this guide, we’ll break down how shared phone numbers work, how to share a phone number with your team, and common reasons why companies work from a shared phone inbox.
A study found that 59% of people in the workplace have missed messages due to communication issues. By using shared numbers across your team, you can minimize these issues — and the missed opportunities that come with them. Here’s how:
- Everyone gets calls: When you get a voice call, everyone with access to the phone number will have their mobile phones or computer ring as long as they don’t have Do Not Disturb on. You can set the ring order as all at once, random, or custom. The first person to pick up stops the ringing for others. Your team can place concurrent calls so the number is never “busy.” If you’ve been enabling call forwarding to a teammate’s direct number when you’re away, you can instead share your number so you still have visibility into any conversations that occurred once you return.
- Everyone gets messages and voicemails: When the shared number receives a message or voicemail, everyone sees it in their OpenPhone app. All messages, voicemails, and call histories are synced so you know if a conversation was opened.
- See who said what: Every outgoing message shows the team member who sent it so you can coach your team as needed. You can also see who made a call or accepted a call.
- See who’s typing: You can see who’s drafting a response as they are typing, so you never send multiple replies to a customer again (we’ve been there).
- Shared contacts: Your business address book is shared with everyone sharing the number. If someone adds the name or details of a customer, all team members will have that contact information on OpenPhone right away.
Now that you understand how shared numbers work, let’s explore some of the most common ways they can be useful for your business:
- Customer support or inbound sales calls: Shared numbers help ensure each call is answered promptly and prevent the issue of missed calls when certain employees are unavailable.
- Main phone number for the company: Centralize communications by using a shared number on company registration documents and government services forms and as a point of contact shared among the founding team.
- Central line for priority/VIP customer support: Show high-value clients they’re a priority by routing their calls to a designated team or individual who can give them immediate and focused attention.
- Assistant support: Invite your assistant to your phone number to help respond to calls and messages.
- Office buzzer or delivery services: Set up a shared phone number for deliveries or building entry systems to simplify communications.
- Ability to work on the go: Utilize shared virtual numbers on mobile apps and laptops instead of traditional desk phones.
- Enable cross-team collaboration for faster assistance: With access to the same number, team members can jump in and help customers with different needs, which leads to better first call resolution.
- A line for service in another language or international calls: You can set up dedicated teams for specific languages or regions, then give them their own shared line for faster call routing.
- On-call teams and remote customer service reps: Equip on-call team members or remote workers with a shared line to ensure coverage during off-hours or from off-site locations.
OpenPhone is one of the best ways to share a phone number with your team members, giving you a shared calling and an SMS inbox. Here’s how you can get a shared phone number on OpenPhone:
- Create an account with OpenPhone.
- During sign-up, select your city or area code in the US or Canada to pick your local phone number. You can also get a 1-800 toll-free phone number.
Phone number look-up
- Choose a plan that works best for your team. OpenPhone’s pricing is transparent, starting at $15 per user per month.
The Starter plan gives you access to unlimited calling and messaging to the US and Canada, shared phone numbers with up to 10 users, manual call recording, voicemail transcriptions, and more.
The Business plan, starting at $23 per user per month, sharing numbers with up to 100 users, AI call recording tools, advanced call handling, and more.
- Invite the team member(s) you’d like to have access to your phone number via the Admin Dashboard. They’ll get an email with the link to the mobile and web apps.
- Customize your inbox and call settings. Once you add your team, you can label phone numbers, create a phone menu, set up business hours, set up voicemail with custom greetings, and more.
In case you need to convince your colleagues that a shared number is a no-brainer, here are a few key benefits you can pass along.
1. Reduce missed calls via a team phone number
Shared phone numbers can help ensure no incoming calls or messages slip through the cracks and that your team responds before your customers look elsewhere. By assigning the ring order as all at once, random or custom, you can ensure your team never misses an important call.
If there’s someone at your organization your customers trust as their point of contact, you can work together behind the scenes to create a seamless customer experience. For example, Guaranteed Rate does this with OpenPhone by having team members work behind the scenes on the Senior Vice President of Mortgage Lending’s line. That way, customers feel like they’re working with someone they trust, but the point of contact can delegate their work.
Using internal threads in OpenPhone, you can seamlessly loop in teammates to incoming messages and collaborate on responses. Customers will never see these messages among teammates.
2. Split responsibility for incoming calls and texts
Share the load by setting work schedules in OpenPhone so your teammates are available during specific shifts.
Direct lines can also temporarily serve as shared numbers when someone on your team needs to take time off. Simply share access, and your teammates can easily cover their business calls and texts.
3. Get clear oversight into your team’s communication
Looking to continually provide a better customer experience? Having more visibility into how your team interacts with customers can unlock coaching opportunities that can shorten your sales cycle.
For example, Ryna uses OpenPhone to improve its sales processes by reviewing analytics to see where leads fall off.
4. Create group phone numbers for departments and teams
As your team scales, you may need group numbers for different departments and teams.
With OpenPhone, you can easily have a main number containing a phone menu with options that automatically route calls to specific groups.
5. Keep your personal and professional numbers separate
With a shared business phone number, you won’t have to guess if a phone call is for a personal or a business reason. You’ll know which number is receiving an incoming call and can answer accordingly. Plus, your personal cell phone number stays private, helping you achieve a better work-life balance.
6. Create a better customer experience with contact notes
Just like business owners don’t like clients calling their personal numbers, clients dislike repeating themselves. OpenPhone allows you to add internal notes to your contacts so you never miss a detail. For example, if a client prefers morning meetings, your whole team can be in the loop and schedule accordingly.
Get started with OpenPhone as your business’s phone system
When you share phone numbers, you can streamline your business communication, improve collaboration, and ensure no call goes unanswered. We built OpenPhone to be the virtual phone system for modern businesses. Aside from setting up shared numbers quickly, OpenPhone lets you:
- Work with iOS, Android, desktop, and browser-based apps
- Manage your business contact lists and keep them separate from your personal connections
- Integrate with Zapier, CRMs, and 7,000+ tools to work more efficiently
- Access unlimited calling and text messaging
- Schedule texts, auto-replies, and other business texting features
- Operate in the US and internationally
- Experience crystal-clear audio quality
- Set business hours and after-hours routing to an external number for emergencies
- Set up call recordings and AI transcripts and summaries for better record-keeping
Get started with a free trial of OpenPhone.
FAQs
This question gets asked a lot. No, the recipient doesn’t know there’s a team behind a number. It looks like a regular conversation to them, as you contact them from OpenPhone’s business phone number app – whether they send a message or call.
Yes, you can add multiple business phone numbers on OpenPhone, such as a main line and separate department lines like sales and support. You get one free business phone number for each user, and additional VoIP numbers cost just $5 per month. If you have existing numbers (landlines, traditional cell numbers, or virtual numbers), you can port them to OpenPhone for free.
Yes, you can have up to 10 team members sharing the same phone number on an OpenPhone Starter plan and up to 100 teammates sharing the same number on our Business plan.
Once you invite a teammate to a number, they’ll receive an email invitation from OpenPhone. They need to click Accept Invitation, and they’ll be guided through the onboarding process. They’ll then have access to the shared number you invited them to and be able to call and text from that number in the OpenPhone workspace. Make sure to select the appropriate workspace role for them:
– Owner (someone with full access to the organization)
– Admin (can invite other members + manages company billing)
– Member (manages their own account)
A group phone number, also known as a shared phone number, is a single phone number that can be used by multiple team members. This feature allows all team members to make, receive, and manage calls and messages from the same number. It’s a great way to ensure that no calls or messages are missed, and it provides a unified front to customers and clients.
A shared number is shared between multiple people or teams, ensuring someone can respond to calls or messages even when one person is unavailable. A dedicated number is usually assigned to an individual team member, making it their personal line.
There are three main pitfalls to avoid:
1. Forwarding calls to a colleague. If you’re using your phone number for business and personal, they’ll get both your personal and work calls.
2. Buying a virtual phone number and forwarding calls from it to multiple numbers. That means team members can’t call out from the original phone number. There’s no track record of outbound calls. As with the previous method, texts aren’t forwarded.
3. Setting up a business phone system with an auto-attendant (IVR) and extensions. It could work for a larger team or a company with different departments. For a small team, though, it’s overkill. Plus, you can’t text to an extension.
Yes, you can have as many shared numbers as you want for just $5 per additional number per month. You can add up to 10 team members to a shared line on the Starter plan and unlimited team members on the Business plan.
You can mute whichever number(s) you don’t need to receive notifications from in your workspace settings. Here’s how it works:
Muting a number blocks you from receiving incoming notifications from that number.
You can still use the number to make calls or send texts.
Muting a shared number won’t affect your teammate’s notifications — they’ll still receive calls and texts from that number.
Learn how to mute notifications in OpenPhone.
