Wondering when you might need a temporary phone number, either for business or personal use? There are dozens of ways to use a temporary number, and we’re covering some of the most popular in this guide.
Here are six ways to use a temporary non-VoIP phone number:
Table of Contents
Testing SMS Verification
If you offer an app, website, or online service that involves verifying customer accounts with SMS, you can buy phone numbers based around the world from a site like SMSPool, then use these to test your service and make sure messages are sending as they should. Make sure to buy non-VoIP numbers specifically (not VoIP numbers), as you want them to be tied to actual SIMs, like the real numbers your customers are using.
Signing Up For Services Online
You can also use temporary numbers to sign up for services online when you want to remain anonymous. For instance, if you’re checking out a competitor’s offering or you’re testing a new service that has questionable security measures, you can avoid having to share your own number for verification (like two-factor authentication) and stay anonymous with a temporary number instead.
Setting Up Temporary Access For Staff
If your company has rotating staff or you’re hiring interns for the season, you can use temporary numbers to let them have short-term access to your company’s accounts. This gives them the access they need without having to add them permanently to your internal systems, saving you the extra (often unnecessary) hassle of the related admin.
Creating Social Media Accounts For Clients
When your job involves creating and managing social media accounts for your clients, using your clients’ numbers for this purpose is rarely convenient. To avoid having to contact them asking for a verification code during signup, you can use a temporary non-VoIP number that’ll receive the code you need online. Just keep in mind that you won’t have ongoing access to the number if the website requires verification with each login, so it’s best for initial signups only.
Avoiding Spam or Robocalls
Whether you’re creating an account for business or personal use, it’s understandable if you just don’t want to share your own number because you want to avoid spam. Not only do most sites automatically sign you up for their marketing messages when you share your personal data, but with data breaches becoming more common, your number could easily fall into the wrong hands. You can avoid this by keeping your personal number offline as much as possible.
Running Short-Term Marketing Campaigns
Finally, let’s say you’re running a marketing campaign that’s only going to last for a couple of hours, or even a few minutes. You can use a temporary number to receive messages or texts without clogging up your main business line. This is ideal for surveys and SMS marketing, and even contests. Just don’t forget to check how long you can hire the number for, and make sure it’s long enough for your campaign, in advance.
