Why You Need a Secondary Phone Number For Emergencies

People are quickly latching onto the idea of having a secondary phone number for work, especially after widespread national outages earlier this month left hundreds of thousands of people unreachable on their regular phone numbers for more than 24 hours.

While a standard phone number can keep you connected just about anywhere in the world (and all without roaming charges, if you rely on an eSIM data package for mobile data), it’s only going to work if your mobile carrier is operating without any outages or issues.

So what’s a good back-up solution, to keep you covered in the event of another huge outage?

Use Hushed for a secondary phone number

Now, Hushed is designed for person-to-person communication (not for business use), however, it can certainly serve to keep you connected to key people during an emergency that’s preventing you from using your regular phone number.

No one memorizes phone numbers anymore, unless you’re a kid and your parents have made one of their phone numbers the Wi-Fi password. (Works like a charm, by the way. So when a client or colleague needs your phone number, they’re probably going to pull up one of your emails and glance down at the signature portion, right?

What if, below your regular mobile number, your email address, and any other details, you also listed something extra:

Back-up number: (555) 555-5555

And … you guessed it! … This secondary phone number would be a low-cost option from Hushed.

Intrigued? Here’s how it would work …

1. Choose a real phone number in whatever area code you want (300+ options available)
2. Pick a plan based on how long you want to keep it (a day, a week, literally forever, etc.)
3. Add the back-up phone number to your email signature in case of emergencies/outages

But how is a Hushed number different from my real phone number?

Excellent question! Hushed runs over the internet, thanks to a little magic called VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). That means it uses the internet (Wi-Fi or data) to make and receive phone calls, instead of relying on a standard phone carrier.

And yup, now you see the beauty of it! A major carrier goes down, but it’s no problem to keep on using Hushed.

Hushed works wherever you have an internet connection, so whether you use mobile data, connect to a Wi-Fi network, or beg somebody to hotspot your device, you can call and text with your Hushed number.

Hushed also works on almost any device (even really old ones). Just download the free Hushed app, log into your account, and you have instant access to your contacts, call log, text history — the whole enchilada.

How would a secondary phone number help during a work emergency?

Well, now, we would hate to start dreaming up scary scenarios, yikes! But … for the sake of this post, we’ll list a few.

1. You lose your work phone: You’re expecting an important phone call, but you’re stuck somewhere without your work phone. So that person is calling your main work number and it’s just going to voicemail over and over. You don’t have their number (even if you could borrow someone’s phone), and they have no other option but to keep trying the number going to a phone you don’t have.

How Hushed would help: If you had listed a secondary phone number in your email signature (and even in your voicemail greeting), they would have a second number to try. And as long as you could log into Hushed on another device, that call would go straight through to you!

2. You’re without cell service: Home or away, you find yourself with no bars (and therefore no ability for phone calls to come through). Maybe it’s a carrier outage, or maybe you’re just located somewhere remote. You have an internet connection via some lovely free Wi-Fi, but it’s not doing you any good because you can’t make or receive calls. Argh!

How Hushed would help: If you had a secondary phone number, you could open your Hushed app and begin calling and texting anyone you need to reach. People could also return your calls on that line. Easy peasy!

3. You’re out of the country: Sometimes people disable their primary SIM card when they’re traveling outside of their regular coverage area because they want to avoid roaming fees. But what happens if a client or colleague back home really, really needs to reach them, and their regular phone number is unavailable?

How Hushed would help: With a secondary phone number, they could call or text you on that number and you’d get the message as soon as you were connected to data or Wi-Fi. It wouldn’t matter at all that your regular phone number is “off,” because Hushed runs over the internet, anywhere in the world.

Ready to get started with a secondary phone number?

Download the free Hushed app and browse through available phone numbers until you find the perfect one in your area code.

Once you’ve got it set up, you can relax knowing your clients and colleagues have a back-up option in case they can’t reach you on your regular phone number — or in case you need to call them on a secondary phone number.