If you already spend most of your workday on a computer, itтАЩs fair to wonder why you should have to reach for another device every time you need to make a phone call.
The short answer is: you donтАЩt.
You can make and receive regular phone calls from a computer. The setup you choose depends on whether you simply want your computer to work with the phone you already have or you want the computer itself to become part of your phone system.
For businesses, that distinction matters.
How to Make a Phone Call From Your Computer
There are two basic ways to do it.
The first is to connect your computer to your existing cell phone. Apple lets an iPhone and Mac work together for calls, for example, and Windows offers similar functionality with compatible smartphones. You get to answer and place calls from the computer, but your cell phone and its phone number are still part of the equation.
ThatтАЩs convenient if your goal is simply to use your personal phone from a bigger screen.
The other option is to use a phone service directly from the computer.
Calling software can run as a desktop app or right inside a web browser. Instead of using your cell phone to place the call, the computer connects to the phone service itself. Put on a headset, use your laptopтАЩs built-in microphone and speakers, dial a number, and youтАЩre connected just like on a regular phone.
Behind the scenes, the call is traveling over your internet connection. For a business, this second setup has a major advantage: your computer can connect to your business phone system, not your personal cell phone.
Make the Computer Part of Your Business Phone System
Calling a customer from your computer is one thing. Calling them from your computer using your business number and your business phone system is much more useful.
Your customer sees the companyтАЩs number when you call instead of an employeeтАЩs personal cell. When customers call you, those incoming calls can follow the same routing youтАЩve already set up for the business. Calls can still be transferred. Voicemail still goes where it belongs. Your team is still working from one phone system.
The only real change is the device you happen to be using. That makes computer calling particularly useful for businesses with remote or hybrid employees, but you donтАЩt have to work from home for it to make sense.
Maybe you donтАЩt want another piece of hardware taking up space on your desk. Maybe you only make a handful of calls each day and a desk phone feels unnecessary. Or maybe your computer is already where almost everything else happens.
None of those situations require you to give up your business number and start handing out your personal cell.
Your Computer Is Already Where the Work Happens
Think about what youтАЩre normally doing while youтАЩre on a business call.
You might be looking at a customer record. Reading an email. Pulling up an order. Checking a calendar. Taking notes. Sharing information with someone else on your team.
Most of that is probably happening on your computer already, so making the call there too means one less device to bounce between.
It also gives employees more flexibility without creating more ways of handling business calls. Someone in the office can use a desk phone. Someone away from their desk can use a mobile softphone. Someone working from a laptop can make the same business calls from the computer.
You donтАЩt need three different phone systems, just one that works across the devices your team actually wants to use.
Make Calls From Your Browser With the VirtualPBX Web Phone
The VirtualPBX Web Phone turns your browser into another way to use your business phone.
Log in from your computer and you can make and receive calls with your VirtualPBX business number. Your contacts, call history, voicemail, voicemail transcripts, and call recordings are there too, along with the controls you need to hold, mute, and transfer calls.
ThereтАЩs no desk phone required, and thereтАЩs no need to place the call from a personal cell phone just because you happen to be working from a laptop.
With the VirtualPBX Web Phone, the computer is one of the places your business phone works.
And because it runs in the browser, thereтАЩs no traditional desktop software you have to install before you can start using it.
How to Make a Phone Call From Your Computer with the VirtualPBX Web Phone
Prefer an App? Install the VirtualPBX Web Phone as a PWA
You donтАЩt have to keep the VirtualPBX Web Phone buried among 47 browser tabs, either.
If you prefer the feel of a standalone desktop application, you can install it as a Progressive Web App, or PWA.
A PWA is built with web technology but can be installed on your computer and opened more like a traditional app. We have a deeper explanation of what a PWA is and how it works if youтАЩre curious.
In practice, the choice is simple.
Like working in the browser? Keep the Web Phone there.
Want a separate icon and window for your business phone? Install the PWA.
YouтАЩre using the same VirtualPBX phone system either way.
The Phone Is the Service, Not the Plastic on Your Desk
Making a phone call from your computer doesnтАЩt have to mean finding a workaround for using a тАЬrealтАЭ phone.
Your computer can simply be another place your business phone works.
Keep the desk phone if you like it. Use your mobile app when youтАЩre on the move. And when youтАЩre already sitting at your computer, open the VirtualPBX Web Phone and make the call from there.
Your customers can keep calling the same business number. Your team can keep using the same phone system.
You just get another way to make and receive business calls.
