What a caller hears first
Greetings and menus, including when offering an option is worse than not offering it.
Read about auto attendant
Aurora, IL
Business VoIP in Aurora, IL
630 and 331 cover this city and the western suburbs together, which settles the number question in a sentence. The one that deserves actual thought is different, and almost no page like this raises it: what happens when the person calling you would rather not conduct the conversation in English.
Disclosure: AldoMedia is a paid affiliate of Unitel Voice. If you sign up through a link on this page we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend what we would set up for our own clients, and we say plainly below who should not buy this.
Two codes, one map, nothing to decide
630 was created in 1996 for the western suburbs of Chicago and covers DuPage and Kane counties. 331 was laid over exactly the same ground in October 2007, so ten digit dialling has been normal for eighteen years and anything printed since is complete.
The two are interchangeable. 630 has had longer to sound like the area, which is the whole difference. Port a 630 number if you hold one because it is printed on things you have paid for, take 331 if that is what is offered, and move on. Porting is on business phone numbers.
What neither code does is place you in this city specifically. The pair covers a large stretch of suburbs, so a caller learns the western side of the metro and nothing finer. Say which towns you actually serve rather than leaving three digits to imply it.
The language the call starts in
This is one of the more linguistically mixed cities in Illinois, and a business here that has never thought about what a caller hears in the first five seconds is probably losing work it never finds out about. A caller who reaches a greeting they cannot follow does not usually ask for help. They hang up and ring somebody else, and you record nothing at all.
The useful thing to understand is that this is mostly not a translation problem. Very few businesses need a fully bilingual phone system, and buying one you cannot staff is worse than not having it. What almost every business here can do is make the first few seconds work for more people, and that is a much smaller job.
Three levels, in increasing order of cost. The cheapest is a greeting recorded by somebody who actually speaks the language, offering one clear option, rather than an automated translation that sounds wrong to a native speaker and signals that nobody here really speaks it. Next is routing that option to whoever on your team does speak it, rather than to a general queue where the caller has to start again. The most expensive is staffing that properly, and you should only do it if the volume justifies it.
The honest caution is the one a vendor will not give you. Do not offer an option you cannot answer. A menu that invites somebody to press a number for a language and then delivers a person who does not speak it is worse than English only, because you have made a promise and broken it inside thirty seconds. If you cannot staff it, say plainly in that language that you will call back, and then actually do.
None of which makes the service local
There is no Illinois phone product. The software is the same one a business in Oregon is sold, it runs a long way from here, and the only thing your address decides is the three digits at the front. It will happily play any greeting you record, in any language, which is precisely why the constraint is your staffing rather than the system.
How it works and what it asks of your connection are on the main business VoIP guide. The rest of the state, including the city codes stacked several deep, is on business VoIP in Illinois.
Who gains here
The working economy here is manufacturing and food production, logistics and warehousing along the corridor, healthcare, retail and a large trades and home services sector. The last two are where the language question bites hardest, because they deal with the public directly and the decision is made on the call.
For the trades and consumer services the whole game is that a person answers, quickly, in a way the caller can follow. One published number that reaches whoever is genuinely free, including somebody on a job, does more than any other feature. Virtual phone system covers it, and auto attendant and extensions covers the greeting in front.
For the industrial and logistics side the caller is usually a known counterpart who wants one named person, so a direct number each and a short greeting beat a menu every time.
Who should not bother: one person, one phone, customers who already reach you. That is a monthly cost against a problem you do not have. And if the connection into your building is unreliable, deal with that before the phones, because voice is less forgiving than anything else you run over a line. VoIP vs landline is the honest case for keeping copper.
The decisions behind the number
None of these are about Aurora. The greeting one matters more here than in most places.
Reaching whoever is free
One published number that gets a caller to a person, including somebody out on a job.
Read about virtual systemsThe number itself
Keeping a 630 number you already hold, and what porting one between providers involves.
Read about business numbersWhether to switch at all
The honest case for keeping a copper line, which still applies to some buildings and connections.
Read VoIP vs landline
Common questions
Aurora VoIP questions
Should our greeting offer more than one language?
Only if you can answer in it. A menu that invites somebody to choose a language and then hands them a person who does not speak it is worse than an English greeting, because you made a promise and broke it inside thirty seconds. If you have somebody who speaks the language, record the greeting in their voice and route the option to them. If you do not, say plainly in that language that you will return the call, and then do.
Is an automated translation good enough for a recorded greeting?
Usually not, and native speakers notice immediately. A greeting that sounds machine-made signals that nobody at the business actually speaks the language, which is the opposite of what you were trying to communicate. Have a person record it, even if that person is a member of staff rather than a professional.
Is 331 worse than 630?
No. The two have covered identical ground since 2007 and ten digit dialling has been normal that whole time, so nobody here reads 331 as out of town. Port a 630 number if you already hold one, and take 331 without concern if that is what is available.
Listen to your own first five seconds
Tell us what a caller hears when they ring you, and who is actually available to answer them. If the honest answer is that English only fits your customers, we will say so.