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Expanding your business globally is exciting, but staying connected across borders is an entirely different challenge.

Managing voice communication across time zones, underdeveloped in-country telecom infrastructures, and complicated regional regulations can become overwhelming. Many businesses experience dropped calls, inconsistent service, and increasing costs, all while trying to juggle multiple providers and platforms.

What works well in one country might fall apart in another, creating confusion for teams and frustration for customers.

At the core of all this is a weak communication network—one that can quietly deteriorate productivity, damage customer relationships, and eventually put deals at risk.

Managing voice communication globally isn’t just about having phone lines in place. It’s all about real-time coordination between teams, customers, and borders with clarity and consistency. In the absence of a proper setup, business growth might turn into chaos.

Fortunately, with the rise of cloud telephony, businesses can unify their global voice operations on a single, scalable platform. Here’s how to do it effectively.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• Why Does a Business Need to Manage Global Voice Communication?
• How to Set up a Global Voice Infrastructure
• 10 Tips on How to Manage Global Voice

Why Businesses Need Reliable Global Voice Communication

Reliable voice communication is still one of the most effective ways to build trust and resolve complex issues. Industry analysis indicates that communication breakdowns are responsible for over 70% of business failures. More strikingly, communication inefficiency costs an annual loss of $37 billion in productivity. And globally distributed teams rely on voice communication for coordination, decision-making, and sales that can’t happen over chat or email.

But managing voice across borders introduces complexity:

• Local presence matters for customer trust
• Telecom regulations differ by country
• Carrier coverage varies
• International calling can prove expensive
• Latency and call quality can degrade without the proper infrastructure

When you have a reliable global phone service for your business, you can handle customer calls across regions and time zones.

Cloud-based telephony solutions can make global call management easy and streamlined. With broad global coverage and advanced call handling capabilities, your business can establish a local presence in multiple target regions, all without worrying about dealing with various carriers—your global telephony provider will handle this for you.

Then simply route global customers to the right sales team or support center efficiently, thereby reducing delays and enhancing customer satisfaction. You can even add global voice to your CRM or help desk with telephony integrations, further centralizing business communication. Utilize this alongside call analytics, IVR, call recording, and other advanced features to create a comprehensive, fully functional global phone system.

Routing calls over the cloud also guarantees superior call quality by lowering latency, jitter, and dropped connections. Additionally, with built-in redundancies and automatic failover routing, reliable providers help ensure that no call or opportunity is missed, even in an emergency. Well-managed global communication ensures strong security. The integrity of telecom systems is vital in protecting sensitive information and ensuring service reliability—read more about the importance of reliable phone services straight from our experts.

All this is to say, a managed global voice setup is crucial for effective global operations, preventing communication failures, and growing a global customer base.

Infrastructure That Speaks Global: Set Up the Right Way

So, what do you need for global business communication?

First and foremost, establishing a robust international voice service demands careful consideration of the right technology and resources.

Before you launch global voice operations, you need a foundation that can scale. That includes:

• A provider that offers international phone numbers, including local and toll-free options
• Routing tools that handle call flows across time zones, languages, and departments
• Compliance with telecom regulations in each region
• Integration with CRM, helpdesk, and analytics systems
• Real-time monitoring to ensure call quality and uptime
• Reliable and responsive support from your telephony provider

With the right setup and global telephony partner, businesses can operate globally without sacrificing clarity, consistency, or control.

How to Manage Global Voice: 10 Tips

Managing phone networks globally is challenging when you don’t know where to start. Here are the core strategies to help you manage global voice services at scale—whether you’re building support coverage, optimizing call quality, or entering new markets:

1. Map Out Your Global Voice Footprint

Having a thorough understanding of your target markets is essential when expanding internationally. Identifying key regions and locations can help you build an efficient and cost-effective global voice infrastructure. Here’s how to approach it strategically:

• Explore Customer Locations & Growth Markets: Begin by mapping out the locations of your current customers and identifying where you will look for future growth opportunities. Understanding these regional practices helps you determine where to establish voice presence to ensure responsive, localized service.
• Align with Market Research & Business Goals: Use market research and global expansion strategies to identify high-potential regions for telecom services. Your voice infrastructure should support your growth strategy. Prioritize markets where your presence will directly support revenue opportunities.
• View Operational Hubs & Team Distribution: Check for the locations of your support teams, sales offices, and remote workers. Seamless internal communication between global teams is crucial for operational efficiency and delivering a unified customer experience.
• Account for Regulatory & Compliance Requirements: Telecom compliance and regulations vary widely by region. Understanding these legal requirements early helps you choose compliant voice solutions and avoid future roadblocks. Alternatively, you can work with a global telephony provider with experience managing compliance requirements.
• Simplify Call Management with the Right Tools: Managing global call routing across multiple systems is a difficult task. Look for providers that offer centralized tools to build, manage, and intelligently route calls across borders, simplifying your IVR setup and ensuring every call reaches the right destination.

2. Choose Number Types That Fit Customer Needs

Your global phone numbers are more than just contact points; they are strategic assets that can significantly impact customer engagement and brand perception. Select the phone number type that best suits your business needs to develop stronger customer connections across your international markets.

Once you understand which locations and teams need to be covered, you can decide how to spread your voice coverage:

• Multiple local or toll-free numbers for different target markets
• Voice coverage for hard-to-reach regions
• Regional support hotlines receiving calls from neighboring countries (example – the LatAm support center supporting all of South American customers)
• Numbers supporting inbound and outbound calling, and so on.

Choose phone numbers for your global voice strategy based on intent:

• Local phone numbers — use local recognizable area codes and boost answer rates and establish in-market trust.
• International toll-free numbers (ITFS, UIFN) — provide a free, convenient way for customers to reach you.
• Local 2-Way Voice numbers — enable outbound and inbound calling with local caller ID.

Beyond functionality, your number type should align with your brand positioning and customer expectations. A thoughtful approach ensures your business remains accessible, familiar, and relevant in every market.

Not sure which phone number type fits your needs? Check out our guide to international phone number types or chat with our global communications experts for custom recommendations for your specific business.

3. Ensure Global Compliance and Network Security Requirements

Telecom regulations vary dramatically across countries—especially in terms of number registration, caller ID rules, and data protection.

Global voice communication demands strict adherence to security and regulatory standards. As your business expands across borders, it is essential to collaborate with a global telephony provider that adheres to telecom regulations in every region and maintains a secure infrastructure.

Look for providers who host their systems in Tier-rated data centers, offer security features such as two-factor authentication, and utilize encrypted connections for voice traffic. They should use a secure global voice network with 24/7 monitoring and PCI-compliant payment processing.

Additionally, ensure that the provider conducts regular network assessments and carefully manages vendor relationships to maintain compliance with relevant regulations. These practices are crucial for safeguarding sensitive data, maintaining uninterrupted communication, and fostering customer trust on a global scale. With proactive support and custom security features, your provider can help you stay compliant and secure, regardless of where your business operates.

4. Optimize Call Quality Across All Devices and Networks

Global communication requires consistent, high-quality audio. Poor call quality leads to missed information, frustrated teams, and lost deals. Achieving high-quality global phone communication requires more than just a stable internet connection—it demands a robust, redundant infrastructure for resilience and clarity.

To improve voice quality, choose a provider that:

• Has global Points of Presence (PoPs) and multiple layers of redundancy
• Consistently monitors call traffic for latency, jitter, and packet loss
• Tests number connectivity regularly across countries
• Remains responsive 24/7 for any network or quality issues

At Global Call Forwarding, we offer 24/7 phone and live chat support to identify and resolve issues before they affect communication. We prioritize a reliable global network infrastructure and continuous monitoring and testing to guarantee clear voice communication, with a 99.99% uptime assurance.

5. Consolidate Voice Operations on a Unified Platform

There is unnecessary complexity and operational costs involved in managing multi-carrier phone services across various locations. Managing separate providers in different countries creates complexity—multiple contracts, inconsistent SLAs, and higher support overhead.

Instead, centralize with one provider that offers:

• Full geographic coverage
• One interface for number management and call routing
• Unified billing and reporting

Telecom consolidation simplifies administrative tasks, minimizes errors, reduces costs, and provides a consistent user experience for your global teams. Look for a provider that offers complete phone number coverage, advanced system capabilities, and in-depth expertise in global voice to unify and optimize your communication infrastructure.

6. Integrate Voice with Core Business Tools

​Integrating your global phone system with core business applications, such as CRM platforms, helpdesk software, and PBX systems, is essential for efficient business operations across teams and markets.

Softphone integrations can offer the following benefits:

• Enable click-to-call within CRMs like Salesforce or HubSpot to manage calls directly within CRM pages
• Automatically log calls and access call history during support interactions to reduce manual, time-consuming work
• Use analytics and AI to analyze call traffic with transcripts, recordings, and customer sentiment

This integrated approach not only simplifies workflows but also supports a scalable and responsive global voice communication system.​

7. Expand Global Coverage with Routing Strategies

As you scale, it’s not just about answering calls—it’s about routing them intelligently. This ensures that every caller connects with the right person at the right time. Efficient call management is crucial for supporting your customers where they are, delivering exceptional customer experiences, and optimizing agent productivity across diverse time zones and geographical locations.

Common routing strategies for global customer support include:

• Time-of-day routing to follow global business hours
  Geographic routing to match callers with local support teams
  IVR flows to pre-qualify and direct inquiries

By strategically setting up your global teams and implementing these intelligent routing rules, you ensure that every customer interaction is handled promptly. Optimizing call handling minimizes wait times, enhances first-call resolution rates, and contributes to improving customer satisfaction.

8. Monitor Voice Performance and Adapt

Global voice systems aren’t “set-it-and-forget-it.” Consistent monitoring of your global phone service is essential for maintaining high-quality communication and operational efficiency.

Track call metrics and KPIs such as:

• call volume
• connection rates
• average call duration
• first-call resolution rates, etc

These metrics help identify trends, measure agent productivity, and identify areas for improvement.​

Take this a step further with AI-driven call insights (e.g., transcription, keyword detection, sentiment analysis) to uncover patterns and optimize support and sales performance. Providers like Global Call Forwarding offer advanced analytics that provide deeper insights after each call.​

By leveraging these tools, businesses can make informed decisions to optimize customer service, focus on practical training, and refine their communication strategies. Regular monitoring ensures that your global voice operations remain aligned with business objectives and customer expectations.

9. Build Redundancy into Your Voice Infrastructure

Reliability is critical in global communications—especially when serving customers across multiple regions and time zones. To ensure business continuity, build redundancy into your voice infrastructure. This includes working with providers that offer geo-redundant data centers and failover routing, so that if one point of presence (PoP) or carrier fails, calls are automatically rerouted without disruption.

You can also consider multi-provider SIP failover, where outbound or inbound calls can be redirected to a backup network in case of downtime. Combined with a disaster recovery plan and call monitoring, redundancy safeguards your communication flow—helping you avoid missed calls, frustrated customers, and reputational risk.

10. Localize Your Voice Presence

Customers are more likely to trust and engage with brands that appear local and speak their language. Localizing your voice presence goes beyond offering a local number with recognizable area codes. It involves adapting to the language preferences, cultural expectations, and time zones of your target markets.

This might mean:

• Offering IVR prompts in local languages
• Scheduling live support during regional business hours
• Routing calls from certain regions to regional centers
• Using local caller IDs when making outbound calls, and so on.

Localization and customizing your international local presence for each market also improves routing accuracy, as calls can be directed to regional teams best equipped to handle inquiries. The result is a more personalized experience that builds trust, reduces friction, and drives customer satisfaction in each market you serve.

Go Beyond Connectivity with Global Call Forwarding

Managing voice communication on a global scale takes more than just buying phone numbers. It requires smart routing, consistent call quality, seamless integration, and the ability to adapt across regions and time zones.

At Global Call Forwarding, we help businesses access all of this in one place. With us, you can get:

• International phone numbers in 160+ countries
• Local 2-Way Voice for inbound and outbound communication
• Custom call routing, IVR flows, and failover
• Outbound calling with local caller ID, softphone apps
• CRM integrations and AI Call Insights for smarter decision-making

Our platform supports a scalable, reliable voice infrastructure designed for global operations, enabling seamless connections with customers worldwide without the need for physical offices. We can help you set up efficient handling of global inbound and outbound calls, crucial for customer support, sales, and operations.

Whether you’re expanding into new markets or improving customer support across time zones, we make it easier to stay connected and in control.

Contact our team to learn how we can help you manage global voice communication more effectively.

Note (May 1st): We are no longer accepting Skype port-ins. Due to the May 5th cutoff date, porting requests will be rejected. Instead, clients can purchase a new phone number to replace their old Skype number.

In a major shift in business communication, Microsoft has announced that Skype will be shutting down in May 2025. For businesses relying on Skype phone numbers to manage customer interactions and make international calls, this raises an urgent question:

What happens to your number and how can you transition to a new provider without losing service?

At Global Call Forwarding, we offer a seamless Skype replacement solution for businesses. If you’re concerned about losing your Skype number, need a new number in a different country, or want to maintain your international calling capabilities, we’ve got you covered.

What’s Happening with Skype?

Skype has long been a popular choice for businesses looking for cost-effective international calling and virtual phone numbers in select countries. However, Microsoft is officially discontinuing Skype in May 2025, meaning:

• Businesses that purchased a Skype number will need to port it to another provider to keep it active.
• Users who registered their existing phone numbers with Skype for international calling will require a new international calling service.
• Users who relied on Skype for business communication will need to transition to a new cloud phone provider.

Can You Port Your Skype Number?

As of Skype’s shutdown in 2025, Skype numbers are no longer portable. This means that if your business was using a Skype number, you will need to obtain a new virtual phone number from a telecom provider like Global Call Forwarding.

While Skype’s number coverage was limited to about 25 countries, Global Call Forwarding offers local, toll-free, and international phone number coverage in over 160 countries—making it easier to replace and upgrade your communication setup.

• Get new numbers in your desired country.
• Maintain local presence with local caller IDs.
• Access advanced features like call recording, IVR, outbound calling, and CRM integrations.

How to Get International Calling

Many Skype users didn’t buy phone numbers through the platform but instead registered their existing phone numbers with Skype to make international calls. After verification via OTP, they were able to place calls with their registered Caller ID. However, this functionality will be discontinued.

Thankfully, with Global Call Forwarding, you can still make international business calls—and with added benefits:

1. Buy a virtual number from us in the country of your choice.
2. Route inbound calls to any device or location.
3. Enable Outbound Calling to place international calls using your business number as the Caller ID.
4. Access and download your monthly invoices in the Billing section of the control panel.

Our service provides a more reliable, business-grade alternative to Skype, with greater global coverage and professional call management features.

How to Replace Your Skype Number?

Since Skype numbers are no longer portable, you will need to purchase a new virtual phone number. Follow the below steps to get new virtual phone numbers with Global Call Forwarding:

1. Go to our Pricing page.
2. On the left, select the country of the number you want (United States, Canada, etc).
3. Select the number type (toll free, geographic, mobile).
4. Select the prefix or area code (as relevant).
5. On the right, enter the phone number or VoIP/SIP address you would like incoming calls to be forwarded to.
6. Select your phone plan based on monthly minutes included.
7. On the next screen, add Outbound Calling, if you want to make calls with this number.
8. Submit your request.

Once we receive your application and documents, we will start working on activating your phone numbers.

Note: Our services are not available for TFA verification purposes.

Switching to Global Call Forwarding

If your business has been using Skype numbers or Skype for international calls, now is the time to transition to a more reliable, feature-rich provider.

With Global Call Forwarding, you can:

• Expand your reach with local, toll-free, and international numbers in 160+ countries.
• Access enterprise-grade call features, including IVR, call forwarding, call recording, and analytics.
• Get professional invoicing and transparent billing for your records.

Our 24/7 teams are ready to help you transition smoothly and keep your business connected.

The ability to gauge emotions and pick up on the unsaid dynamics of a conversation is an important skill in business. A conveying handshake, a confident gaze, or a subtle shift in tone can speak volumes in a business conversation. But what happens when those interactions move to a digital space?

Closing a critical deal or resolving a frustrating customer issue is challenging enough while dealing face-to-face. Now imagine trying to achieve the same outcome without the benefit of seeing their reactions, hearing their tone, or reading their body language

Understanding intent and emotion has been challenging now as business conversations happen over calls, emails, and chats.

That’s where the magic of call sentiment analysis comes in.

Call sentiment analysis is crucial for business and a key mechanism in enhancing customer experience, proactive issue resolution, data-driven decision-making, and competitive advantage. This tool can overcome the digital gap and provides insightful information on your customers’ feelings, which is even more accurate than in-person conversations.

Let’s discover how call sentimental analysis can help you make your digital chats more efficient.

What is Call Sentiment Analysis?

Call sentiment analysis evaluates customer feedback to determine opinions, emotions, and views regarding product lines, services, brands, marketing campaigns, and any other business matters. By leveraging natural language processing and artificial intelligence, call sentiment analysis provides valuable insights into customer emotions.

Businesses can better understand the quality of phone interactions by using this feature to assess the overall sentiment or mood of a business call and categorize the sentiment as positive, neutral, or negative.

Use this feature to understand customer emotions, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions that improve conversations and drive proactive sales and support efforts.

For example, organizations can contact disappointed customers directly and improve their offerings by monitoring customers’ opinions about the businesses and products or services.

With Global Call Forwarding, call sentiment analysis is seamlessly integrated into our AI Call Insights, offering businesses comprehensive insights into customer conversations.

How Does Sentiment Analysis Work?

Sentiment analysis uses artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) to analyze call transcripts. It then provides a clear sentiment ranking (positive, negative, or neutral), giving businesses valuable insights into call handling and customer reactions.

Here’s how sentiments are analyzed with Global Call Forwarding:

1. Call Recording
Firstly, the process of sentiment analysis starts with securely recording every incoming and outgoing call, and then the entire conversation is saved.

2. Process of Converting Call into Transcription
Next, our AI converts these calls into transcripts and thoroughly evaluates and analyzes the context and content of the discussion.

3. AI Analysis Using LLMs
The AI then uses LLM technology to analyze the conversation’s flow, tone, word choice, and discussion.

4. Sentiment Evaluation and Ranking
A sentiment ranking, such as “Mostly positive,” “Slightly positive,” “Neutral,” “Slightly negative,” and “Mostly negative” is generated from the analysis results to measure the sentiment.

5. Post-Call Reporting
After the call, sentiments are available on your control panel’s AI Insights dashboard. These sentiments are based on textual analysis of customer conversations and call transcription.

Businesses use this data to pinpoint areas for improvement in their communication tactics, enhance customer service, and gain a deeper understanding of customer emotions. For example, you can quickly identify and examine calls that require more attention. For instance, you can explore calls with “mostly positive” ratings to see what the customers liked and then those with “mostly negative” ratings to see what went wrong.

How Sales & Support Teams Can Use Sentiment Trends

By understanding sentiment trends, sales and support managers may improve team strategies, enhance customer experiences, and achieve more favorable outcomes. Managers can gain important insights by examining sentiment data to improve overall performance and call effectiveness.

Let’s explore how sales and support teams can use sentiment trends:

1. Gauge the Success of Sales and Support Calls

Identifying whether calls are heading toward success is essential for improving sales and supporting team performance. Sentiment analysis gives managers a clear picture of call outcomes, enabling them to determine which conversations achieved their business goals and which did not.

2. Analyze Why Calls Succeed or Fail

Support teams can dig deeper by examining call recordings and transcripts and researching the “why” behind call sentiment results. While unsuccessful calls highlight areas that require improvement, such as tone and handling objections, successful calls can be analyzed to uncover best practices.

3. Use Failed Calls as Training Opportunities

You can use calls marked with negative sentiments to teach team members how to handle difficult conversations and situations. Review recordings of these calls to identify opportunities for improving the quality of the service, building a faithful relationship with customers.

4. Monitor Team and Agent Performance

Sentiment data offers a quick overview assessment of team and individual performance. Whether you want to see individual agent performance or broader department or phone line activity, you can use phone tags and filters to narrow down call reports.

Managers can use these features together to nurture a culture of continuous development by highlighting underperforming team members, recognizing top performers, and rewarding excellence.

5. Encourage Proactive Issue Resolution

Bad calls don’t always have to have negative consequences. Managers can proactively handle critical issues, providing prompt solutions and preserving customer relationships by quickly recognizing negative sentiment.

6. Leverage Successful Calls for Upselling Opportunities

Positive sentiment immediately indicates customer satisfaction and engagement with your products or services. You can use these calls to explore cross-selling or upselling opportunities by offering more products or services that align with the needs of your target market.

7. Refine Sales and Support Strategies

Sentiment analysis can also help fine-tune your support and sales strategies by giving you a better read on customer emotions and feedback. For instance, sales teams can create more persuasive pitches by recognizing typical objections or pain areas, and support teams can modify their responses to better address customer issues.

8. Create a Feedback Loop for Ongoing Improvement

To establish a feedback loop, share and discuss sentiment trends with your team regularly. You can talk about what is effective, what needs improvement, and how data-driven initiatives are changing among your sales and support team. This openness keeps everyone aligned with company objectives and promotes a cooperative atmosphere.

This way, sales and support teams can turn call data into workable plans by methodically examining sentiment trends. This ensures ongoing development, improved customer relationships, and business growth.

Tired of Missed Customer Opportunities? GCF Can Help

Global Call Forwarding offers real-time sentiment insights from each call. With advanced AI VoIP capabilities, our AI Call Insights features—including our Sentiment Analysis, Call Transcripts, and Call Summary—are designed to meet the demands of businesses.

Our AI features help managers and agents stay on top of every call by filtering conversations across phone lines and teams. With sentiment analysis, they can pinpoint problematic calls, quickly review key details through summaries, and investigate deeply with transcripts and recordings. This enables smarter decision-making, improving customer satisfaction and boosting overall efficiency in sales and support.

Want to give sentiment analysis a test-drive? Please speak with our representatives and get in touch with us. Call us at +1 (561) 908-6171!

The rise of VoIP technology has improved global communication, offering businesses and consumers a flexible and cost-effective way to stay connected. However, as VoIP gained traction, it also opened the door to new challenges—chief among them being caller ID spoofing.

Fraudsters exploited VoIP’s flexibility, using international calling capabilities and fake local caller IDs to spam and defraud people. In response, telecom authorities in various countries began clamping down on fraudulent telephony activities, implementing stricter measures and regulatory requirements to protect consumers and the integrity of their networks.

The Challenge: Calls Being Blocked or Mutated

So, what is happening?

Countries like Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic and Australia, among others, have taken decisive steps to curb the misuse of local caller IDs.

To reduce such instances, telecom authorities stopped allowing calls from international networks to come into the country with a local in-country caller ID.

This means that people and businesses using VoIP to call into these countries were facing a major issue:

a) Their calls were being blocked if they tried to use a local in-country caller ID or
b) The caller ID was altered or mutated.

This means that businesses relying solely on traditional VoIP methods can face significant obstacles when trying to reach customers or partners in these regions. The intended trust and convenience of a local number are lost, potentially affecting communication, customer experience, and even business credibility.

The Solution: Local Termination and Local 2-Way Voice

Fortunately, there is a solution to these challenges: Local Termination (also known as our Local 2-Way Voice solution). With increasing restrictions on the use of international routes for domestic calls, the Local 2-Way Voice solution ensures regulatory compliance by leveraging local in-country carrier routes to terminate calls, aligning with the latest global telecom regulations. These technologies ensure that your outbound calls appear with a genuine, local caller ID—exactly as intended.

In other words, you can place calls to customers in these countries without the risk of being blocked), as well as display a guaranteed local in-country caller ID.

This approach not only bypasses the stringent restrictions imposed by telecom authorities but also preserves call quality and reliability. With Local 2-Way Voice, businesses can manage both inbound and outbound communications seamlessly, ensuring a consistent and trustworthy calling experience that is crucial for customer engagement and operational efficiency.

Call Reliably with Local 2-Way Voice

As the international telephony landscape evolves, ensuring authentic and reliable phone service becomes more critical than ever.

As a provider of international phone numbers, we at Global Call Forwarding understand the importance of maintaining clear and uninterrupted international communication. Our Local Termination and Local 2-Way Voice solutions are designed to help your business overcome these regulatory hurdles, allowing you to present a credible local presence in markets that matter most.

Want to learn more about our Local 2-Way Voice solution? Chat with us online or call us at +1 (561) 908-6171. We’re here to help!

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is renowned as a global and regional business hub, attracting companies with its favorable time zone, strategic location, and competitive corporate tax advantages.

Many businesses choose to establish themselves in the UAE to tap into international markets and expand their global footprint. On the other hand, many businesses in the UAE rely heavily on international commerce.

However, while the region offers significant opportunities for growth and global trade, it also presents unique challenges when it comes to international communication.

So how do local UAE businesses communicate with customers and business partners in other countries over the phone?

UAE International Calling Restrictions

One of the major hurdles facing businesses in the UAE is the heavy restriction on VoIP services, limited to a few applications like WhatsApp. This makes it extremely difficult for companies to call international numbers using traditional VoIP channels.

As a result, businesses are often forced to rely on the main telecom providers, such as Du and Etisalat, for international calls. These providers typically charge exorbitant fees for international business calling, significantly lowering the return on investment (ROI) for companies that depend on international business.

Some businesses may also consider configuring a VPN tunnel to bypass these restrictions, but this approach carries substantial risks, including potential legal issues and operational instability.

Our Alternative: Local Access Number

Being in the industry for over 28 years, we understand the communication challenges faced by businesses in the UAE. That’s why we have developed a reliable, cost-effective solution: International Calling through a Local Access Number.

How does this work?

1. The company sets up an outbound calling plan with us.
2. They register their phone number(s) with us.
3. We provide a toll-free access number that their users can dial, from one of their pre-registered phone numbers.
4. Upon connecting with the toll-free access number, the user then dials the phone number they wish to call.

Our solution bypasses the heavy VoIP restrictions by offering an alternative, legal pathway for international communications.

How Much Does a Local Access Number for UAE Cost?

The pricing structure is straightforward: Outbound calling plan + a per-minute rate (for the country you’re calling) + an additional $0.19 per minute for connecting to the access number.

You can find more information on our Outbound Calling plans and country per-minute rates here.

Despite this pricing structure, our rates remain significantly more favorable than those imposed by the local telecom monopolies, ensuring that your international calls from the UAE are both cost-effective and reliable.

Call Outside the UAE Reliably & Cost-Effectively

For businesses operating in the UAE, international and reliable phone service is a necessity as part of growing and expanding globally. However, the strict VoIP restrictions in the region have made it challenging to connect with customers and partners overseas without incurring high costs or resorting to risky workarounds.

Our Local Access Number solution offers a proven alternative, enabling you to maintain seamless, cost-effective connections with your global customers.

Want to learn more about our Middle East calling solutions? Chat with us online or call us at +1 (561) 908-6171. We’re here to help!

I had the opportunity to represent Global Call Forwarding at the Seamless Middle East 2024 Expo in Riyadh.

Having worked in telephony and communications for so many years, I’m always curious about how brands interact with customers and how people in different countries interact, particularly in the context of phones and phone numbers.

Here are some key telecom takeaways and trends that I noticed during my business trip to Saudi Arabia:

9200 Numbers Can Be Noticed Throughout the Country

One striking observation was the prevalence of 9200 numbers. They’re published everywhere throughout the country, from roadside billboards to outdoor acrylic signs to hotel key cards!

These Unified Numbers can be dialed anywhere in Saudi Arabia and outside the country.

Formatting Nuances

9200 numbers were written in a lot of different ways. Some common formats include:

• 9200XXXXX
• 9200 XXXXX
• 9200 XX XXX

Sometimes, I even saw these unified numbers in the format 92 XXXX XXX. This variance in display could be because of memorable number sequences or design preferences.

Global Comparisons

9200 numbers do not have a direct equivalent in the United States. The closest comparison might be toll-free numbers.

Internationally, Saudi’s Unified Numbers are similar to 1300 numbers in Australia, 400 numbers in China, and 03 numbers in the United Kingdom. They’re essentially non-geographic numbers that aren’t tied to specific area codes in a country.

Larger Companies Still Desire Toll-Free Numbers

800 numbers remain prominent for larger corporations in Saudi Arabia.

From the moment I left the airport, I saw billboards for well-established companies, with toll-free numbers published on them, lining the highways. Many ATMs had toll-free numbers prominently featured, and so did brochures and flyers from the Expo.

This highlights the continued importance of toll-free numbers to major corporations and their customers in Saudi Arabia.

It makes sense – I met with another client in downtown Riyadh, whose company helps large and well-established multinational corporations from the US and the UK establish a regional presence in Saudi Arabia.

Our client shared that the corporations his company works with overwhelmingly prefer toll-free numbers over the other phone number types.

Customer Engagement and Automation: The Role of AI

Though I didn’t experience this as much in my day-to-day excursions in Riyadh and Jeddah, customer engagement automation was a fundamental digital transformation theme at Seamless.

Many vendors showcased innovative solutions for customer-facing activities, like agent workflows, marketing automation, campaign personalization, and customer segmentation.

I also saw several exhibitors advertising their AI voice agent solutions and chatbots built to automate customer interactions.

Given the current technology, agentic AI can automate internal business processes and perform routine customer service tasks. Still, I don’t see its effectiveness for direct sales just yet.

WhatsApp: The Communication Channel of Choice in the Middle East

Heading into the trip, I understood the importance of WhatsApp as a preferred communication channel in the region.

In the past, we’ve helped businesses that offer automated WhatsApp solutions in the Middle East. We’ve also fielded hundreds of requests from companies that wish to use WhatsApp Business in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, among other countries.

Just as in Latin America and Europe, WhatsApp was on full display.

Not only were Uber drivers engaged in full-on WhatsApp group conversations mid-drive, and drivers from food delivery services contacting me through WhatsApp, many businesses also advertised their WhatsApp Business numbers online and in person.

Snapchat and Social Media for Branding

Social media marketing and advertising were common themes in the breakout sessions at the CMO Summit. While social media is not generally for purely business communications, brands must be present on various channels.

Snapchat was a hot topic during breakout sessions, and I even saw one of our Saudi-based clients, a B2B service provider, running advertisements on Snapchat. X, Instagram, and TikTok are also hugely popular.

One of the speakers mentioned that in the case of TikTok, even though a younger audience mainly uses it, forward-thinking brands should still use the platform to promote themselves to their next generation of customers.

Telecom Players: STC, Mobily, and Zain

STC and Mobily dominated visible advertising and physical retail throughout my travels; Zain also had a solid presence.

However, it would be important to note that high visibility only sometimes equates to market share. According to industry insights, there are several major telecom providers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of Saudi Arabia regulates telecommunications and information technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and its presence was also observed at Seamless.

Localization

While localization plays a crucial role in companies looking to market their products globally, people that I talked to and speakers in breakout sessions mentioned that Arabic localization is increasingly essential for resonating with Saudi consumers.

Consumers in other GCC countries tend to be more receptive to English content than Saudi consumers. Additionally, Saudi consumers will likely be more receptive to their native Arabic dialects and cultural nuances compared to generic Arabic translations.

Saudi Vision 2030 and RHQ

Saudi Vision 2030 and the Regional Headquarters Program (RHQ) came to my attention on the trip. Saudi Vision was incredibly evident throughout the expo and in my travels. RHQ came up during discussions with our local clientele.

Closing Thoughts

Seamless Expo emphasized the fact that customer communications in Saudi Arabia are rapidly modernizing.

From the use of long-standing mediums like toll-free numbers and 9200 numbers to the digitally-driven, giant-scale WhatsApp and social media usage and emerging trends like AI automation, there was a lot for me to take in.

At the end of the day, the people of Saudi Arabia were wonderfully inviting and welcoming to me as an outsider. Exhibitors at the Seamless Expo also showed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is eager to diversify its economy by supporting modern businesses and digital transformation.

There is a bright future for people living in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and for companies doing business there.

Managing numerous sales and support calls daily can often lead to missed details and oversights due to multitasking or information overload. With AI Call Transcription, your team doesn’t have to rely on memory or notes—ensuring that every customer interaction is accurately captured.

By converting phone conversations into written records, both managers and agents can quickly access critical information to boost operational efficiency, reduce misunderstandings, and improve customer service quality.

So, how does call transcription work, and how can your teams use this VoIP AI feature? In this article, we’ll explore:

• How calls are transcribed
• Key benefits for businesses
• Common use cases of call transcription

What is Call Transcription?

Call transcription, powered by AI, converts speech from customer calls into written text. IT decision-makers, heads of sales, and global support leaders can use this scalable solution to improve visibility across high-volume call traffic, streamlining post-call follow-ups, and ensuring no critical information slips through the cracks.

So, how does it work? Once a call concludes, AI and large language models (LLMs) can process conversations from the recorded call and convert it into a readable transcript.

By eliminating the need for manual note-taking, this feature encourages agents to pay more attention to customer conversations. These text transcripts make it easier to keep an accurate record of conversations, especially in industries like customer service or healthcare, where details really matter.

Benefits of Transcribing Business Calls

Transcribing business calls can offer several advantages that really help improve how a business operates—from increasing visibility into team activity to boosting productivity. Here are some of the key benefits of the call transcription feature:

1. Save time: Instead of manually summarizing calls, employees can simply refer to transcriptions, freeing up time to focus on more value-driven tasks.
2. Document customer conversations: Accurate records of conversations also provide legal protection in case of disputes, allowing businesses to easily resolve disputes or misunderstandings.
3. Review past calls: Instead of listening to entire recordings, managers can quickly gather high-level insights of the call through transcripts and assess customer concerns, agent performance, and opportunities for process improvement.
4. Identify priority cases: Quick access to transcribed calls helps agents and managers identify pending calls, unresolved issues, or upset customers, prioritizing support for these cases.
5. Isolate recurring issues: Managers can also use transcriptions to identify common customer complaints and objections or agents’ knowledge gaps and can customize coaching accordingly.

How to Use Call Transcription: 8 Use Cases

Whether it’s for resolving customer issues, training teams, or maintaining compliance, transcription provides valuable insights. Here’s a look at some business use cases where call transcription can make a significant impact.

Quick summary:

• Document customer calls for future reference
• Increase focus on customer conversations
• Gain high-level visibility into team performance
• Pay attention to what customers are talking about and gather feedback
• Provide specialized coaching and quality assurance training
• Collaborate across different departments
• Access comprehensive call analytics

Let’s dig into these use cases in more depth:

1. Document Customer Calls for Future Reference

Transcriptions eliminate the need for guesswork when recalling important details from a conversation. With a written record, there is a lesser risk of missing key points or misremembering queries or instructions.

For instance, managers can filter across different phone lines and quickly access call summaries, transcripts, and sentiment for a particular call. They can review these calls to identify key topics discussed, recurring patterns, high-performing calls, etc. Managers can also use these transcriptions to tailor agent training and coaching.

Similarly, agents can refer to transcribed calls to recall important customer preferences or product requirements. This avoids the potential for errors in product orders or service offerings.

Additionally, certain regulatory bodies require documentation and compliance of customer interactions and information. For instance, healthcare organizations may need to retain recorded calls that contain to maintain compliance.

2. Increase Focus on Customer Conversations

With AI-powered transcripts and summaries generated after every call, your agents don’t need to spend time manually taking or entering notes for every conversation. This gives them more time to focus on the customer with undivided attention.

Additionally, since their calls are being recorded and transcribed, agents will actively work towards performing better on support and sales calls. They may identify quicker ways to resolve common issues or develop new tactics to navigate objections. This increased focus will lead to improved customer satisfaction.

3. Gain High-Level Visibility into Team Performance

Managers can access a wealth of information and call content data by using summaries, transcripts, and sentiment analysis.

Quickly review summaries for different phone lines, teams, or regions and generate a comprehensive yet concise overview of call content. Dive deeper with recordings and transcripts to know what your customers talk about, how agents handle unhappy customers, and what common patterns exist. Determine how teams and agents are performing and use top-performing calls as training for low-performing teams.

Whether it’s resolving recurring issues or refining sales strategies, this visibility into business calls will help you drive continuous improvement across your sales, support, and marketing departments.

4. Pay Attention to What Customers Say

Transcribed calls offer a treasure trove of feedback that businesses can use to improve their products and services. By reading and listening to what customers say during their interactions, companies can spot patterns in feedback and adjust their sales and marketing efforts accordingly. For instance, you can learn more about:

• How customers talk about your products and services
• What features or functionality they are looking for
• What problems they are trying to solve with your service
• Which competitors they have considered
• Common obstacles they’re facing with your product or service
• Whether your sales and support teams are properly equipped to handle customer queries, and so on.

Use this feedback to further improve your sales, support, and marketing efforts.

5. Provide Specialized Training and Quality Assurance Sessions

Transcribed calls offer an excellent resource for training and quality assurance materials. By reviewing real interactions, managers can pinpoint areas where agents excel or need improvement.

For example, if an agent handled a tricky customer situation well, that transcript and recording can be used as a training tool for new hires. On the flip side, if there’s a recurring issue with how certain queries are handled, teams can analyze those transcripts to refine their approach and identify more efficient ways to resolve such issues.

6. Collaborate Across Different Departments

With AI-powered call transcriptions, cross-departmental collaboration becomes seamless. Call transcriptions allow team members across departments to access the same information, making collaboration smoother.

Whether it’s sales following up on a support ticket or marketing crafting campaigns based on customer feedback, teams can access unified, real-time information. This shared knowledge ensures that everyone is aligned, reducing miscommunication and enabling quicker, more effective solutions.

7. Access Comprehensive Call Analytics

By turning conversations into data, businesses can generate deeper insights, measure customer sentiment, track common topics, and evaluate agent performance.

Our AI Call Insights feature unlocks actionable data with the help of AI. When paired with other call data tools such as translation, summaries, recordings, and sentiment analysis, your teams can get a 360-degree view of customer conversations. Furthermore, you can filter call records based on specific phone lines, duration, call direction, or phone tags to get a more narrow view of call activity.

How Can GCF Help?

By implementing AI Call Transcription, your organization can improve communication accuracy, ensure regulatory compliance, and enhance customer experiences at scale. This feature is a game-changer for global sales, support, and IT teams aiming to deliver data-backed insights and high-performance outcomes.

Global Call Forwarding offers Call Transcription as part of our larger AI Call Insights feature. Contact our experts today to learn how AI-powered transcription can transform your business operations.