Business Phone Numbers for Farms & Rural Businesses

Feature by feature: why SwitchboardFREE works for farms and rural businesses

Every SwitchboardFREE account comes with over 40 features. These are the ones that make the biggest difference to farms and rural businesses, and why.

Keep your number

The copper phone network is due to finish switching off on 31 January 2027, and many farms still rely on a landline number the family has had for decades. Transfer it to SwitchboardFREE free, with £50 credit, usually in 7 to 14 days, so merchants, vets and contractors keep ringing the number they know.

Divert calls to your mobile

You are rarely in the farmhouse office when the phone rings. Calls to your farm number can ring the SwitchboardFREE app on your mobile, or divert to any UK landline or mobile, so you can answer in the yard or the field.

Ring groups

On a family farm, whoever is nearest a phone should answer. Ring groups can ring the farm office first, then your mobile, then a family member's phone, in the order you set, or ring them all at once.

Business continuity

A common worry about moving off the copper line is what happens when a storm takes out the power or the broadband. Business continuity lets you redirect every call to mobiles or another site, such as a family member's house, in minutes, so the farm stays reachable until the line is back.

Voicemail to email

In the lambing shed or on the combine you cannot always hear the phone, let alone answer it. Voicemail to email sends every message as an audio file with a written transcript, so you can read a message from the merchant or the vet when you stop.

Missed call alerts

Plenty of callers, from hauliers to holiday let guests, hang up without leaving a message. Missed call alerts email you their number the moment a call is missed, so you can ring them back when you get a moment.

Local and national numbers

Many farms now run a farm shop, a holiday let or a contracting business from the same yard, and each works better with its own number. You can keep several numbers on one account, each ringing the right phones, with extra numbers added through the paid multi-number package.

Open and close times

The farm shop phone should ring during opening hours and take messages after. Open and close times play an out-of-hours message and let callers leave a voicemail outside the hours you set, and you can open or close from the app on a day the shop shuts early.

Custom greetings

Holiday let guests, farm shop customers and contracting clients each need different information when they ring. Record your own greetings free on the app, such as one pointing guests to your booking website, and they go live straight away.

DepartmentsStandard & Unlimited plans

One number for a mixed farm business can still send each caller to the right person, with a menu such as press 1 for the farm, press 2 for the farm shop, press 3 for holiday let bookings. Departments ring different people for each option, each with its own voicemail.

Call recordingPaid add-on

Prices for stock, feed or contracting work are often agreed over the phone, and details can be disputed later. The call recording add-on records all or some calls so you can play back what was agreed. Tell callers when calls are recorded.

Music on holdStandard & Unlimited plans

If someone in the farm shop puts a caller on hold to check whether there is a Christmas turkey left, silence makes them think they have been cut off. Music on hold plays while they wait, so they stay on the line.