Are Toll-Free 800 Numbers Right for My Business?
By: Antoine Brown
Wherever you look you will find businesses offering toll-free 800 numbers to attract customers with the convenience of a free call. This begs the question "Does my business need a toll-free number for our customers?" and in this brief article we will explore some of the reasons why you should offer this as part of your customer service and marketing strategy.
Customers find toll-free 800 numbers simple and convenient to use and a sign that a business is serious about its commitment to customer service. There are also definite benefits for your own company image and customer reputation in using 800 numbers. Bluntly, you are demonstrating your commitment to customers both new and old.
There are negatives to a toll-free number such as unwarranted calls being made to you on your tab. This is a small price to pay for the opportunity to talk to a potential customer or an existing one about your business and what you have to offer; as any salesman will tell you, the three rules of selling are "Talk to the People, Talk to the People and Talk to the People!"
Businesses that rely for the most part on local custom are not likely to be able to leverage the benefits of a toll-free number service. If your customer and prospect targets are widely dispersed around the country then an 800 toll-free number certainly will convey significant benefit to your reach, image and reputation. Businesses that are providing a product or service that has a need for technical support calls tend to significantly outperform rivals that do not have an 800 number as part of their customer service offering.
One other desirable feature of toll-free 800 numbers is anonymity. Nobody can determine where you are based in the country from looking at the telephone number. As such, virtual or vanity numbers lend themselves to marketing campaigns where you wish to convey the impression that your business is located in a particular area, say Hollywood for a film company or Wall Street for a financial service offering. Combining a toll-free number with a mailing service in that location provides you with a virtual presence at a fraction of the cost of establishing a real presence.
Of course, you as the business, will pay for the cost of the call and not your customer. The cost will be determined by your service provider and typically they charge you for blocks of call time and the rates for these vary widely. Long-distance call blocks usually are offered in 6, 30 and 60 second units with longer time units charged at a cheaper rate, but you still are charged if you do not use all the time in that unit i.e. the call time period is rounded up to the next whole unit.
You can find 800 toll-free service providers as easily as shaking a stick or opening an internet search engine browser and you need not be tied down to just your existing telephone provider either. With such a widespread choice you can be sure of two things, firstly that you will be able to get a competitive deal that suits how you do business and this in turn leads on to the second factor; you need to carefully reasearch the fine print and ensure you are getting what you expected.
The popularity of toll-free numbers is driven by a simple factor - customers really like them and businesses have responded to this. Not every business needs a toll-free 800 number but such organizations are in a clear minority. The majority of businesses recognize that if they do not offer the simple convenient commitment to their customers of providing a dime to call them, then they can look forward to their customers contributing, not to their bottom line, but to a competitor's instead.
Article Source: http://www.uberarticles.com/articles
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