What You Need To Know About Toll Free Numbers

It is not important which market your business is in, every business requires a means for their clients to contact them. When you begin, often you may be okay with using your local office line, but as soon as you grow, add more departments, and expand your client base, the local office phone may no longer be enough to cover all your requirements.

At this point it may make sense to acquire a toll free number and start receiving phone calls like larger companies in the industry. The following explains how to get a custom, catchy number at a sensible price.

How Exactly Do Toll Free Numbers Work?

A toll free numbers is a symbol of professionalism that lets your clients call you at no cost to themselves. Even though the name suggests they are free, the company that owns the number is required to pay for incoming and outgoing call activity.

The concept behind a toll free number is that anyone that calls the business has probably already spent some money with the business, or is looking for information to place a new order. Having a toll free number is a great way to thank them for their business.

Are There Differences Between 888, 800, 866, 855, and 877?

Toll free numbers are available in five different layouts: 1-888, 1-800, 1-866, 1-877, and the latest, 1-855. These formats are all the same, other than by look, and none of them costs more than another to operate or acquire. One business draws a good comparison between website domains and phone number layout with the idea that 800 is basically comparable to .com, 888 is .net, and 877 and 866 are similar to .biz or .info or country codes. Essentially, all the formats work the same.

This is a terrific way to view toll free numbers as you make a decision as to which one will suit the needs of your company. Some winning companies have made entire brands around an 800 number, like 1-800-CONTACTS and 1-800-FLOWERS. At the end of the day, you must make a decision about how central a toll free number should be to your company business, how important it will be to your branding efforts, and in what capacities it will serve your customers.

What is a Vanity Number?

Custom telephone numbers that include your company name or words that refer to your services are known as vanity numbers. These are normally harder to locate but considerably more prized to your business, because they are simple for your clients to recall without having to spend time looking you up.

Several people have the wrong idea that the best vanity numbers are more costly, but this is not so. It is like locating a good “.com” name for your company business: finding a strong toll free number involves some luck and a little searching. Now that the 855 numbers have been released, there are more vanity numbers to select from. To pick your own custom number, consider what would be the best words to explain your company’s business and just what it is you want your customers to remember.

What Do You Get, What Do You Need?

After you have a toll free number, the goal is to lessen the total time required to assist a client to avoid an extremely expensive phone bill. To this end, businesses will frequently set up virtual PBX systems to judge the customer’s purpose for calling and direct them to the appropriate department.

Regrettably, toll free numbers themselves do not come with office phones, PBX systems, or any additional accessories essential to make the best use of your new phone number. Therefore, you need to do a complete assessment of your company’s business so can decide what you may need to purchase in addition to your new phone number, and choose exactly which departments your number will direct to, and the number of telephones required to be in each. This can be quite costly for a small business, which is the reason so many companies use a virtual phone system.

What Is Toll Free Number Hoarding?

Warehousing (also known as “hoarding”) is an unlawful activity in which a service provider or a company will grab up huge blocks of toll free numbers with the purpose of reselling the numbers later on for much more. The FCC controls this illegal activity by checking and making sure that the toll free numbers that are being reserved are for actual subscribers. This law is designed to prevent the best vanity numbers from becoming prohibitively expensive to acquire.

By: Gary G

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Grasshopper specializes in virtual voicemail for business. Grasshopper's systems offer local and toll free numbers, virtual voicemail with unlimited extensions, and many other options to make it possible for businesses to get calls, voicemails and faxes anywhere.