Opinions of 0870 numbers

[Dan Morris]

Hi,

This is my first post, so hello everybody.

I am planning to start a business soon, and will begin by working from home. Firstly, I want to disguise my home number, and secondly, I may move premises in the near/mid future. I was thinking about using an 0845 or non-geographic number to solve both these problems.

Has anyone got any opinions of these? If you were a prospective client of mine, what would you think about this?

I am also considering using a PO Box, in a similar way to allow movement of premises in the near future. What are your opinions of these. What would you think if you saw a PO Box on a busines card?

Many thanks,
Dan Morris

[Alpha]

Hi Dan and welcome

Attitudes to these are often entrenched in peoples mind.

Regarding the telphone number it can simply depend on the service you are providing. If it is one where people require it to be local they will often look for a local number., otherwise in the business community it shouldnt be a problem.

The PO Box strangely enough is often viewed with extreme suspicion possibly because of all the frauds that were perpetrated from PO Box numbers many years ago.

[Ozzy]

Hello Dan,
As Alan says, I know some companies that have a company policy NOT to deal with any suppliers who have PO Box addresses!

As for Non-Geo numbers .. I use an 0800 number for sales and 0870 for support related issues and for the fax. To date I've never come across any problems with this. I started using them because like yourself I was trading from home in Luton and was planning on relocating shortly after starting up. It saved having to get stationary redone aswell as telling everyone my new numbers! You can also sometimes get more memorable numbers than what BT will give you as standard.

[coxadmin]

Hi Dan

If I am given a choice of calling a company with an 0845 or 0870 I will always go for the 0845 first. I've just set my business up with an 0845 number - of course 0800 is best of all but you need to cover the costs.

[barry.hynd]

Hi Dan,

I use an 0871 number for my catering business which I have had no compalints about. I've set mine up using a virtual pbx that allows people to contact me or any of my staff wherever we are as the calls can be routed to mobiles etc. I of course cover all the divert costs but I think it portrays very positively when you are always available to answer calls.

I have to say I agree with the others with regards to PO Box. I'm not in favour of it either. Why dont you cosider using a virtual office if youre concerned about privacy etc. These can be very cost effective and can even act as an admin function to some degree.

[Dan Morris]

Thanks for all the useful info.

I will be using either an 0845 or 0870 number, (not sure which yet), but by the sound of things the PO Box would not do a lot for my company image !!

Had a quick look at mail forwarding and it costs roughly £200/annum which compared to a PO Box (£108) isn't bad considering the bed press associated with PO Box's.

Another alternative I discovered is a service some formation companies offers which allows you to hire a registered address from them.

I guess my main concerns are targeted junk mail, so, perhaps by using my discretion in divulging the soon-to-be registered address, I can avoid this as much as possible. I gather that you have to have the address on all correspondence, but would this include Business cards?

Thanks again
Dan

[Ozzy]

A registered address can be different from your trading address. For example my registered address is that of my accountants.

However, yes you can use most registered office services of formation agents to also be your "trading address" and have all mail forwarded on from there. I do offer that facility and I believe Mike from SFS also does.

[mark h]

I have used an 0870 number for over 12 months now and it made a huge difference to my business as I suddenly became a "national" company in peoples eyes.

Would never, ever use a PO box address though!

Mark :)

[Shaggy]

Been using an 0870 number since last Sep, actually recommeded via Ozzy at Quick Formations.

Because of the way it is set-up you can forward to any number of landlines at whatever specific time of day, and you can also get it to take messgaes for you as well.

Even better you could double it up as a fax number too, which would relay the incoming fax to you by e-mail, but I would suggest having another number for your fax.

It does give you that 'National' status even though both my co-director and myslef work from home.

[autolycus]

In my view it depends on who you want to be calling you.

If you are using the fact that you are a local business as a selling point, then people will be more likely to recognise you as local if your phone number starts with the same 01xxx code as theirs.

On the other hand, if you are a small business but want o look a bit bigger than you are then 0845 or 0870 can give an impression of being a national rather than local business.

There does seem to be increasing resentment amongst small businesses and Joe Public about the proliferation of 0870/0845 numbers (esp 0870). This is because a lot of people have phone packages that give them a certain number of free minutes per month but non-geographic numbers are not eligible for this so they end up paying more to call you than they would if you had a standard 01xxx number.

On the other hand, if it is mostly medium to large businesses calling you then they are unlikely to notice or care what your dialing code is.

Overall, I would say go with 0845 (that's what I use) so your callers get charged BT local rates rather than national. But be prepared to give out your 01xxx to anyone who asks for it and who you want to keep onside with.

Plenty of companies will set up an 0845 number for you free of charge, so don't go paying unless you want a memorable number.

Hope this helps,
Dave.