Importance of having a professional number

[FreeReceptionist.co.uk]

How important do you think it is to have a professional number to represent your business? Do you still advertise a mobile number?

How often do you miss business calls, which lead to totally missed sales?

Do you advertise several mobile numbers for your business, which confuse your customer- mainly because they cant get hold of you on any of them?

Would having one simple 0843 or local number- that rings on all your phones help your small business? And for no monthly cost?

 

[Ian J]

How important do you think it is to have a professional number to represent your business? Do you still advertise a mobile number?

How often do you miss business calls, which lead to totally missed sales?

Never as I divert the landline to my mobile when I'm out of the office

 

[FreeReceptionist.co.uk]

What service do you currently use, and how much does it cost you to do this?

 

[Berics Accounting]

I wouldnt use an 0843 number at all. All of my clients have my geographical number and my 0800 number. They then choose which number to call, depending on where they are calling from.

I personally make most of my own calls from my mobile, and wouldn't dream of calling an 0843 number as these don't come as part of my inclusive minutes, and my provider would charge me a fortune. I therefore wouldn't ask my clients to call it

 

[Ian J]

What service do you currently use, and how much does it cost you to do this?

It's part of my Virgin Media package and cost me about £1 per month extra

 

[japancool]

How important do you think it is to have a professional number to represent your business? Do you still advertise a mobile number?

How often do you miss business calls, which lead to totally missed sales?

Do you advertise several mobile numbers for your business, which confuse your customer- mainly because they cant get hold of you on any of them?

Would having one simple 0843 or local number- that rings on all your phones help your small business? And for no monthly cost?

Define "professional". I use an 0844 number, so no.

Rarely.

No.

If I did, do you know where I could get one, FreeReceptionist.co.uk?

By the way, if you don't know any, I can recommend one of a number of telecoms companies, working as I do in that industry.

 

[cjd]

It's a very bad idea to use 0843 number for your business. Please read this:

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/threads/choosing-a-telephone-number-for-your-business.46850/

Telephone numbers are designed for different purposes. Telephone companies talk of them as 'products' - they are not all equal.

Consumers also perceive telephone numbers differently. How they feel about a number and what they think it costs them to dial it, can radically affect what they think about your company and whether they will call you or not.

In short, telephone numbers are part of your brand and image. Once the number is on your stationery, your shop signage & the side of your van, it's not easily changed so it's important that you consider the type of number to use carefully.

Ofcom research tells us:

• Consumers know what 01 & 02, local or geographic numbers, are and believe them to be the cheapest number to call
• 64% of consumers know that 0800 are free to call
• Consumers think there is little difference in cost of calling 0844, 0845, 0870, 0871
• Consumers always overestimate how much all types of calls cost.
• Consumers are less likely to call numbers that they perceive to be more expensive to call and/or are unfamiliar to them.
• Crucially, 65%-78% of consumers either won't call, or are unlikely to call, telephone numbers used in adverts if they use these types of numbers: 0845 (65%), mobile (70%), 0870 (73%), 0844 (76%), 0871 (78%).

Source

If you read no further than this; normally, it's best to choose an 01 or 02 number for your business.

There are really only two other types of numbers you would normally consider:

• 0800 can be useful if you actively need customers to call you or are running advertising campaigns. (But note reservations below.)
• 03, if you really want to look as though you have a 'national' presence.

Unless you have a specialised reason for choosing any other type - don't.

(there's more)

 

[IanG]

How important do you think it is to have a professional number to represent your business?

If you mean one which works when people call it, very. And people know its free to call because it'll be included in their free minutes, all the better.

Do you still advertise a mobile number?

Yes, given I'm mobile a lot of the time, it kind of makes sense.

How often do you miss business calls, which lead to totally missed sales?

Fairly often, which is going to happen whatever number I give them. But because my phone has a useful feature called CLID, I can call them back with relative ease.

Do you advertise several mobile numbers for your business, which confuse your customer- mainly because they cant get hold of you on any of them?

No, because why would I do that?

Would having one simple 0843 or local number- that rings on all your phones help your small business? And for no monthly cost?

No, it would be a terrible idea because my customers would think its going to cost them £1/min, or be an answer phone, or be in India. Ridiculous suggestion.

 

[GB Showplates]

I use an 0845 number for one of my businesses and to be honest, when I acquired it I thought it would convey a more professional image but I don't think it had much impact. Lots of companies like to deal with a firm that they perceive as small, because they associate this with a better and more personal service so I think that what you gain in one hand you loose from the other.

The one big benefit of an 0800 or 0845 number is the fact that you can easily route the number to any phone you like, via an online interface. It's great if you are out of the office and want to take your office calls on your mobile instead because its a seamless redirect.

 

[StevensOnln1]

The one big benefit of an 0800 or 0845 number is the fact that you can easily route the number to any phone you like, via an online interface. It's great if you are out of the office and want to take your office calls on your mobile instead because its a seamless redirect.

You can do that with any phone number if you use a provider like Voipfone, no need for an 08xx just to get features like that.

 

[beasty]

if only 2 thirds of consumers are aware of 0800 being free, then you can bet that a tiny percentage KNOW the cost of dialling an 0843 and that means people are not going to ring it as you might charge them anything!

Personally, I like to use Geographic numbers, they are free for nearly everyone these days in calling packages and I have a lot of international calls and they work for this also.

I see no advantage in having an 08 or 03 number for most, really if it worries the caller how much it is going to cost then you are not doing yourself any favours, use geographic your caller is most likely to be comfortable with this and if you are from 0ppm to 3quid lets say, surely having customers ring you is better than potentially taking a few pennies a minute from the odd call!

 

[Merchant UK]

I have a freephone number which is rent free so i only pay for the calls if i get any, and i have a London Number which gives me a presence locally in the area that i do most of my work, Both are diverted to my Mobile and i never miss a call, with the amount of calls i get and the jobs which come out from them, i'm happy and i suppose i must pay about a fiver a month on average, which is great in my eyes

 

[LocalGuy]

It depends on what your customers are most comfortable with. For local businesses, I think that a local number is very important instead of an 0844 etc but B2B may be different. You should just think of what works best for your situation.
I also do recommend having a call forwarding service so you can be 'at work' anywhere with your mobile.

 

[beasty]

It depends on what your customers are most comfortable with. For local businesses, I think that a local number is very important instead of an 0844 etc but B2B may be different. You should just think of what works best for your situation.
I also do recommend having a call forwarding service so you can be 'at work' anywhere with your mobile.

Welcome to Hell

 

[ryedale]

Enquiry calls to us increased by about 30% when we dropped the 0800 number last year and stuck to just having our local number. People said they were put off by the national number

The office phones will always ring through to my mobile eventually if there's nobody there

 

[Merchant UK]

Enquiry calls to us increased by about 30% when we dropped the 0800 number last year and stuck to just having our local number. People said they were put off by the national number

The office phones will always ring through to my mobile eventually if there's nobody there

I agree its mainly people that use their mobiles that are put off by 0800 numbers but mine works fine, I also have an 020 London Number diverted to my mobile as people tend to call a local number more.

basically you just have to try and see which works best for you, You can get these numbers for peanuts nowadays so its not like 5 years ago where BT were charging £75 connection charge on a Freephone number, Mine cost just £4.99 for the number and no monthly contract. Great value

 

[jdluckhurst]

Your phone number is simply another aspect of your brand. It fully depends on what image you want to give off, although my personal opinion is that local numbers are best. National numbers can deter people, whilst mobile numbers will make people apprehensive about a one man band not being able to deliver the work.

It is way too easy nowadays to divert a landline number to your mobile to use "I would miss inbound calls if I had a landline number" as an excuse.

 

[GB Showplates]

You can do that with any phone number if you use a provider like Voipfone, no need for an 08xx just to get features like that.

Yes that's true, I know VoIP offers easy routing and a host of other advanced features like voicemail to email and call management, it was not as prevalent back when I got my 0845 number though.

 

[CompuGlobal-Hyper-MegaNet]

Chances of me calling an 0843 number from my mobile - zero.
Chances of me bothering to call when I eventually get to a landline - remote.
Chances of my potential customers knowing exactly what this number is, and confidently calling it happy that it isn't potentially a premium number - zero.
It's a pet peeve that although mobile phone use dwarves landline use for many people, and 'local rate' numbers cost a bomb through mobiles, large companies still insist on using these numbers with the vague pretence that they're doing us a favour by shouldering part of the burden. Anyone who uses one of these numbers and has half a brain would also put a conventional non-non-geographical number alongside it for us folk who want to call out of our unlimited free national minutes from our mobiles.

I use a VoIP landline number that diverts to my mobile (more accurately, an app installed on it) and paid extra for a special mobile number. I use both because it is clear my business is a relatively small operation where we work in the field (similar to plumbers). I find that this gives the impression that there is an office staffed by admin people, but they can also contact a technician directly if it's a technical query. In reality it's just a one-man band but I like the image it portrays.

 

[zenobialewis87]

How important do you think it is to have a professional number to represent your business? Do you still advertise a mobile number?

How often do you miss business calls, which lead to totally missed sales?

Do you advertise several mobile numbers for your business, which confuse your customer- mainly because they cant get hold of you on any of them?

Would having one simple 0843 or local number- that rings on all your phones help your small business? And for no monthly cost?

I think this specifically important for many businesses. Many of the business owners require to have numbers of some other country as well. I think such people can contact the service providers of hosted PBX.