Customer
Catcher™ Tips
A
Great Tool for Sourcing 800 Vanity Telephone Numbers
By Martin Wales
September 20, 2002
A couple
of the more well known and effective vanity numbers include
1-800-FLOWERS set up by Jim McCann for a florists’
network and 1800-PICKUPS for UPS courier services. There
are several reasons to utilize 800 Vanity numbers:
-
They’re easier to remember. (I do recommend writing
out the complete number anyway, as not all phones have
letters on their dial pads. It is also a courtesy to those
who can’t be bothered with the dialing ‘bingo’
game of matching letters to numbers.)
-
It’s free for the prospect and customer money to
reach you.
-
It’s been found that even local callers have a higher
call-in or response rate to an 800 number versus using
their own local exchange.
-
They imply you’ve been in the market a long time
or even were the first.
-
They project credibility as an ‘organization’
that has its act together.
-
They give people the impression of a sizeable company
of that can meet their needs.
- They
are a ‘professional’ means of communication
with the public and your consumers.
- You
only pay for the time you use and in today’s competitive
market you will find it very affordable services.
- They
are transferable if you move or even change telecommunication
service providers.
- You
can direct 800 numbers to wherever you want to receive
the calls and can change that at any time.
AT&T
provides a great tool for searching for available 800 numbers.
It lets you search simultaneously for 800, 888, 877, and
866 number combinations and spellings. I found that it also
inspires creative ideas you might not have thought of previously.
You
can find the search tool at:
http://businessesales.att.com/common/
smbccommonhome.jhtml?salescode=atnmlpml
and click on “Toll-Free Service”
Also,
so you know, you should be able to request any available
numbers through the phone company of your choice. These
numbers are not the property of the phone company, but part
of a single public database.
So,
that’s one quick tool for you to try and add to your
sales and marketing efforts, if you haven’t already.
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