return to www.MartinWales.com - Customer Catcher Tips  

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:

  1. 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.)
  2. It’s free for the prospect and customer money to reach you.
  3. 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.
  4. They imply you’ve been in the market a long time or even were the first.
  5. They project credibility as an ‘organization’ that has its act together.
  6. They give people the impression of a sizeable company of that can meet their needs.
  7. They are a ‘professional’ means of communication with the public and your consumers.
  8. You only pay for the time you use and in today’s competitive market you will find it very affordable services.
  9. They are transferable if you move or even change telecommunication service providers.
  10. 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.

© MMIII Customer Catcher All rights reserved.
Customer Catcher is registered in US Patent & Trademark office.
Permission is granted to reprint or distribute as long as this full copyright notice is included.

Site & Products Managed by The Customer Catcher Institute ™