Most people get a local number when they start their business and don’t realize until much later that they should have gotten a toll free number. The signs are there, but most businesspeople don’t recognize them.
Take this short survey to help you decide if it is time to make the switch.
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If you answered yes to 1-3 questions, you may not need a toll free number, but might want to look into it.
If you answered yes to 4-5 questions, you are on the borderline and may benefit by getting a toll free number. If you said yes to 6-7 questions, then you definitely need a toll free number. This will give a new dimension to your business.
Photo by Leo Reynolds
When you decide to form a small- to medium-sized business, the first steps are obvious: think of something people want, get a DBA, hire employees, etc. After you have created the company, then it is time to get to work, right? Not necessarily. In today’s technology age, there are several steps that you should do now.
1) The Business Plan
Developing a business plan is a must, but it doesn’t need to be complex. A few pages outlining your business overview, industry background, product or service, business model, strategy & team provides the foundation of your plan. Having a solid business plan is a requirement to get SBA (Small Business Administration) loans. For guidance, take a look at Score’s business plan template.
2) Raise Capital
It’s not an easy time to raise capital for a new business. Many larger institutions have reduced lending programs for small businesses and venture capital has seen a downturn over the last couple years. The bright spot in local small business lending seems to currently be with local credit unions. Able to more intimately assess risk in their local markets, some credit unions have still been actively underwriting SBA loans.
3) Legal Structure
If you plan on bringing on partners or investors or will be signing contracts, you’ll want to set up a legal structure and incorporate your company. Your main options setting up as Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, or Corporation. Each structure has its advantages & benefits. Services such as LegalZoom provide cost-effective online tools to help guide you through this process.
4) Protect Your Company’s Name
Securing your brand identity is important, and becomes increasingly so as time goes by. The USPTO website has a section for trademarks where one can conduct a search to see if another business has an existing name similar to yours, and if they are in your industry.
5) Establish a Web Presence
Creating a website is essential these days. Your website needs to be much more than a postcard on the web if it’s going to be a lead generation machine. The cost of choosing a domain and hosting your site has come down dramatically over the last few years. Not to be ignored are social media options like Facebook, Twitter and a blog. These can give you a huge boost to your Google visibility.
6) Phone System
The telephone will be the primary means of sales, support and business relations for your new enterprise. Choosing a toll free number (such as 1-800-Widgets) will allow you to take calls from across the country. You’ll want to consider getting a virtual pbx which will provide the power and functionality of a Fortune 500 phone system, but with no hardware to buy or maintain. Even if your company has only one employee, you can also take advantage of multiple extensions. You can create virtual departments, make announcements and route calls from any extension to any number—your home, office, or cell.
7) Create Your Business Identity
Customizing your own letterhead, business cards, and even e-mail signature with your company name and logo helps establish credibility and brand recognition. It also helps spread the word. Once you create a company logo, use it everywhere; on business cards, brochures, letterhead, your website, even in your e-mail signature.
If you do these seven steps before you open for business, it will save you a lot of time in the long run and make your business run smoother from the get-go. And make sure to join us on Facebook, where we are growing our online conversation with our customers. Find out the latest updates, ask questions, learn tips, and stay connected.
Photos by Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake
Knowing how to search for a vanity number and how they work is critical to your brand’s marketing success
1) Don’t search small inventory websites for number availability
While I’m obviously biased, RingCentral’s Vanity Number Search tool is amongst the best. Chances are good that if the number is available, it’s on RingCentral’s site and listed as part of their inventory. Too many first time vanity number customers find one or two single websites and conduct a search for number availability, thinking that all inventory is listed within a single site. Conduct a more exhaustive search and remember that toll free numbers can always be ported over to any phone service provider of your choice. Once you own the number, you own the number – not the telecom company. So search high and low for that number and do invest time into the process.
2) Don’t restrict your choice of number by industry description or company name
Chances are, especially for 1-800 numbers, that your mnemonic number of choice may not be available. 1-800-Got-Junk isn’t worth millions for no reason, but it may also mean that 1-800-ABCplumbers is not available. That shouldn’t deter you from getting a vanity number that’s going to be easy to remember at parties, on radio ads and on the web. Think of verbs such as “Go” or “Call” as additions to your brand or industry name in the vanity number. For example, 1-800-Go-Fedex is a simple but powerful example of adding an “action verb” to the addition of your brand. There are tons of other examples, so don’t settle for the first number you find!
3) Know the hierarchy of vanity number recognition with the public
As I’ve written before on this blog, even American Idol often repeated “These are 888 numbers folks, not 800 numbers.” That means that many people still perceive toll free numbers as being 800 numbers. The obvious ideal is 1-800 numbers, after that the second best choice is 888 numbers. IMHO 866 and 877 numbers are equally third choice. However, that being said, if 888 numbers worked well enough for American Idol… then the lesson is, it’s ok to have an 888 number and not an 800 toll free, but it may require an extra few seconds reminding folks of that in your ads. If I had to choose between getting a less desirable mnemonic in an 800 number format or getting a more desired name in 888 format – I would pick the 888 format every time.
Start exploring now and see what you can find. Just make sure you remember these three common mistakes while you make your search.
Pet prescription company creates a publicly traded brand with their toll free number
Another in my series of posts highlighting companies who have made incredible use of their toll free vanity phone number.
Founded by Marc Puleo in the go-go days of the internet, 1800PetMeds is yet another perfect 7 digit mnemonic for a toll free number that matches both criteria for a perfect toll free vanity:
1.) Easy to remember
2.) Describes the service and product to a tee; i.e. you hear the name 1-800 ________ and you know what they are selling.
1-800 PetMeds is also an example of a company that took its toll free vanity number and incorporated it into both its name as well as its web domain name. How successful is 1-800 PetMeds? In the NASDAQ listing for the company – symbol PETS, it says that it has a market capitalization of an astonishing $438,316,800.
Less than half a billion (with a B) dollars of equity worth in a website who has weathered the storms of dot-com crashes and recessions. And its loyal fanbase of phone & web customers seems to be growing, much to the dismay of some of the companies who have tried to litigate 1-800 PetMeds out of business. What I find most fascinating about these businesses are that they have incorporated the phone number AND the website branding into a singular name. We’ve mentioned other sites like 1-800 Flowers doing this as well and while this may not be an option for many small businesses who have established and entrenched brands, I do NOT recommend that anyone invest in a radio or print magazine (or even Yellow Pages ad) without having a toll free vanity number that matches the above criteria.
In the early days of 1-800 PetMeds, the company employed celebrity pet-lovers such as Betty White of the hit 80’s show “Golden Girls,” but they, like many, found that the true marketing potential of their offering was in the memorability of their website and toll free phone number. As I wrap up my series this month on examples of companies that have leveraged toll free phone numbers to great success, this lesson shouldn’t be lost on any of us that call ourselves “marketers”.
Now here’s a challenge for any of the Frost & Sullivan or Mckesson analysts out there who cover the telecom industry – whose done a study of the customer acquisition cost for marketing memorable versus random toll free numbers?
The toll free 800 number has come into its own as a recognized sign of a serious business. These numbers, however, are showing surprising strengths, even in markets where you wouldn’t expect them to make such a difference. For instance, you’d think that people doing business with local businesses would prefer to dial the local number. And you’d be wrong. According to a Chicago Tribune study, advertisers using toll free vanity numbers received ten times more calls than those just using the local number.
People associate the now ubiquitous 800 numbers, and their 866 and 888 brethren, with business. Simply having a toll free number is a sign of legitimacy and dependability. Vanity numbers take that a step further, giving your customers a mnemonic key to remember your phone number.
According to a study by Response Marketing Group, after listening to a radio spot just one time, 58% of the participants remembered the vanity number used in it. If a hybrid number was used, one in which only part of the number used a word to replace the numbers, only 44% were able to accurately recall the number. Still, that was far and away superior to the meager 8% who could remember a raw string of numbers.
Laura Noonan, VP of Marketing at Response Marketing Group, said her company “wanted to quantify how people retain numeric, hybrid, and vanity numbers in a real world, advertising context.” The success of such numbers had long ago been established when 1-800-FLOWERS lept ahead of the 75-year-old FTD, which enjoyed both a dominating position in its market and exceptional name recognition. Neither of those traits were enough to keep the older company ahead of 1-800-FLOWERS and its easily remembered phone number.
Photo credits: La Citta Vita, robbie jim.
The 1800 number got its start in 1967, the same year Che Guevara was executed and Aretha Franklin recorded “Respect”. The idea was to cut down on collect calls, which could be labor-intensive since they often required a live operator. The early adopters were primarily hotels and car rental companies that took lots of reservations from across the country over the phone. Because of this, the story of toll free numbers is also the story of the modern call center. When the first one went belly-up, the involved companies immediately stepped in to retain the infrastructure as well as the expertise of the current management and employees. These were broken off into independent call centers for each of the different companies being serviced, but they all remained in the same area. The strip malls at 93rd and Bedford in Omaha, Nebraska, where these first call centers were located, became known as “Res City”. AT&T even opened an office there to serve these 800 numbers customers, and if you wanted a new toll free number in Omaha, you could get it up and running within 24 hours. If you were anywhere else, you might have to wait for weeks.
A lot of the reason for the delay was due to the rather cumbersome way toll free calls were originally handled. If a LEC (local exchange carrier) got an 800 call that wasn’t in-state, they would simply pass it to AT&T and rely on them to handle all the routing. This meant that every company actually needed two 800 numbers: one for in-state calls and a second for out-of-state calls.
The system was upgraded in ‘81 with Common Channel Interoffice Signaling and the Network Services System database. These allowed AT&T to handle all 1 800 numbers, in or out-of-state, through a central clearing house. This also gave AT&T a lot more flexibility to offer things like customized 800 numbers, a service that would eventually become the vanity numbers we see everywhere today.
For that to really take off, however, customers needed to be able to take their 800 number to any phone company they wanted to use. Until ‘93, however, you were stuck with the company who you originally contracted with to handle your calls. If you wanted to switch to a new provider, you couldn’t take your 800 number with you, necessitating a huge expense in remarketing the new number and getting rid of all references to the old one. After the FCC mandated 800-number portability, however, companies were able to pick any carrier they preferred and bring their toll free numbers with them. The resulting boom in the use of these numbers threatened to use up the remaining 1800 options, so new toll free prefixes were created: 866, 877, and 888. As expected, competition lowered prices to the point now where individuals can afford their own toll free numbers, either for the convenience of their families or for home-based businesses.
Photo credits: KaCey97007, kiwanja.
There’s been a lot of digital ink spilled about the usefulness of having a toll free number. 800 numbers make a business appear more professional and reachable, and offer new avenues for marketing. Once you have them, you’ll want to make the most of your 800 numbers.
800 Numbers Everywhere
Most freelancers and small businesses know the value of having their 800 number on a business card that can be handed out. It’s also important to have your toll free number on your web page. A recent Pew Research poll has found that while many folks now regularly utilize the web for research, only 56% of those between the ages of 64 and 72 make actual purchases online. Surprisingly, it’s even worse for teens, ringing in at only 38%. If you don’t give these people a way to talk to a real, live human being, they’ll simply choose to not do business with you even if they like what they find on your site. This is why it’s important to have your 1 800 number listed conspicuously on every page of your website.
They’re also great if you travel overseas a lot or move frequently. No matter where you are, your family and friends only need to remember that one 800 number to reach you, without having to worry about overseas charges.
Toll Free at Home
800 numbers aren’t just for work anymore. The best thing about toll free numbers is how they allow you to control costs. Relatives, especially the elderly and college students, can call home without burdening themselves with massive phone bills or messing with collect calls. If you travel a lot on business, you can call home without having to ring up charges on a company phone or your hotel bill.
Answer Your Phone
Once they’ve called, the patience of your customers can be measured in seconds, not minutes. 40 seconds, according to the North American Telecommunications Association. You can extend that to 70 seconds with music, but every second counts. Almost one in five readers of the Sydney Morning Herald reported “they would rather be stung by a jellyfish” than spend time waiting on hold.
Follow Through
Capture data on every call. Who did the customer talk to? Did the customer get what they called for? Understanding what happens when people talk to your company helps you pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses. It also allows you to get back in touch with customers, either for further research or to find out if further sales are possible. This is especially vital if you have add-ons or related options that can make you even more valuable to your customers.
Photo credits: rahims, barekim, adactio