Maybe you don’t think much about your telephone number. I know a lot of people strive to get the easiest number to remember when connecting a new number, but that seems to be as far as most go. Lets be honest, people don’t remember your business phone number anymore, not with cell phones… there is no need. Honestly, I can’t tell you my wife’s mobile number because it is two buttons away in my cell phone.
But your phone number can say a lot about your business, and your customers notice it.
If you service a local community like Blenheim, or region such as Marlborough, a local calling number reassures your customers they are dealing with a local business and often depending on the industry, this is important to the customer.
If you provide products or services nationally, having a toll free number is telling the customers that you may be out of town, but you value their business enough to pay for their inquiry. If you have two competing businesses to contact for a product, and one is a toll call, while the other is toll free, which are you going to call first?
International business may be a combination of the two. Are you going to make an international phone call to place an order? Not likely if their is local competition. Why not have a toll free number in another country redirected to your local office?
What can you take away from this? Smaller local companies can have toll free national and international numbers, so they appear bigger than they actually are to their target customers. On the other hand, large national (or international) companies can have many local numbers to appear as though they have a local office.
What does your business phone number tell your customers?
Photo credit: Alexander ONeill