How To Select The Most Appropriate Telephone Number

Selecting the right telephone number for your company is as important as anything when establishing a business; you have to know your clientele and demographic.

Choosing the right product for your business is the first rule of establishing a successful business, and doesn’t it sound straight forward? Well it is and it’s important to choose the right product whatever your business is. The fact is though, it is just as important to choose the right telephone number.

The main thing to remember with telephone numbers is that when customers decide to make the call, they look at the number and make a decision based on that. To put it simply, if it’s an 0871 number the caller instantly knows that they will be charged a high rate for the call and will not dial.

If you are running a small shop in a small town with no ambition to ultimately turn it into a franchise and spread across multiple towns, cities and countries then it may be that you can happily function using a geographic number. This means you simply have the area code for your area and the phone number that has been allocated to the connection.

For those companies who are a little more interested in trading on a national scale but who are not looking to profit from the phone calls directly, it may be beneficial to obtain a non-geographic number which diverts to a number of your choice. These numbers are commonly recognised by their distinctive 0330 code. The joy with these telephone numbers, as well as their non-geographic nature, is the charges that the caller incurs: there are none! Commonly they are charged at the standard local rate and due to this reason, they are included in the minutes allocated to mobile phone contracts.

There will always be companies who are looking to profit from their phone calls however and then it is advised that the company looks to numbers that generate revenue, such as 0843/4 for a small amount 0871 for more and 0900 if the company wishes to earn solely based on their telephone services.

0843/4 are commonly used by call centres for major companies as they charge the customer around 5p per minute and are therefore low enough in cost to entice phone calls, but high enough to generate a little revenue for the company. 0845 numbers are a little kinder and charge just 2p per minute and are most commonly used for local government services.

0871 numbers are rarely used anymore thanks to public outcry regarding the costs involved and the use of them by companies for their customer support lines. This meant that for a long time those who needed assistance with, for example, their new piece of electrical equipment, they were charged up to 15p per minute from a landline.

Companies wishing to generate all of their revenue from telephone calls made to them, commonly betting tips lines, horoscope lines, adult chat lines and so on, enlist 0900 numbers which allow the number owner to set the charges and this can be anywhere between 35p and £1.50 per minute.