In today’s highly competitive business environment, brands and organizations are innovating marketing techniques and tactics to stay relevant and have a competitive edge. This new competitive environment requires businesses to be more customer friendly, track customer behavior, maintain brand recognition, and enhance customer retention rates. One of the techniques to sustain customers and be available to them 24/7 is through phone calls.
In fact, phone calls are the most direct and user-friendly mode of being in touch with your consumer and giving them a feel-good factor of having constant communication. Having several business numbers for consumers can be quite a challenging task. It would mean keeping track of many phone numbers for both the consumer and the business. Thus, many businesses have started opting for toll-free number services. This free service is an indispensable asset for a business. It has endless benefits beyond credibility and brand recognition. Read on to find out why an increasing number of businesses are taking toll-free numbers for their business.
Working of a toll-free number
Before going into the benefits of owning a toll-free number, let us understand what it means. A “toll” technically is a fee paid for any services. A toll-free number is essentially a free of cost number that a consumer can dial from anywhere in the world. All toll-free numbers have distinct three-digit area codes and can be dialled from landlines and mobiles, but with no charge to the person placing the call.
The calling process of a toll-free number is quite the same as any other call. Customers can dial a toll-free number and the call is routed through a VoIP phone system that the business has taken, which then directly connects the customer to the company’s support team.
A toll-free number is enabled with many features that are crucial for a company’s growth. For instance, it allows call recording, call analysis and monitoring. These offer business insights, measure performance and call quality.
Benefits of using Toll-free numbers
Toll-free numbers offer the business many direct and indirect benefits that can help it grow by leaps and bounds.
1. Gives a professional touch to the business
A toll-free number makes any business look more professional and well established. It offers a more widespread reach. Anybody can contact you from anywhere in the world. It gives customers a unified image, especially if your team is spread across geographies and works remotely. You can have one number with many 4-digit extensions for different people.
There are innumerable toll free number service providers. Vumber.com is one of the top-notch players in this sector. It is a one-stop-shop for anyone looking to add a business line to their existing phone. It allows you to make calls, return calls and get a number on the caller ID. What sets it apart is its advanced web portal management system that manages all the calls and voicemail. It has many pricing plans starting from $9.95 per user/month along with a 14-day free trial.
2. Enhances customer satisfaction
Have you ever tried calling a company on their mobile number or landline number only to find out that the number is accessible only during working hours? This can leave a bad taste in your mouth about that company. With a toll-free number, you can have better customer service as it is easier for a customer to reach the company and resolve their queries, be it day or night. This, in turn, improves customer relationships and retention too.
3. Brand recall and credibility
A toll-free number is much easier to remember as compared to regular landline or mobile numbers. Usually, it is the country code with the three-digit area code. In case, if it is a vanity number, it is even easier because it is a mix of digits and alphabets such as 1-800-Flowers. If people can remember the number easily, they are likely to call you back more often. This in turn will generate more sales, becoming a robust marketing technique.
For startups and small businesses, these numbers add brand value and a more sophisticated feel. You could be working out of your home, but having a toll-free number would make your business look like a well-established one.
4. Ease of having multiple numbers on one account
Many companies allow you to have many toll-free numbers on one account. This helps in tracking and monitoring each number. It also allows you to forward the calls to the same phone or each one forwarded to a different phone. You can configure this from the account portal and keep changing it as often as you want.
You can also have your toll-free number and regular number saved on the same phone. When any customer calls, it will show on your toll-free number only, keeping your other number safe and confidential. In fact, you can have a local number from any state you want, as number portability is allowed.
5. Voicemail facility
With toll-free numbers, you can have a separate voicemail to set customized greetings for each number. Often, businesses have ad campaigns and customers want to get in touch with the company immediately after the campaign. With a toll-free number you can directly send the customer to the voicemail box through email or through a phone or online.
Some of the companies offering toll-free numbers also extend their services and provide missed call and email notifications. This personal touch is a good marketing strategy to retain customers.
6. Ease of changing toll-free number
Many companies and people avoid using toll-free numbers as they fear that once you have one toll-free number you are stuck with it forever even if you shut that company or change your business. But that is not the case. You can easily change your numbers as often as every month. In fact, many companies also allow you to convert the same number into a regular one if you no longer need a toll-free number. There is ease of porting of a number to and from other services.
7. Convenience in call forwarding
Many companies giving toll-free number facility allow call forwarding facility, where the call goes to voicemail. It is also possible to forward the call to another number or two numbers simultaneously or in sequence.
Besides call forwarding, many companies provide other advanced features like sending out a “number not in service” message. They also let you block individual callers or all anonymous or restricted numbers. In fact, you can have a select list of numbers that will be able to call you. All you have to do is create a whitelist and only those numbers on the list will be able to get through.
8. Pocket-friendly charges
Many businesses and people think that having a toll-free number that is accessible globally will create a dent in the pocket. However, this is not so. You can call customers around the world using a toll-free number at very reasonable rates. There are flat monthly rates with no per-minute charges, making them easy to maintain for small businesses too.
9. A marketing asset
A toll-free number is a huge business asset that assures a good Return on Investment (ROI). It helps track business campaigns through extensions that are linked to a particular campaign. With this, you can run different ads on varied channels and evaluate the ROI on each of them.
10. The cloud advantage
All toll-free numbers work on cloud platforms, which offers it many advantages over the conventional phone system. With cloud, you can store, monitor, and analyse calls easily. All cloud communication platforms offer the best uptime with a strong infrastructure that helps in building a better customer experience.
11. Privacy is protected
You may add a toll-free number to the same account but still, your personal number is well-protected. You are free to connect whenever you want and wherever you desire, both online and offline. Your personal cell number will not be disclosed.
Application of toll-free number feature
Toll-free numbers have innumerable advantages, especially in creating a brand image and adding a professional touch to a company’s services. It is an excellent marketing tool for companies that ensures good ROI. Let’s look at its applicability.
1. Lawyers
Toll-free numbers offer a virtual presence in neighbouring towns and also in remote areas. If a lawyer or tax officer wants to expand to a new city, he will have to purchase a number for that city and test the market before opening a full office. With the help of a toll-free number, he can retain his old number and still test waters in a neighbouring town. Similarly, you can have a virtual presence in remote towns too. For instance, local newspapers in California towns use local CA numbers, but the call is from New Jersey (NJ). Basically, toll-free numbers have expanded the reach of businesses without having to change numbers continuously.
2. Small Traders and businesses
When you are just starting a business, you may not have the infrastructure to have a separate call centre to manage your calls, but at the same time, you do not want to give out your cell phone number to everyone. Having a toll-free number resolves this issue as you can keep your personal number for personal calls and use the toll-free one for business calls.
3. Football League
Having a toll-free number for a football league is a good idea as you can set business hours and have parents call only at those times. Also, a toll-free number will ensure that all the calls are recorded so it can be used to call back the concerned people. You can also have different toll-free extensions for each query. For instance, for football league timings, dial 800-vv-pppp and for football team selection dates dial 800-gg-xxxx.
4. Printing Ads
You can use toll-free numbers to see the effectiveness of ads. For instance, you can have three different ads with three different numbers. You can know the effectiveness of the ad based on the call response for each number. The more the calls, the better is the ad and vice versa.
5. Healthcare
Toll-free numbers are a big boon for the healthcare industry because when there is a medical emergency small or big, it needs immediate attention. In fact, ambulances were the first ones to start using toll-free numbers. You can use one number to book an appointment - 1800-xxx-vvvv and another one for getting an ambulance in an emergency - 1800-uuu-yyyy.
6. Entertainment Industry
You can use a toll-free number to decide a winner in a game show or entertainment. A winner is chosen based on the number of votes. You can also understand how well the show is doing based on the number of calls you receive.
7. Automotive Industry
New and used car dealers, service and repair centres, auto financiers all fall under the automotive industry. These sectors use the toll-free number feature to get more leads. For instance, you can use a toll-free number to book an appointment at a car dealer and use another number to get your car serviced.
Conclusion
A toll-free number is a good marketing tool that will help a company reach out to larger audiences and get more customers. It is an excellent way to elevate a company’s brand image, generate innumerable sales leads, and save costs. It is a convenient and valuable asset even for consumers, allowing them to reach you cost-free. So if your business does not have a toll-free number yet, it is high time you get one.
