The Disadvantages of Using a Freephone Number
What are the Disadvantages?
(i) Potential Cost
Although your business can attract a larger number of calls with a Freephone number, there is a risk that the costs will become very high with large numbers of long or unproductive calls.
If individual customer calls run into tens of minutes, then the cost of each call will be more critical. This repeated over large numbers of calls can become unviable.
“Unproductive calls”
Unproductive calls, where few sales are made, or customer enquiries are not dealt with properly, will mean that the money spent on the Free phone line is wasted.
All calls need to be answered as quick as is reasonably possible, but the responses must always be effective and politely; there is no point paying for your customers calls if you do not provide a good service in those calls.
If however, you can keep calls fairly short, and use the extra enquiries to bring in and look after more sales, then the increase in costs will be more than balanced by the increase in custom.
If as part of your business process, you take the telephone number of a potential/existing customer, then in some types of business it may be worth calling them back. It is cheaper to call a customer back than to pay for their call on Freephone. This should only be used for businesses where a sale involves a long call or several calls, otherwise customers may be put off by the need to give details.
If your business sells products with a particularly low profit margin, then a plan should always be made to work out whe ther the increase in costs will generate enough sales.
(ii) Marketing and Sales Calls
By paying for the incoming calls, your business will appear more attractive for customers to contact. However, it will also appear more attractive to people who wish to sell you products and services.
There is certainly nothing new to receiving sales calls, but the installation of a Freephone number will increase those calls. Not only that, but most of the companies expect you to be happy to pay for their call!
The best solution to this problem is to inform these callers briefly of your process for marketing enquiries (e.g. Tell them to phone the correct non-freephone number, or send an email), and get them off of the phone as quickly as possible without being rude.
Eventually, many of the companies will learn not to phone your freephone line, although it can take a while for this to sink in.
(iii) Less Local
If your business is established as a local business, the use of a freephone number creates the image of a larger firm, and may take away some of the regional connection.
This is only a problem for a minority of businesses, who specialise in local products or services, or are known traditionally as being locally based and run.
What sort of Businesses Will Benefit From a Freephone Number?
Businesses of all types will benefit from a freephone number, particularly businesses that make sales through incoming customer calls.
Even if your business does not make large numbers of sales over the phone, the use of a freephone number will help to retain your existing customers, and increase their trust in your business.
“Businesses of all types will benefit
from a freephone number”
By using a freephone number as an invitation to call, it is possible to greatly increase sales in all types of businesses.
Businesses with a high profit margin will find that the costs of a freephone line are normally recovered very quickly.
Alternatives
If you still feel a freephone number will not work for your business, there are other options worth considering.
0845
One of the most common non-geographical-numbers is an 0845 number. Instead of being free for the customer, this limits the customers call cost to a local rate (instead of a national rate), saving them some, but not all of the call cost. They are redirected in the same way as 0800 calls, but are cheaper to run as the cus tomer pays some of the costs.
An 0845 number is not as effective as an 0800 number, however, it is cheaper, and is still much more effective than a standard regional number, and maintains the image of a trustworthy national company. One advantage of 0845 numbers is that they can be directly accessed internationally, whereas 0800 numbers cannot.
0870
An 0870 number costs the same as the normal national rate to the customer. This will bring in fewer customers than Freephone or 0845 numbers, but still gives your business a national presence.
0870 number’s are likely to appeal to more serious customers, meaning that although there will be fewer enquiries, the call to sale ratio (conversion rate) will probably be higher.
Some 0870 providers will actually pay you a (rebate) percentage of the customers call charges (usually if the number of minutes used is over a certain threshold). Monthly rental charges usually vary from £10 to £50, and the cost or rebate varies from nothing to 3/4p a minute depending on the provider and number of minutes used.
Like 0845 numbers, 0870 numbers can be directly accessed internationally, so customers from outside the UK can call you without any delays or redirection costs.
Article Index
- Using Freephone Numbers
- Disadvantages
- How to Get a Freephone Number
- Related Articles
