Using Freephone Numbers
Introduction
Almost every business in the whole world communicates with customers over the telephone. The majority of businesses (even internet businesses) are contacted by their customers at some point during a sale or service process.
“easier and cheaper for your customers to contact you”
Providing a Freephone number is an effective way to make it easier and cheaper for your customers to contact you.
What is a Freephone Number?
A Freephone number (e.g. 0800 / 0808 1234567) is a set telephone number that allows you to pay for incoming calls, not the caller. This may not sound too impressive, but critically it means that your customers are not paying to contact you.
What are the Benefits ?
Invitation
Freephone invites people to call you. Although most people are not likely to consider the cost of calling a company as being expensive, there is an atmosphere created by the word free which has much more of an impact than the actual cost saving itself.
Surprisingly, many businesses still operate premium £1 a minute customer support lines. (Often computer companies whose customers may not have enough knowledge to use the product appropriately, also pointing to flaws in their selling and instructions).
These numbers can bring in extra money for the company, but make about as much business sense as directly insulting a customer; once they see how much they are charged for support, most will go elsewhere as soon as possible. I can accept that businesses need to pay for an experienced individual to operate the phone, but it’s still charging for customer service!
Caring for the Customer
A Freephone number not only saves the customer money, but it implies something much more important, that you care about their custom.
When a customer sees a Freephone number, they think “This company cares enough about my custom, and is probably successful enough to pay for my calls to them.”
Not only does this image create a better impression of your company, but it gives you a significant head start over competitors without Freephone numbers. Who would you call first: A company that pays for your call, or a company that makes you pay for the call?
It is widely known that a customer is around 75% more likely to call a freephone number than a non-freephone number, which is a statistic every business should take notice of.
For example:
Company A and Company B have local numbers:
2000 potential customers choose at random which company to call every month; currently half (1000) call A, and half (1000) call B.
If Company A installs a freephone number and Company B does not:
75% of Company B’s 1000 callers will be more likely to call Company A, giving them up to 87.5% of the callers instead of 50%.
I am not aware of one business anywhere in the world that would not like to attract 75% of their competitor’s custom!
Freephone numbers also help increase customer loyalty, instead of trying to solve a problem with a product (e.g. how to set it up) on their own, they can call you freely and get help. A free call lowers the barriers to a customer calling you, helping both to attract customers and keep them.
Image
If you owned a supermarket and charged people to get in the front door, no one would shop there; but when a customer pays to call you, that is effectively what is happening.
A Freephone number says to your potential customers: “You have nothing to lose by calling us.”
Every time a person phones the Freephone number, the cost of the call is added to a bill, which is paid in the same way as a standard bill (normally monthly or quarterly).
It is worth noting that Freephone numbers are not free to the caller when called from a mobile phone. This is the same when you call, say, the AA’s free phone number if you break down in your car.
A Freephone number implies that a company is established and trustworthy. Most customers assume running a Freephone line to much more expensive than it really is; they are likely to believe that businesses using one must be established and large enough to afford the (presumed high) costs of it.
Simplicity and Accessibility
A big advantage of a Freephone number is that it makes your company more accessible. Instead of having to remember a regional dialling code, or find a number for your local office, a customer can have one easy to remember number.
People are widely aware that an 0800 number means a free call. Although it may help in promoting the number, there is no necessity in saying an 0800 number is free, as most people will already know.
This helps when a number is passed on by word of mouth, as even though someone may never have seen your company, they will know you are free to call.
The newer (but cheaper) 0808 numbers are less widely known as free. Although the knowledge of them is rising, there is much more of a need to inform customers that their calls are free than with 0800 numbers.
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