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Irrespective of what market your corporation is in, each valid enterprise wishes a manner for his or her customers to contact them (Toll free number). While you start off small, you can frequently escape with the use of your local office line. However as you enlarge, upload departments, and develop your client base, then the front table phone won’t be sufficient to address your needs.
This is when it makes sense to get a toll free number and begin taking phone calls from the big boys of the industry.
The toll free number is a staple of professionalism that allows your customers to call you free of charge. Despite their name, the phone calls are not technically ‘free,’ as the business that owns the number must pay for both incoming and outgoing activity.
The idea behind a toll free number is that anyone calling the business has, in all likelihood, either already spent money with them, or is seeking information to possibly place a new order. Not charging for the phone call is a way of saying, ‘thanks for your business.’
Toll free number come in five different formats – 1-800, 1-888, 1-877, 1-866, and the newest, 1-855. These formats are no different from each other, other than by appearance, and neither one costs any more than the others to acquire or operate. One company draws an appropriate comparison between phone number formats and website domain names. 800 is essentially .com, 888 is .net and 866 and 877 are like .info, .biz or country codes,’ they explain. ‘They all technically work the same.”
This is a great way of thinking about toll free numbers as you decide which one will fit the needs of your business. Some incredibly successful companies have created entire brand names around a 1-800 phone number, such as 1-800-FLOWERS, and 1-800-CONTACTS. Ultimately, you must decide how central your new toll free number will be to your business, in what capacities it will serve your customers, and how important it will be to your branding efforts.
According to the FCC, hoarding (also known as ‘warehousing’), is an illegal activity in which a business or service provider will snatch up large blocks of toll free number with the intention of reselling them at a premium in the future. The FCC regulates this activity by checking to make sure there are actual subscribers for whom the toll free number are being reserved. In fact, the FCC even reports that it is illegal for any subscriber to sell their toll free number for a fee. This law is intended to regulate the marketplace and ensure that all of the best vanity numbers do not become incredibly expensive to reserve.