Phones : When you set up your business, you might have been preoccupied with so many aspects of getting the company off the ground – such as finding the right funding, staff and office space – that you paid little attention to what phone number the company would take. But trust me, getting your company’s phone number will help a lot with communication even if you have to do business text messaging or direct phone calls to your clients and partners.
This would be understandable.
Fortunately, it isn’t too late to reassess that number in preparation for potentially changing it, if you see fit. Here are example scenarios where a change of phone number could be readily justified…
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The company has expanded from its “local” roots
We all have to start somewhere in our business journey – and, in your case, where exactly that “somewhere” is could be betrayed by the company number you chose by default.
Right now, your business might be largely or strictly aimed at local customers or clients – in which case, what we might call a “regional” or “geographic” number could more than suffice. After all, customers sometimes specifically seek a local supplier, as Marketing Donut points out.
However, as your company expands its coverage area beyond local borders, taking up a non-geographic number would help your firm to foster a more professional image, says Startups.co.uk.
You want to spur interest from new customers
There’s a broad range of non-geographic numbers from which you can choose, so be careful which of them you do settle on. After all, different numbers can have different implications for how prospective customers perceive your business.
Imagine, for example, that your business is little-established in either history or reputation – and, for this reason, struggles to attract initial interest. In this situation, opting for a free-to-call number, like the 0800 or 0808 “freephone” numbers in the UK, could incentivise curious people to call.
You are eager to attract repeat calls from customers
What if your difficulty is more in keeping customers rather than getting them? If this worrying development has become a trend, you might be inadvertently leaving those customers with sour experiences and so deterring them from getting back to you.
Maintaining a freephone number might not be financially practical for you in the long term. However, there could be many other numbers that would entail the caller footing more of the bill, if not so much that you don’t appear to be treating their needs as a priority.
Your current number isn’t particularly memorable
If your current company digits look like the kind of thing that a computer might cough out when it goes haywire, this is another possible reason why you might be missing those repeat calls.
Fortunately, if your number does seem to slip from people’s minds too readily, there are fixes…
In the UK, the telecoms firm Planet Numbers allows business owners to obtain memorable numbers – including 0800, 03 and “local” numbers. You could even consider an “alphanumeric” number, whereby you can choose a particular word that will directly determine the number. In hitting the letters of that word on a phone’s keypad, the caller can input the number – it’s clever how it works.
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— Will Corry (@slievemore) October 15, 2018