In today’s seemingly online-oriented world, it can be easy to presume that your business’s choice of phone number would have a minimal, if any, noticeable impact on its day to day operations. After all, isn’t everyone just emailing or even contacting your company via social media these days?
Alas, that isn’t quite the case. Here are just a few ways in which your business phone number does still make a difference every day, even in 2016.
Opening up your business to non-Internet users
It’s easy to forget that even in the mid-2010s, not everyone still uses the Internet or even a computer on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, according to the Office for National Statistics’ most recent statistics, 32% of adults aged 65 and over, and one in 10 adults overall, have never used a computer.
That means that many people may still be finding out about your business through the phone book or (the even more old-fashioned) word of mouth. Depending on your firm’s target demographic, a phone number could make a big difference to how many people get in touch with you each day.
Drawing more customers from a specific geographic area
Your prospective customers don’t just see your phone number as a random jumble of numbers – they also instinctively judge your business’s priorities and focus on the basis of those digits.
If for example, you use a phone number that is tied to a particular geographical area, such as a 0161 Manchester number or a 0203 Central London one, customers will generally presume that your offices must be based in that area, or that you at least serve that locality.
Such an obviously geographic number is great if you want to appeal to customers based in that particular area, especially given the discovery by one recent YouGov survey that people trust local business more than business as a whole.
Even if your firm isn’t based in the area from which it would like to attract more customers – for example, if you are in Manchester but would like to draw more enquiries from Leeds – all that you have to do is invest in a suitable geographic number from a virtual numbers specialist like Planet Numbers.
That would mean, in the aforementioned example, acquiring a 0113 number, which would be directed through to your Manchester office without the enquirer even knowing. It’s certainly less expensive than investing in a whole new office.
Establishing trust in your business
Let’s continue with the theme of trust, because it’s an extremely important one in business. When people are seeking a provider of certain products or services through Google, they will want to be quickly assured of the company that they choose being a trustworthy one.
With even many disreputable ‘one-man bands’ having convincing-looking websites these days, customers will often check whether a given business clearly displays a phone number on its site as an indication of its trustworthiness.
If there’s no phone number on your site at all or merely a 07 mobile number, the visitor may presume that your business is a small one or even a scammer. By comparison, a phone number of the kind commonly used by the most established businesses, such as a 01, 02 or free 0800 number, indicates that your firm has its own premises and is not merely ‘here today, gone tomorrow’.
Never underestimate the very real difference that your choice of phone number can make to your business’s fortunes, both in the long term and on a day-to-day basis.
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