Are You Losing Customers to Long Distance?

November 4, 2007

You’d be surprised how many people do not have the capability to make a long distance phone call from their home phones.  On top of the number of people who just can’t make long distance calls from their telephones, there is a large percentage of people who would prefer to deal with businesses that have local telephone numbers, or a toll free number.  How many customers might you be losing because they don’t want to dial a long distance number to reach your small business line?Having a toll free phone number is a very effective customer service tool, and is an effective, and more-affordable than you would think- marketing strategy that works for most small businesses.  While many long-distance phone carriers can provide you with a toll free phone number, it can sometimes get complicated to sign up for their packages and you sometimes need to make appointments with the company to come in and install equipment to make it all work.  This type of toll free set up allows customers to call your office without paying long distance charges, but what about small businesses that work from home, or consultants who are always on the road and rarely at a desk to take calls?You can still avoid losing customers due to a long distance phone number simply by setting yourself up with a toll free number that is portable, and requires no hardware installation.  Basically, you have incoming calls to your assigned toll free number forwarded to any phone number you choose.  That means you can have people calling your toll free number and answer it from your home line, your cell phone, or a business line.  You can change where the incoming calls are forwarded through an online account manager as frequently as you need to.Marketing your business with a toll free number opens up the doors to business expansion.  Instead of having to keep yourself in a local market, a toll free number lets you market your services nationally.

It’s more affordable than you think, too.  With Get800today.com a toll free number is a prepaid service, so you can designate how much money you want to set aside to pay for your incoming toll free calls.  Each call is billed based on the number of minutes you talk; a few cents a minute are deducted from your total deposit/account balance.  You are in complete control and it’s one of the few business expenses that are totally scalable based on the amount of business you are receiving.  If business is slow, you aren’t paying for unnecessary expenses in a toll free number.  You pay more only as you get more phone calls and more incoming business.

Posted in Toll Free Basics