Highly Recommend

[tiedeman]

I would highly recommend that if you are a business to get an 800 number. I picked up one about 1 1/2 months ago and when someone calls it basically gets forwarded to my regular business line. Every month I get a detailed description of what number called me (local or long distance), and how long I talked with them.

I received approx 12 calls last month, which you might think is minor, it is still descent since most of my customers are locals and will use the other business line. Well, after checking up on what phone numbers called, 4 of the numbers that called me ended up turning into customers this year. That is a pretty amazing result to land 25% of the people that called and being able to track the local calls as well.

The cost is a flat rate of $5.00 each month, and then it's 6 cents each minute in state calls, and 9 cents each minute out of state calls. Well, worth the money

[Steve]

Hi tiedeman,

Do you give out your toll free number in certain marketing material and not others to track it?

[tiedeman]

Actually no, I just started to put it on all marketing material as a "toll free" number. I was first marketing with my local number for Clare and 800 number for Midland as you can see in my one sign for the trailer, but my wife told me that perhaps I should market the 800 more since I service more cities that are long distance caller besides the city of Midland. That is why you will notice on my truck, the graphics have only the 800 number on it.

Another reason for using the 800 locally is because I have a 802 number. Almost 90% of the cities numbers are 386. Well, they ran out of 386 numbers about 8 years ago, so I had to settled with a 802 number. Many people in the city of Clare do not realize that the 802 is a local number and they don't have to use an area code. So to simplify the confusion I decided to just use the 800 number for all marketing material. I do however still include my local number of business cards, letterheads, website, email, etc.

[Steve]

Quote[/b] ]Many people in the city of Clare do not realize that the 802 is a local number and they don't have to use an area code.

Ahh very good point. This is something important many new business owners don't realize and it does make a diffence. People would prefer to call a local number they are familiar with or a toll free vs calling an unknown prefix.