How To Get a Free 0800 Number for Your Business
Many businesses now offer their customers an 0800 telephone number which is completely free of charge for them to contact you unless they call from a mobile phone.
They're freephone numbers, and unlike a 0870 or 0845 numbers they won't cost your customer anything if they call from a landline. Your company gets charged for each call depending on the contract terms from your supplier.
What are 0800 Numbers?
Broadly it's exactly how you imagine in that there are no charges for customers calling an 0800 number from a landline. Mobile phone companies do charge a fee and let customers know before accepting the call.
There are many service providers offering businesses a cheap and reliable way of getting an 0800 number for their business, and research shows more people are likely to call the 0800 number versus a 0845 or 0870 telephone numbers. It's a universally known free phone number that most countries in the world use.
How to use 0800 Numbers Effectively
Most companies use it for customer services or sales enquiries, but many purchase different numbers to monitor advertising and marketing campaigns. Using targeted numbers when sending direct mail to several different segments helps track the return on investment of each programme.
Like all telephone numbers, these can also be redirected to other existing telephone numbers in your organisation if you simply want a customer facing number to be 0800 rather than your regional or local number.
Benefits and Advantages of Using an 0800 Number
Almost all large businesses use a freephone number for new customer sales. Usually technical or existing customer calls revert to a local or premium rate service. But they use the free number for many reasons including:
- As the number is free to use, it increases the likelihood of someone calling you.
- More people prefer conducting business with those companies that provide this free service.
- Having this number implies you're a national company rather than a small local sole trader.
- Use different numbers on each marketing campaign to test your Return on Investment (ROI).
- You can divert to another landline or mobile phone number so your customers won't know if you're a large call centre or a one-man-band.
- If you move office you keep the same number so it's easy for your customers and you save money on reprinting stationery.
How do You Purchase 0800 Numbers?
Many companies offer instant approvals online, so activation of a new number is fast. In fact, all the phone numbers available originate from the dominant telephone companies like BT or Cable and Wireless, and these providers are just resellers of these services.
How Much Will it Cost?
The actual cost of owning a freephone 0800 number is much less than you think. Here are some example tariffs taken from companies offering these services.
Example: 1
- Set up cost £4.95
- calls cost 2p per minute
In this example there are no monthly line rental charges at all, and you just pay for the volume of calls into your business. This type of "pay as you go" charging is great for small businesses who want the convenience and marketing advantages of 0800 numbers.
Example: 2
- Set up cost £5
- Monthly line rental of £9.95
- This package includes 555 minutes of calls to the number.
This type of contract is perfect for a medium-sized business and operates like a monthly mobile phone contract. You can still undertake the same type of redirection with these numbers.
What Type of 0800 Number Should You Have?
The examples above are for standard almost random numbers that are not memorable. Most companies offer premium packages that have sequential or groups of numbers together which are best suited for television advertising where you want people to be able to remember the number easily.
Usually, premium numbers have the same low monthly rentals but have a high initial purchase cost outlay. Premium numbers are those already reserved by the seller in advance, but it could be worth investing if you require a number that's easy to remember.