0800 Numbers: Helping to Beat January’s Business slow up

January can be a slow month for the UK business community and the current economic downturn is likely to amplify this to a greater degree.

A lot of organisations are now looking at various cost effective means that they can focus the number of questions they receive and in turn, generate more sales.

A highly well-liked way of businesses achieving this goal is to offer their customers a totally free telephone call.

0800 numbers are free to call from a normal landline and lots of businesses that use them experience a vast rise in the quantity of calls they get. In fact, studies by the Institute of Direct Marketing has surmised that a company that provides an 0800 number can boost their number of calls by up to 185%.

Just one benefit that lots of United Kingdom businesses are gaining by using 0800 numbers.

Below are 7 more:

1. 0800 numbers are non-geographic – meaning they are not location anchored like regular landline numbers. Thus, companies can draw in more business outside of their physical area as they cant be judged on their area.

2. Provided with the choice, 63% of people say that they would always ring a freephone number first (Teleculture 2000).

3. The Henley Research Centre surmised that 68% of people feel that organisations which provide 0800 numbers care more about their potential customers.

4. 0800 numbers, similar to all non-geographic telephone numbers, help organisations to immediately smarten up their telephone systems with online call handling features – for example greeting messages and call divert.

 5. Online call statistics systems enable business owners/managers/marketers to see the region of enquirers to their 0800 number, amount of missed calls and busy periods in order to help with marketing/customer relations and planning staff numbers more efficiently.

 6. Companies can manage where they need to get their incoming enquiries (e.g. not in normal working hours and in an emergency). Their 0800 number can be redirected to any United Kingdom landline or mobile with Call divert features

7. All enquiries to 0800 numbers can be put in a queue when used with internet call queuing systems. This enables businesses to answer a greater number of calls and not miss out on prospective business.

So it’s evident that simply by using a freephone telephone number, businesses can maximise the number of calls they get, deal with their callers more effectively, organise staffing efficiently and stand out from their competitors – all areas that are essential in business and vital for organisations to grow in these times of economic uncertainty.

The most important resolution a business owner could make in this new year is to simply change there telephone number.