An article I wrote in Response magazine recently examined the marked advantages of 800 toll free numbers over other prefixes that were introduced to the marketplace years later. In response to the article, entitled “The Right Numbers Add Up to Increased Profitability”, a senior media director contacted me expressing his surprise, “I would have thought the market is knowledgeable enough to recognize 888, etc. by now.”
Yet the evidence that consumers are pre-conditioned to dial the 800 prefix first continues to pile up. Businesses using non-800 prefix toll free numbers such as 888 and 877 are missing hundreds if not thousands of leads due to misdials. Here’s a case in point:
I went on the agency’s website, found their client, an animal humane society, was using an 888 prefix number on their website for animal poison control. Next, I phoned the 800 version of the same number where I encountered an exasperated small business owner who explained that the misdials were literally ruining her life. Hundreds of misdials occurred every year from panicked pet owners who had called her business by mistake, even though the number is right in front of those dialing in black and white. Worse, the business owner has the calls roll over to her home number and is frequently woken in the night by the distressed, creating even more stress!
This is just one illustration of why it is imperative that any direct marketer using a toll free number use an 800 number, particularly in broadcast advertising. But, as our media director observed, “The problem I found is that there are no 800#’s with good repeaters left.” While it’s true that virtually all 800 numbers are spoken for, there are services such as Dial 800’s RapidRecall that make numbers available on a lease basis. When combined with powerful call tracking, call routing and call recording software the incremental cost of having access to the right toll free number can have an exponential impact on the bottom line of a campaign. Given how hard it is to generate a lead and then close a sale, capturing hundreds if not thousands of additional consumer inquiries keen on your offer is absolutely critical.
