Telecoms for Competitive Advantage

1. The Right Number

The phone number you publicise for your business can immediately give a customer information about your company and the sort of relationship you are expecting.

1.1 You can use a free call number - such as 0800, 0808 or 0500 - to encourage people to pick up the phone and call you.

• These numbers are used successfully by businesses selling to the general public. For example, mortgage brokers, driving schools and local tradesmen.
• They are also used by businesses that sell to other businesses. For example, if you sell commodity products to small, cost-conscious firms - such as a tyre distributor competing with many others for telephoned orders from garages.
• Using a single free call number, you can channel calls by area. So calls from the North are fed to your Manchester office, while calls from the South go to Reading.

1.2 Low call charge numbers - such as 0845 - can be used to encourage callers, without inviting them to stay on the line for ever.

• These numbers are often used for helpdesks.
• They are also widely used for local call rate connections to Internet services.

1.3 There are certain special numbers that can be exploited for marketing purposes.

• 'Golden numbers' that are easy to remember can sometimes be bought from the phone companies, for fees of up to £1,000 each. There is also a 'grey market' in secondhand golden numbers.
• Alphadial numbers, where the letters on the phone keys spell out a name, have not been a success. They are best avoided.

1.4 Premium-rate numbers - such as 090 - are generally used to fund the provision of a service.

• For example, technical support.

1.5 You can use International 0800 to give people a free and simple way of responding to your overseas advertising.

• The fixed costs are low, at about £100 per quarter. You only pay the variable costs - the call charges - if you are successfully generating sales leads.
• Many UK hotels and holiday companies use this approach to win business.