0800 Numbers: Helping to Beat the new year’s Business Blues

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

Many businesses are now looking at various cost effective ways that they can optimise the number of questions they receive and in turn, generate greater through put.

A very well-liked way of companies achieving this objective is to provide their customers a completely free telephone call.

0800 numbers are free to contact from a landline and lots of businesses that use them experience a dramatic rise in the quantity of enquiries they receive. In fact, studies by the Institute of Direct Marketing has surmised that a company that provides an 0800 number can increase their amount of calls by in the area of 185%.

Just one benefit that lots of United Kingdom businesses are experiencing by applying 0800 numbers to their business.

Here are Seven more:

1. 0800 numbers are non-geographic – which means they are not area specific like regular landline numbers. Thus, businesses can attract a greater amount of companies outside of their physical area as they cant be restricted by their area.

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

3. The Henley Research Centre concluded that 68% of the public get the impression that businesses which provide 0800 numbers care more about their potential customers.

4. 0800 numbers, similar to all non-geographic telephone numbers, help businesses to immediately tidy up their telephone systems with online call handling features – such as welcome messages and call divert.

 5. Online call statistics systems allow company owners/managers/marketers to evaluate the region of callers to their 0800 number, number of missed calls and busy periods in order to help with marketing/customer services and planning staff numbers more effectively.

 6. Companies can manage where they want to receive their incoming enquiries (e.g. not in normal working hours and in an emergency). Their 0800 number can be rerouted 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 online call queuing systems. This enables companies to receive more enquiries and not loose potential business.

So it’s evident that simply by providing a freephone telephone number, companies can increase the amount of calls they receive, sort out their callers more effectively, organise staff effectively and stand out from their competitors – all areas that are essential in business and vital for businesses to grow in these times of financial uncertainty.

For business owners, a simple change of telephone number could be the most important resolution that they make in 2009.