Toll free numbers are all about customer convenience, right? Maybe, but maybe not. Too many U.S. based companies neglect the fact that there is civilization outside of the U.S., locations from where U.S. toll free numbers cannot be called. When I was in Europe a few weeks ago I ran into this problem, and ended up having to call a co-worker in the U.S. and having him dial the toll free number and then conferencing me in. And today I ran in to the problem again! I am in London, and need to contact a financial institution but can't because they only provide a toll free number. And when I contacted them via a form on their web site, I received a message asking me to call - can you guess? - yep, their toll free number! And I've only run into this on occasion, and am guessing that those who actually live outside of the U.S. have to deal with this regularly. Toll free numbers are all about customer convenience, but they must be optional, and good old fashioned paid call numbers must always be provided, too! Grrrr!
Now any call I make to a business regarding a bill or anything I'm likely to get put on hold for I just Skype. It's a beauty.
1) if their customers are US based they minimize costly (tech support, sales, etc.) international callers that they don't intend or can't easily service anyway
2) for domestic US calls, its a subtle way of winning good PR with the customers
3) for those who do call, its generally unknown that the 800 system feeds the calling number to the owner of the number (I think). This is a great way to get demographic information and verify the origin of the caller without them knowing, even when the person has a blocked number (I think, since one assumes that an 800# owner gets to know the #s of those who cost them money)
Most phone systems can get your basic demographic information without an 800 number. If you have an ISDN-PRI line (which most call centers would), they would get the BTN field, which is the BillTo Number. There are databases you can purchase that gives you all sorts of information based on that number.
.Bill Quimby.
1-800 MARKETER
billquimby@billquimby.net
www.TollFreeNumbers.com
Internet’s Toll Free Search Engine
I wrote a post showing people about why it was stupid to buy blocks of minutes and explaining how the companies like 800pbx that sell monthly “packages” of minutes the way cell phone companies do, are only doing this to sell people more service than they need and should be avoided. I guess it’s to be expected that 800pbx is upset because I pointed out very clearly to a lot of people why what they’re doing is wrong. Anyway when you can’t respond with logic I guess it’s natural to resort to name calling.
They’re not even being honest in their name calling. They think they need to make up stories. They expect you to believe they are a customer yet they list their own company website. Well, nobody said you have to be smart to trash talk a competitor. But I will set the record straight, in that we don’t take credit cards over the phone and we have over 1700 real customer testimonials that carry a heck of a lot more weight than name calling from a gnat of a competitor that thinks people aren’t going to look at the time stamps and realize they’re making up fake comments that have nothing at all to do with the post (and probably should have been moderated and removed!).
This doesn’t have much to do with the original post but I wanted to set the record straight without name calling. And believe me, they’ll get some posts about them at TollFreeNumbers.com in the near future.