Business Numbers
Business Numbers are Non-Geographic telephone numbers. A number of different Business Numbers are available including Freephone (UK and International), National Rate and Local Rate. Business Numbers provide a number of benefits. Freephone and Local Rate numbers increase the likelihood of generating new business through reduced call rates. National Rate numbers provide customers with the opportunity to generate revenue from calls received. All Business Numbers can offer smaller businesses the opportunity to give the impression of a larger, potentially more professional organisation.Excalibur can port most numbers from other service providers to offer a better service and call rates. Here are your options.
Free Phone Numbers (0800 - 0808)
Free phone numbers are a great way of saying to the customer that you care. Each call that the customer makes into the call centre where the number is mapped to is paid for by you. A free phone number can be mapped onto 1 DDI number which in turn can be routed around a call centre or office by using a hunt group.National Rate Numbers (0870 - 0871)
National rate numbers are numbers where the caller always pays the national call rate for that particular time of day. In this case the customer who owns the national rate number pays nothing. They can however earn a rebate for over 1000 minutes worth of calls made per month. We can rebate the customer per minute for every call received at an agreed rate.Local Rate Numbers (0845)
Local call rate numbers are where the calling party pay for the call to their local exchange and the receiving party pays from the exchange to the terminating number site. This is a good solution for companies who want to offer their customers some discount on calls to their call centre but do not want to pay for all of the call.Premium Rate Numbers (09xx - 09xx)
Premium Rate numbers are a good way for a company to make money when a calling party dials their numbers for a range of different services which include:- Competition lines
- Advertising campaigns
- Chat lines
- Technical support lines
- Adult chat lines
- Conference calling
- Information
- Ticket information
International Freephone Numbers
International Freephone numbers enable a company to offer its overseas customers the ability to call their UK based customer service centres free of charge. A call to the freephone number will originate in the country that the number is provided for and terminate in the UK.
Vodafone Number Response Services
Vodafone Number Response Services allow customers to manage their Business Numbers. Services provided include allowing the intelligent routing of calls to a Business Number based on time of day, date or geographical area that a incoming call originates from.
Customer Benefits
There are numerous benefits for the customers which are listed below:
- Gives the impression of being a large national company
- The numbers are not subject to change unlike normal STD codes which can change every 2 years. An example of this was a couple of years ago when London changed its dialling codes from 0171 to 0207. A company could have had to change its entire stationary, shop fronts, marketing literature, vehicle artwork etc. With a Business number none of this would have had to be changed
- The customer can make money by taking out a revenue share on certain numbers
- Offers a higher level of customer care by offering free or local rate calls into the call centre
- The numbers are generally easier to remember than normal telephone numbers. For example the customers normal office telephone number could be 01573 583981 and If they then pointed a business number to that of 0845 454545, that is much more easily remembered.
