Let Customers Contact You for Free: Free Phone Numbers for Business
Friction-free communication is vital for business. You need to bridge the gap between your business and customers and open all possible channels-for clients to reach you and vice versa.
Despite multiple mediums of communication, many customers still prefer contacting businesses through phone lines. In line with this trend, you need to make sure your contact centre is equipped with state-of-the-art phone lines to support callers round-the-clock.
With technological advancements, virtual phone services have taken the stage. Businesses are choosing between free and local phone numbers to support their contact centre ecosystem. However, both these systems have their own set of pros and cons.
According to Persistence Market Research, the VoIP services market will expand and is expected to reach UD$ 194.5 billion by the year 2024.
With such a great scope for the services, let's try to understand them better.
What is the difference between free phone and local numbers?
Modern contact centres require more efficient calling solutions-preferably aided by the Internet. Long-distance calling is a part of almost all types of phone services, and both free phone and local numbers work on the cloud while offering increased uptime. How, then, do you choose one between them?
The most significant difference between them is that local phone numbers are limited to a locality or specific region, operating with an area-specific code. However, free phone numbers can be used across the globe. Also, as the name suggests, they are free and do not charge the customers; the burden of charges falls on the receiver.
What are the advantages of using free phone numbers?
When callers can contact you for free, they're encouraged to reach out to you without hesitation. This facilitates a seamless flow of communication.
Furthermore, they offer additional benefits like:
Easy to remember
Free phone number patterns are very memorable and stay in your audience's mind for longer. These numbers usually start with your country code like 0800 followed by digits that can be easily recalled. This means your clients can call you even if they forgot to save the number or if their contacts were lost.
This ease of calling ensures that customers are always well-informed about your products and any issues are quelled at the root.
2. Provide better reach
Free phone numbers give a central point-of-contact for your customers to use in any location-they needn't remember different digits for varying places. Consider a scenario wherein one of your customers travels from London to Cardiff. They may not be aware of a different phone number and may try contacting the previous one. Directing the customer to a different number may cause inconvenience and the wait would agitate the customer. However, this issue is eliminated in the case of a free phone number.
Therefore, these numbers are the best choice for businesses with a widespread presence.
3. Support portability
Imagine you have to shift your office to a different location. With a free phone number, not only do you not require extensive and expensive hardware set-ups, you can simply use the same number and port it onto your preferred device. Even if you decide to switch service providers, your contact number can remain the same.
This makes relocation easier for you as well as for your clients. You can ensure uninterrupted services even in the early transition stage with minimal inconvenience to customers.
4. Highly customisable numbers
The choice of a free phone number begins with selecting a suitable service provider. This phone number is highly customisable and can be chosen as a vanity number too. This way you can choose digits that are easily connected with your brand and are remembered by your target audience.
In fact, free phone numbers also offer a professional touch to your firm and help build credibility as an established business. The selection of the number is followed by finalising the pricing plan for your virtual phone system.
On the other hand, the easy accessibility of free phone numbers also leave you vulnerable to spammers or irrelevant calls. However, a cloud phone system can tackle these challenges with its spam filter, blacklist and CLI features, therefore saving your agents' time and efforts.
What are the advantages of local phone numbers?
Local phone numbers help your brand earn trust locally. A familiar code reassures your clients about your services. A few other benefits of these numbers are.
Build a local presence
These phone numbers are beneficial if you are looking to build a local presence. A few of your customers may prefer associating themselves with businesses that have a strong and tangible local presence. Having local phone numbers can help build trust among the residents even if you aren't physically present.
Local phone numbers come with local codes that provide a better image for your business, thereby helping earn more prospects.
2. Benefit from multiple numbers
International businesses can benefit from maintaining multiple numbers based on specific locations. This way you can effectively target the local audience and help them feel at home by delivering a more personalised experience. Moreover, you can easily mark phone numbers from specific locations that bring you more leads and focus on them.
3. Empower your campaigns
When you trigger an email campaign or roll out an advertisement for specific products/services, you can include your local phone number to empower this campaign. One big advantage is that you can allocate separate numbers for different campaigns, thereby making it easy to track individual campaign performances.
Though local phone numbers offer various advantages, one drawback is the fact that these calls are charged to your customers. This may result in your target audience hesitating to contact you even for urgent requirements.
Moreover, local phone numbers do not offer high-end customisation as free phone numbers do. These phone numbers start with the local area code followed by the contact digits-chosen from a list presented by your service provider. However, local phone numbers do provide options to send and receive SMS messages.
How to choose between free phone and local numbers?
Both these kinds of numbers have their share of pros and cons. When you are deciding between them, you should first consider the specific requirements of your business. Decide what image you want your business to showcase. For example, do you want to be portrayed as an international brand with local availability or as a local business that has emerged strong enough to have a global presence? These factors will help you decide the type of phone number that's best for your business.
Wrap up
Virtual phone numbers have become an integral part of contact centres. They help in enabling seamless communication with the customers. Free phone numbers and local phone numbers come with their own set of advantages and drawbacks. However, detailed research and considerations of various business objectives are necessary for selecting the right phone number.
Hopefully, the above-mentioned points will throw light on the different aspects of these numbers and how you can zero down on the best-suited service for your business.