Insights

Q&A with 800response

Aug 11, 2016

We all know a handful of Toll-Free vanity numbers right off the top of our heads, like 1-800-GOT-JUNK and 1-800-FLOWERS. Unforgettable phone numbers like these examples help businesses achieve their brand and sales goals. Vanity Toll-Free Numbers – especially “pure,” entirely word-based 800 numbers –are powerful marketing tools, and therefore difficult to obtain.

A unique solution for this scarce resource is sharing a vanity Toll-Free Number. For example a Ford auto dealer here in the Burlington VT – Plattsburgh NY DMA can advertise 800-NEW-FORD while another dealer in Los Angeles can also advertise the same Toll-Free Number in their market. Consumers are directed to the appropriate business, based on the caller’s physical location

For more than 26 years, 800response, helps companies leverage vanity 800 Toll-Free Numbers. And they also provide advanced geo-based call routing, tracking, recording and speech analytics services. We spoke with Laura Noonan, Senior VP of Sales & Marketing at 800response to learn how their platforms are enabling businesses to better reach, understand and expand their customer base.

What makes a vanity Toll-Free Number valuable?

Thanks to their memorability, they generate 25-50% more inbound leads. People today are busy, and they don’t have the capacity to really commit a lot of digits to memory. If advertisers use a vanity number that relates to the desired call to action, they will get a lot more out of their ads, just with a small investment in a Toll-Free Number. 1-800-FLOWERS is a great example of that. They’ve built an enormous business simply by leveraging their phone number as the business’ name.

What demand are you seeing for Toll-Free Numbers today?

We’re seeing stronger and stronger demand for vanity numbers today, because the advertising landscape has become a lot more complicated and competitive. Despite some of the news we read and hear, broadcast radio, television and outdoor media channels are holding their own against digital media channels. This means that it’s critical for businesses to have a balanced blend of both digital and traditional channels to reach their customers at the many different touch points they’re engaged with throughout the day.

Vanity Toll-Free Numbers are proven to work best – as far as generating inbound phone calls to advertisers – when they’re used in traditional channels like television, radio, and out-of-home. At the end of the day, a memorable number will stick and build a cohesive brand when used across all advertising channels, within a business’ advertising territory – online or offline.

Why is call tracking an important capability for businesses to have today?

In the simplest of terms, call tracking measures the performance of a company’s advertising and marketing strategy. At a top-level, the data on inbound calls will reveal response rates, calculate cost-per-lead, and measure the ROI of advertising campaigns. Going deeper, real-time call tracking tells businesses where their calls are coming from, and who their callers are.

On our platform, as soon as a call is completed, all of the data for that call is posted in our online tracking dashboard. Our customers are able to monitor the peaks and valleys of call traffic at a macro level, with access to the addresses and demographics of their callers. We also offer speech analytics services to provide an automated breakdown of what’s being said on each call.

Being able to analyze the content of Toll-Free calls allows our customers to learn about what their callers are saying, and how their agents or employees are responding. They can get direct input about how competitive they are according to their customers, and understand if their agents are knowledgeable about their products and services, and how well they are handling customers’ needs and the customer experience.

To learn more about 800response visit their website or call 1.800.NEW.SALE.

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