Insights

Q&A with Signal One

Sep 23, 2016

Signal One has managed Toll-Free Numbers since 1999. With their focus on large companies who purchase high quantities of Toll-Free Numbers, Signal One is able to leverage bulk amounts of numbers to help businesses reduce their costs. Jim King, Manager, shares with us how his company optimizes Toll-Free Numbers to help businesses track advertising campaigns, making marketing more efficient and more effective.

Who is your main customer, and how are you equipped to serve them best?

We work mainly with large companies who need lots of Toll-Free Numbers. We work hard to make sure that the Toll-Free Numbers provided are clean and ready to be used by a new owner. A lot of companies, when they want to get into a new market, want to be targeted and specific with their advertising dollars. So the last thing they need is a bunch of bad numbers or cross traffic that confuses what they’re trying to do. We try to deliver a clean call that helps the marketing companies be more efficient and accomplish their goals.

How do you prepare Toll-Free Numbers for reuse?

When a number is terminated and no longer working for a client, but they want to reuse the number in a different capacity, we’ll set the Toll-Free Number to play messages that aren’t competitive with the prior use. Then we monitor the residual traffic until it’s clean and appropriate for them to re-advertise or run a new program on it. We monitor their numbers and let them know which ones are ready to be turned back on again.

What is it about Signal One that helps you provide Toll-Free Numbers affordably?

We were able to incorporate the use of automation early on in our company’s life, and we’ve become more efficient. Technology has changed and we have incorporated those changes into our processes. Back in 1999, I was on a tiny modem and had to write macros just to get programs to work. Now we use automated programs to process number changes and requests.

We have the ability to handle large amounts of numbers for businesses, process changes in orders, and bring numbers up and down quickly when needed. We’re always trying to reduce our times — I don’t know if we’re the quickest, but we’re pretty fast.

Why do you think Toll-Free is an important asset for large businesses?

Toll-Free is valuable because voice lends itself more to 2-way conversation than other channels. I think voice is reassuring to people when they call a company, because they can speak with a person who can provide them with that extra personal service. You learn so much more about a person on a call than you could in a thousand emails, such as, what their attitude was like, if were they angry, or if they upset or scared. From that you can salvage some kind of business relationship, improve your response, or change the track of where it the conversation is going. It lets you factor in a more sensitive, emotional response.

What’s the difference between using a local number versus a Toll-Free Number?

You’ve got more control with a Toll-Free Number. Toll-Free allows you to refuse abusive traffic because you’re the one paying for the call. That ability to give your company security over Toll-Free is a big positive. You can also set it up so that only the calls you want come in for certain campaigns. Businesses want the cleanest number for each scenario so they can verify how successful it was. That’s one of our clients’ main ways of tracking and validating the different advertising they’re doing. Using Toll-Free Numbers helps verify how and where the sale began.

Where do you see Toll-Free going in the future?

With voice and mobile exploding the way they are, Toll-Free is still going to have a place for business in the future. With mobile, people are still going to buy and shop over the phone. I think they feel more comfortable making a sale, putting in a complaint, or just actually speaking with a person. And with texting now attached to Toll-Free, that’s giving even more value. It’s a new way for a business to promote its number by saying, “You can text or call,” and that gives even more options that will keep Toll-Free moving forward.

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