Insights

Top 3 Takeaways from our Toll-Free User Summit

Jan 06, 2017

At this year’s second annual Toll-Free User Summit in Fort Lauderdale, FL, we focused on ways that our industry can collaborate and evolve.  We dove deep into Toll-Free’s impact on the customer experience, the growing variety of Toll-Free applications, and potential market areas for development. And most importantly, we connected with Responsible Organizations (Resp Orgs), Service Control Point Owner/Operators (SCP O/Os), and Service Registrars, and enterprises to learn more about the real-world value of Toll-Free in real-time.

To help you review the ideas and topics covered at this year’s Summit, we’ve posted copies and video of the presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions here.

Here are the top 3 lessons learned:

1. Toll-Free Numbers are valuable because they are a trusted primary connection between customers and enterprises.  

Last January, we challenged ourselves to articulate the new value proposition of Toll-Free, and after a year of research and conversation, we recognize that Toll-Free Numbers are most durable because they’re trusted and trackable. When Toll-Free Numbers allow marketers to demonstrate the ROI of their multichannel campaigns, they enable companies to improve and streamline customer service, product quality, and advertising efficiency. They can merge online and offline customer channels, can be clicked to call or text, capture vast amount of data and audio that leads to holistic views of campaigns and customers, and are being dynamically integrated into advanced tracking tools like Google AdWords and Adobe Analytics. They’re vital to business communications because they provide a way to connect with and analyze customers on their journey. And that’s how we are going to position Toll-Free as we move into the future of our industry.

2. We need to coach enterprises on the tools and applications that can help them leverage Toll-Free Numbers.

Every day, new technologies are being developed and improved, and it’s our job to make sure that Toll-Free users know how to get the most bang for their buck when they choose Toll-Free Numbers. The mobile economy is booming, and the opportunity for enterprises to capitalize on customer analytics is there for the taking. With the right combination of numbers, applications, and software, businesses can leverage Toll-Free Numbers in increasingly advanced ways, from mobile advertisement tracking to chat automation to CRM integration. But all the executives who want to use Toll-Free in a way that drives value aren’t going to be able to get to that point of maturity alone. Our role might be to provide more developer resources like APIs or SDKs to promote more innovation. Or we can take the chance to highlight the best technology partners available to enterprises that are already pushing the boundaries of Toll-Free. Toll-Free has the ability to assist enterprises wherever they need to go with their customer service and analytics needs.

Check out the Toll-Free University, a set of campaign materials that you can download and share as you educate your customers about the value of Toll-Free.

3. Unlearn to evolve.

Technology is changing so rapidly; the names of the game are agility and flexibility. We heard from futurist and author Jack Uldrich about the keys to successful adaptation: being able to spot impending changes before they come, being able to accept them, and preparing for their arrival. And part of this evolution process is the capability to unlearn old ways of thinking. Outdated assumptions about our industries might hinder us from keeping our sights open for the next great idea that will move us forward. So we’re taking extra care to check each idea that we think might be true about our industry, so that when the next wave of evolution comes, we’ll be ready to accept it with open arms and a ready stance.

Our mission for the Toll-Free industry this year is to capitalize on what we’ve learned about our industry’s potential, and enable our customers to dig deep into the high-value opportunities at hand. The future of Toll-Free is in our hands, and we look forward to creating it with you.