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Make A Toll-free Phone Service Work For Your Small Business

Guest post by: Jason Kay

Article Overview: In business, communication is key. Clients will need to contact your company for a number of different reasons from placing an order to making a complaint. The cost of calling a company can be quite high and when you consider that you may be put on hold for a while, the costs really can mount up. The solution to the problem is to set up a toll-free phone service for your business which allows callers to contact your business without having to pay for the call themselves.

Make A Toll-free Phone Service Work For Your Small Business

In business, communication is key. Clients will need to contact your company for a number of different reasons from placing an order to making a complaint. The cost of calling a company can be quite high and when you consider that you may be put on hold for a while, the costs really can mount up. The solution to the problem is to set up a toll-free phone service for your business which allows callers to contact your business without having to pay for the call themselves. This is great for a customer service based business as it encourages clients to call up without having to fork out for large phone bills. This can be a very powerful sales and marketing tool which can put you ahead of your competitors in the field. If your business provides an informational service for the public then a free-phone number is the sort of customer service that many customers come to expect as the norm. People will remember if a company has a toll-free phone number and will more than likely use this company over one that does charge.

Research has shown that customers who search through the listings to find a company only to find that they are faced with a number of similar businesses, are much more likely to choose a business with a toll-free number than one that uses a long-distance number. A company with a toll-free number also instills a certain amount of confidence in a consumer as they will automatically assume that a company that doesn't need to charge for customers to make contact is more financially stable and professional than others in the field.

People love getting things for free so advertising a free-phone number is a great way of getting people interested and getting a head start on your competitors. Toll-free numbers don't only benefit customers but staff can also reap the benefits. If you have to travel a lot for your job then a toll-free number is a useful internal communications tool for employers who need to touch base when out of the office. Inbound toll-free service is often less expensive than calling card rates so is a great way of keeping costs down and still being able to keep in touch.

You should make it clear in your advertising or promotional campaign that the number provided is toll-free as many members of the public will not recognize the number format. Make this the forefront of your campaign and you will be sure to generate more interest.

Anyone can sign up for a toll-free service, even residential customers but it is of most use for businesses that deal with lots of customers on a daily basis. In most cases, toll-free rates are slightly higher than regular long-distance rates and with some accounts you will need to pay a monthly access fee. The rate plans are usually based on the amount of customer calls that are coming in and where the calls are coming from.

You don't need any special equipment to get started with a toll-free service; you can just use your existing phone lines. The calls will come through just like normal but in the case of businesses that receive very high levels of inbound calls, you would usually need a dedicated line that receives only toll-free calls. You will need to pay an installation fee for this separate line but you will benefit from the lower per-minute rates.

If you are looking for a way to get an edge over your competition then why not use a toll-free number. It is a very simple idea but extremely effective so why not give it a go today.

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Article Tags: 800 number, small business, tollfree phone service



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