Hi,

we are considering getting a 1800 number. I think this is a great trust builder, what about you guys? Please share your experiences if you have a 1800 number and share some of the costs and who you contacted to obtain yours. I think this would be good info for me as well as others.

Thanks

I know on one site we put it on we can't tell if it imporve our trust but we suddenly started getting all sorts of calls about items and phone orders.

From my experience with hundreds of merchants... 800 numbers increase trust and increase calls.

Krayzkicks,

Go through your local phone company. Just tell them you want a toll free number. You can try and get one that spells something relevant to your business.

The cost...I don't recall exactly what it is. Its like a long distance call. X cents per minute.

Your 800 number will increase calls, it is your job to make sure the calls get converted to sales. Knowing your personality... you certainly will convert more.


Aside form increasing call volume... you also build credibility. You look like a more established site with an 800 number posted everywhere.

Thanks for the info....hopefully we can convert them over. Anyone else?

Has anyone had any experience with using an answering service for inbound sales calls? I was looking into a local service and was wanting some feedback on someone's experience.

Do you mean having a service answer your sales calls and forward them to you or actuallyn handle your sales calls? I wouldn't trust an outside service with selling my companies service... I think training and quality control would be prohibitive.

I have never used one nonetheless.... andyone had a positive experience with an answering service?

Hello krazykickz,

Can you give us an idea on cost for a vanity number and who you got it through?

If you don't mind giving the information...

Hi,

No problem. it was fairly cheap through your current phone provider. Give them a call up and tell them you want to add a toll free number to your either business line or home line. They will tell you a monthly fee usually less then 15 to 20 dollars or even less, and and x amount of cents a minute to get conected. They should then ask you what number are you interested in, so make sure you have this before you call. In my case our site has to deal with sneakers so we requested:

1800-5 kicks4u and 1.866.2. LACE.UP and they said the second one was available and would be working on Moday. It is a real easy process and if you have a home business it will just ring on your regular line. Only thing you cant tell the differece if they called your home or the 1800 number because there is no indication (we have a seperate line at our office so it worked for us, but if not it will just ring to your home or whatever you tell them to direct it to. We have a sort of call center at our business so we just ran it to that line. (They ask you what number you would like it to ring to).

Let me know if you need more info.

Thanks for information... I will have to check into it...

We actually have our 800 number forwarding to our cell phone. It took a whole bunch of phone calls to our cell company until we found someone who said "Yes" they could do that. It works great since we can be anywhere and still answer our call.

The 800 number was definately a positive thing for us

We were using a company called UReach for voicemail and call forwarding of an 800 number. However, it wasn't the most cost effective way to do it. So, we contacted our local phone company and found out that we could get a vanity 877 (Still toll free) for $5 per month (plus the cost of the calls). I was surprised at the low cost!

Hi - we love www.is800.com . the cost is very inexpensive - you can at the push of a button change where the number rings to - so we alternate it from our cell to our home to the store - just wherever we are at the time - the change is instantaneous.

There is also an real-time log of all the calls that have come in and their numbers so if we miss a call we just log on to our account and then call them back. I have converted many sales that way.

I think we waste more time on the phone now then we did before but our sales did increase. Most of our biggest customers don't want to use their cc's on line or the 'please overnight' my order calls want a live voice to talk to.

Jally

Jally...

What's your store's URL?

At this time we don't take orders over the phone but are starting to consider it. I have a question for people who have 800 numbers going to their cells.

How exactly do you take orders when you are out? Or do you only answer questions over the phone and tell them the order needs to be placed online? I'm not really sure i understand how you can do business while on a cell phone driving around in your car or standing in the grocery store

Also, if you happen to be at the computer and a customer calls in. How do you enter a new order in the admin panel? Or do you go through the site just like a customer would and type in all the information they tell you over the phone?

My 800 number is through 800voicemailstore.com.
I have a full automated system which forwards calls to my various people's cell phones automatically or takes a message if they are not in. There was NO cost for my number and it's a true 800 number 1-800-920-3723. The cost is $14.00 a month plus the call cost by the minute. It's a good deal and easy to use.

E-

I have our 800 number ringing through to the location of my business. However, as I'm rarely available to answer calls they are dropped into voicemail.

I am making myself available for the entire first week of December and will be plastering the toll free number all over the site. I plan to answer questions and take orders over the phone. I'm also considering "live chat" as well. Hopefully this will all help sales.

As for how we take phone orders? Yeah - unfortunately the only way is to go through it like a customer. It would be great if there was an admin interface for manually inputting the information and once you hit submit it processed it as your store is setup to (processing the CC#, assigning a order #, sending order confirmation emails, etc) This would also allow us to make quick/easy price adjustments and apply discounts before 'processing' the order. My 2 cents....

As for our toll-free service, incase anyone's interested in knowing:

We go through our local carrier (verizon) for a very low fee. I think it's about $5/mo. plus cost of calls. It rings through to our location but best of all it's a vanity number! If we wanted these to forward elsewhere we'll just signup for additional services, call forwarding, etc., though verizon.

However, I don't think I'd be much help if I'm in a checkout line at the supermarket and got a customer call on my mobile phone

I know it a little late. I use http://www.angel.com. For $9.95 you get a professional 800 number with voice mail. I have the calls redirected to my cell.

Never too late Mitch. Thanks for posting this additional toll-free number resource. It's greatly appreciated.

I have a lot of customers use my 877 #. I get my all long distance through Buyersonline.com at 4.5 cents per minute and feel like this feature (having an 800#) pays off.

My 800 number is from 800voicemailstore.com. I have a full "PBX" service with it. I've set up "1" for my general store voice mail. When you press "2" it forwards to my cell phone. If I'm not in, it takes a message. "3" sends to my partner's cell phone. I can set up as many extensions as I like. The cost is $14.00 a month and so many cents per min for calls. They have even cheaper plans than this. I get more orders from my 800 number than my web site. Companies are my main customer and they like calling an 800 number. I picked my 800 number from available numbers. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SETTLE ON A 1-866 or other toll free number unless you want to. 800 numbers are available.

I love it when my cell phone rings and I see it's from my 800 service. The customer has no idea I'm taking their order from dinner or anywhere else!

Hope this helps.

-Scott-

Hey Scott,

I am getting an error PMing you, but those rates are good! Can you tell what you did not sign up? Any hidden fees? and how long you have been with them?

We have 800 and 888 numbers through the local phone company what we did is shopped around and told each one we talked to that we were shopping for the best service at the best price.

Just my 2 cents

I just signed up with SBC and it is 3.9 cents a minute and a $5.00 a month charge.

First two months $5.00 waived No setup fee!

Hey Motivate,

Angel is nice! Thanks!

What is the web link to SBC?

Thanks

pioneer telephone I have hear dgood things about pioneer telephone

Here is the link for SBC, I dont know what state your in so here is the closest page

http://www.sbc.com/search_localization/1,,...query=toll+free

O.K., post number #1 and it's late for this thread. but I believe in sharing information so I'll add my HO.

not a store yet, but a soon to be "defector".

got my 1800 through gotvmail.com

It allowed me to set up -up to 5 different lines....sales, cust. serv. whatever..

many other options. half calls get dropped into voicemail and as soon as the message is left, it emails the message to 3 different emails so I can get the message no matter where I am at.

I now take 1/3 of my orders via the 1800 number.
ROI for my 1800 is better than my PPC

We also use gotvmail.com and it is working well for us also. The rates are good and you can't beat getting your voice mail over e-mail

I put my 800 number on the website today for the first time and received more calls today than i did all last month!!!

Including a $1022.00 sale to a school!!!!

I just signed up for an 800 number through gotvmail.com. I was able to get the number I wanted! My number will be 1-866-FrameArt. I am so excited to read that many of you are getting calls (and sales) by utilizing a toll free number. I am still waiting on my merchant account. I hope to be up and running next week. This is such a great forum!

Holly


FrameableArt.com

How would you all compare gotvmail.com to SBC and angel.com?

GotVmail looks like it offers alot of value and really gives a small operation a more professional image. Whats the feedback on the other 800 suppliers listed in this thread?

I have had an 877 # for years. I recently posted it on the site. My calls and phone orders have gone up possibly 10%. I think it is worth the cost. I've gone through the local phone company but I currently use UCN (a division of buyers online). They manage all of my long distance. I have a rate of 4.5 cents / min. I had 46 outbound and 55 inbound on the 877# (total of 318 minutes) and my bill was $29.43 last month.

By the way, the # for UCN is 1-800-363-6177

When I first started my online business, three years ago, I had an 800 pointed to my cell phone which is also my business line. I'm in CA and set it up through Pacific Bell. It cost about $18 a month for the number and about another $12 for the monthly minutes - not the cheapest way to go these days. About a year ago, I had some surgery and my temporary employee didn't feel comfortable with taking orders over the phone so I took the 800 number reference off my web site. When I came back to work, what I noticed was that the stress in my day went down exponentially while the phone was turned off. So, I turned it back on and decided to do a cost/benefit study. I found that most of the calls involved questions that were answered in my FAQ. The Express Mail customers ordered right then and there. The other people were calling for the added trust, but only 40% went on to order online. The surprising thing was that the people that took up most of my time, meaning the longest sales call, were just calling to talk - 9 times out of 10 they never ordered. These people were taking up 15 to 20 minutes on the phone and I received 4 or 5 of these types a day. In the end, I found that the amount of money I brought in from phone orders did not justify the added stress. I'm a one-woman office and work from home (with two kids in elementary school who get home at 2:30) so taking calls while trying to do fulfillment was not worth it.

In talking to collegues, I think that you have to know your budget, your audience and your product when deciding to have an 800 number. I have a friend who sells vitamins to the elderly - they always call with a few extra questions. An 800 number for her is essential and she has an employee who handles fulfillment just so she can take all the calls personally. She's selling to people who aren't always familiar with the web and have specific needs, but the benefit of developing rapport boosts her highly repetitive business tremendously. My product is not technical, bought once a year and is sold to computer savvy women. I found that beefing up my FAQ, plus adding testimonials and checkout messages were the way to go.

I checked out GotVMail.com and was extremely impressed. I signed up with them this week. I hired one of their professional voiceovers. What a tremendous improvement. I also love that they email you when you receive messages and can hear them right online rather than having to use the telephone to listen to voicemail.
Very easy to setup. I am not one to spend hours trying to learn a new system. I have a busy company and have no time or patience.
It also lets you forward messages to different telephone numbers.
For example, my bookkeeper and one of my sales reps both work from their own home. This allows them to have their own mailbox which forwards directly to them.
I'm waiting for my old toll free number to be transferred over so I am using a temporary toll free one that they assigned. Once thats up, I will post it on the web for customers. So right now, I'm fine tuning it.
This was exactly the type of system I had been looking for. I'm glad someone posted it on this forum.

Janice
www.christian-expressions.com

I use http://800today.com/ and so far I have had no problems with them and they provide a good service with a good billing method, you should check them out.

Ditto the 800today, I use them for my toll free # and it works very well. As for taking orders when I'm out...I either ask for a better time to call back or if the customer could send me an email with their questions, etc and I'd get back to them when I could.

Live chat is also great. I have aol instant messenger, yahoo messenger and msn messenger all set up so I can field customers' questions in real time. It's been a good success. Many customers have commented that they love being able to discuss their order, different products, etc over a messenging program.

A cool feature to add to your site is a little graphic that will flash when you are online. The customer can simply click it and it will bring up a chat window so they can immediately begin talking to you. I have 3 graphics (one for each service) along the top of my 'header' section (can't remember if that's the correct name) so it is always visible.

I am in Australia so I use a combination of two services in the US. I have a VoIP local number with http://www.vonage.com.

I also have an 888 number from http://www.ringcentral.com which I point at the Vonage number, which rings my phone here over the Internet. I didn't go for a pure 800 or vanity number but they are available. The prices are at http://www.ringcentral.com/messaging-services/pricing.asp

Take a look at www.FreedomOperator.com

They rock! and their prices are good for what you get...

They can set you up same day typically..

Izz

I use RingCentral.com as well.

All features are available with each plan, only the number of included minutes changes. So I have Voicemail and Fax with 100 minutes/month for around $15. Has a nice software application that sits in your system tray and alerts you of any calls or faxes. Overall a good deal in my opinion.

Greg

Yes, I use ringcentral.com I paid 119 for the full year. I get 100 minutes a month and I have pay extra if I go over. But it was a good deal for only 119 dollars.