Get a toll free number easily

In the midst of starting a new e-business, we needed to get a toll free telephone number. It’s not hard to get one, just call up whoever your telephony provider is and you can easily get a ‘877’ telephone number in just a few minutes.

But we didn’t want an ‘877’ number, we wanted an 800 number and worse we wanted a specific 800 number.

Why bother you ask? This is where the men get separated from the boys in terms of marketing. When you’re e-marketing something, customers really only have your website to make a decision from and it’s the little things that matter. No phone number, no address for the business, no names of the management, mis-spelled words on the website are all signs I may be dealing with a bad company. It’s amazing the number of websites I see that haven’t bothered to updated the copyright date on the bottom of their pages and no I’m not going to buy anything from them either.

Your telephone company will tell you that there are no 1-800 numbers available and you may simply settle on the remaining 877 toll free numbers. But 877 says to me that you’re a new company, just starting, we wanted to look a bit more established and professional. It's the little things that matter. So what to do?

Toll free numbers I figured are similar to .com domain names, plenty of cybersquatting. I happened upon the website www.tollfreenumbers.com which purported to say they could help us get not only a 1-800 number but also the specific 1-800 we were looking for, all at a very reasonable price and almost immediately as well.

I was dubious. The website was a messy bunch of text with all kinds of testimonials (real or made up, I had no clue). I even looked at the source html and it was generated by WordPress, a blogging software package (not a good sign). I couldn’t find the company using the Better Business Bureau web site. All kinda of scary. But the text was written in a honest folksy way and having little to lose, I filled out the web form, (they asked me for a shipping address, huh?), I continued despite all this and put in my credit card number and waited. I figured I would get the classic call “yes, we can help you but we need more money/time or no we can’t get you that number, but have another one” or maybe I'd hear nothing and away with my money they would go.

I promptly got an email confirming my order (so far so good). Now what? Less than an hour later, I got an email confirming that had my specific 1-800 number and had activated it (temporarily forwarding to my office line) and enclosing directions on how to “port” the number to the carrier of my choice. I called the number and sure enough, it worked. I was amazed and happy.

Bill Quimby is the owner of www.tollfreenumbers.com and I must say at this point, I’m a satisfied customers. I got the 800 number I wanted in record time and for a reasonable amount of money. So in atypical Kranky fashion, I recommend them.