0845 numbers are purchased phone numbers that are “pointed” at your landline. They are popular with many businesses but before you rush out and buy one for your own business you should carefully weigh up the pro’s and con’s.
There are plenty of benefits for a business using an 0845 number. For a start they will follow any diverts that you set up on your landline, allowing you to be constantly in touch with customers calling you, and your operator can route the calls to call centres around the UK to minimise the likelihood of customers getting an engaged tone.
The numbers are non-geographical and so allow you to market yourself nationally, and they can also be taken with you if you move premises, which means that you won’t need to pay out on getting new stationary printed.
0845 numbers can be used for call-financed services. The owner of the number can receive income from calls received that can be used to finance their service, or even make a profit. The numbers support call queuing so ‘per minute’ revenue can be generated, which can allow anyone with high call volumes to generate substantial revenues.
Charges to callers for using 0845 numbers are set by individual phone companies and they can vary greatly, especially when the call originates from a UK mobile or a non-UK number.
The cost of calling an 0845 number is sometimes cheaper for your customers than calling a geographic 01 or 02 number, but because 0845 numbers are not generally included in call plans it usually means your customers may pay more to make the calls.
The cons of having such a number is the potential high cost to the customer, especially if they are made to queue whilst you make money from them. The public don’t like using 0845 numbers and many go to websites that are dedicated to offering the (non advertised) geographical number as an alternative. The public have become increasingly aware of the ‘per minute’ revenue sharing with non-geographic numbers because of media reports and look less favourably on companies that use them. This is especially so if the line is being used customer support or complaints.
An example of a company using an 0845 number is Omnio who sell KVM switches. The number is prominently displayed on their website pages and it works for them. Why not see if it can work for you too?
