Reserving New Toll-Free Numbers

Requesting a new toll-free number from your carrier is typically a quick and painless procedure. It might involve some very basic paperwork, or an e-mail might suffice. Some carriers have a reservation desk you can call into to reserve numbers. Regardless of the method for requesting new toll-free numbers, the carrier will ask you for a couple of details. Specifically, carriers want to know:

• How many toll-free numbers you want, and whether multiple numbers should be in sequence (1-800-SMILEY1, 1-800-SMILEY2, and so on).

• Whether you have special requests. If you need a special prefix (800, 888, 877, or 866?) or a vanity number (1-866-SMILEYS?), speak up now.

Requesting random toll-free numbers

Most carriers give you the option of requesting toll-free numbers by the first three digits, so if you do have a preference, you can specify whether you want an 800, 888, 877, or 866 number. After you place your request, your carrier dips into the national 800 SMS (Service Management System) database and reserve as many toll-free numbers as you need. (I talk about the SMS database in Chapter 5.) It’s possible that some of your toll-free numbers will be in sequence, but it isn’t very common. If you need a block of 10 or 15 consecutive toll-free numbers, you are more likely to find them in the 877 or 866 prefixes.

After your reservation is complete, the carrier sends you a list of the toll-free numbers assigned. You then have 30 days to activate those toll-free numbers before they are released back into the spare pool in the SMS database.

Requesting a vanity number

A vanity number is a lot like a vanity license plate: You know it when you see it. Any toll-free number that prevents you from simply requesting a random toll-free number is a vanity number. Often, vanity numbers have repeating numbers, a special number sequence, or spell out a product or company name.

 Remember  Finding the right vanity number isn’t always easy. Understandably, the best vanity numbers are already taken, so you may request a number only to find out that it’s not available. In fact, all the good numbers in the 800, 888, and probably 877 are taken. The likelihood that you’ll find an open number such as TAX-1040, FLO-WERS, REFI-NOW, or any other buzzword is very small. Because carriers have to check a national database before awarding you a number (and this is a time-consuming process), some carriers limit the quantity of vanity numbers you can request to search per day.

Dealing delicately with RespOrg departments

 Tip  The people who work in a carrier’s RespOrg department are generally well insulated from the rest of the world, and you may never speak to anyone who actually works in this department. I believe that many RespOrg departments were born out of reaction and quickly thrown together. Imagine the scenario: The carrier’s executives are sitting around the boardroom one day, thinking talking about their rate plans and advanced data services when suddenly someone asks, “What about the toll-free stuff?” The room falls silent and the executives eye each other. Quickly, they elect someone who didn’t make it to the meeting (or worse yet, they name the poor fool who asked the question) as the new Director of RespOrg and then call the meeting complete before breaking for lunch. I can’t say whether or not this scenario has actually taken place, but I can tell you that the infrastructure and flexibility you find in your carrier’s other departments is generally less robust when you get to the RespOrg department.

Escalation is your best friend when you have a problem with the RespOrg department. That is, if you don’t get resolution to a problem, you take your concern to a higher power. And on, and on, and on, until you get the answers you need. As you push up the chain of command, you will eventually find someone who can either solve your problem or who knows someone who can solve your problem. Be mindful when you escalate your complaint that some people respond better to kindness, and some only respond to increasing levels of pressure. You may need these bridges into the RespOrg department again some day, so it is best not to burn them.

Following basic vanity do’s and don’ts

If you are interested in a vanity number that spells something, here are some helpful do’s and don’ts for finding an open number:

• Don’t try to fill all seven digits of the number with your keyword. You have a better chance of finding a number if you have at least two digits left as unrelated numbers. Instead of looking for PRODUCE, try a search for corn, beets, or any four- or five-letter word that means the same thing. There is only one toll-free number in each prefix that spells PRODUCE, and the likelihood is that someone already reserved it.

Don’t lose sight of the big picture. You can liken the craze for vanity numbers to the frenzy for distinctive URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) during the dot-com boom of the 1990s. Companies dedicated entire departments to finding catchy Web addresses that weren’t already in use. Maybe if they’d spent as much time on making their businesses viable, they would have survived. Keep this little anecdote in mind if you have your heart set on a vanity number. People will call you (no matter what your number) if you have something for sale that they want to buy.

• Do convert your letters to numbers before you send the request. If you’re looking for the number that corresponds with PRODUCE, and you don’t care if it is an 800, 888, 877, or 866 number, you should send of the request as 8XX-776-3823, not as 8XX-PRODUCE. There is always the potential for human error when converting letters to numbers from a telephone keypad. Don’t leave it to your carrier to make a mistake and end up giving you a toll-free number that spells PRODUCK. If you convert the letters to numbers, and check your work before you send the request, you reduce the chance for errors.

• Do provide concise search criteria. Don’t send a vanity request, with no number listed, and just a note at the bottom of the form asking the carrier to “please reserve a number that is easy to remember.” This statement is very problematic. The main issue with this request is that the national SMS database can’t be searched for 8XX- something-easy-to-remember. Even if the carrier finds a number that is sing-songy or repetitive, the number might be undesirable for other reasons. For example, your carrier might think that the number 888-444-8244 is a great number and easy to remember. That might be true, but if you are using the number to market to the Japanese community, where the number 4 represents death, it might not be well received. Similarly, a phone number that starts with 666 might be easy to remember, but it’s not a good number for a church’s 24-hour confession line.

• Do list your search as many ways possible. If you are looking for a vanity number with the word corn in it, send the request as follows:

  • 8XX-267-6XXX

  • 8XX-X26-76XX

  • 8XX-XX2-676X

  • 8XX-XXX-2676

  These options cover every possible configuration a toll-free number can have with the word corn in it. You might receive a list of three or four reservations for your number. After you review them, you can activate the best one. This query method allows your carrier to execute a concise search for your number, and gives you the greatest potential for success.

 Warning!  After you have reserved your toll-free number, do not publish it until the number is active and you have successfully completed a call on it! I cannot stress this point enough. Everyone who handles your toll-free reservation request has the potential to make a typo. If you haven’t released the number to the public when you discover it isn’t working because someone transposed a few digits, it isn’t a big problem. If you have the number printed on 50,000 calling cards and sitting in gas stations from Miami to Manhattan when you discover the number was transposed, it’s a catastrophe.