How to Pick the Right Phone Number for Your Business

How important is your business’ phone number? Outside of your website, it’s typically the first point-of-contact with your business for your customers, so… pretty important.

Sometimes you just end up with a random number to serve as your main line, but if you have an opportunity to choose your number, then these criteria can help you to choose one that fits, practically and aesthetically.

Local or Toll Free

The first decision you’re faced with when picking a new business number is whether to use a number with a local or toll free area code. There are a couple of factors to consider here.

Foremost among them is deciding if you want to give people the impression that you’re kind of a hometown company, for which local area codes are good; or if you would rather convey a larger-scale, national feel, in which case you’ll probably want a toll free number.

Learn more about local and toll free numbers here:
Toll Free or Local Number: Which One Does Your Business Need?

Do You Need a Vanity Number?

A vanity number always seems like a good idea at first, and it is definitely useful to have, but it’s actually not a necessity. There are certainly benefits to having one, such as the fact that they are much easier for someone to remember than a random series of digits.

A vanity number also identifies and advertises your business in the very number, itself. A couple of the drawbacks to having one of these, however, are that it’s difficult to get the exact one that you want and customers frequently misdial them.

Here’s a whole post about vanity phone numbers:
4 Reasons You Probably Don’t Need a Vanity Number

Optimize for Memory

Choosing a memorable number is paramount, and you don’t need a clever vanity number to get one. In fact, simply finding a phone number that has a catchy sequence of numerical digits is an arguably better way to do this than by using letters and words.

The caller is far less likely to misdial the number because the digits are right there in front of them, and they can be just as memorable as words. Generally, you want to look for a number with as many repeating digits as possible or patterns, especially alternating patterns.

Pick a good number. You’ll know it when you see it, and there are still plenty of good local, and even toll free numbers to go around—just don’t hold your breath for that famous (800) area code (there are other toll free area codes)—so you should have little problem finding just the number that your business needs.