Multiple telephone numbers

That is what i think is the problem, if i were a business that operated from an office all the time it would probably work a treat, i work over a large area as a pest controller and so i am trying to get people to contact me via what they believe is a local number, as they normally wont ring anything but local, however i only have the mobile number on the van and they will ring that which costs them a lot more than the 0843 that i advertised as a low cost call.
Nowt as queer as folk

Have you got a web site and e-mail address on the van too? Perhaps that would help if you haven't. I'm not touting for business now by the way! It's just that everyone knows that's a free way to get in touch so may be more willing to e-mail in...?

Yep and proud of em i am indeed. i love showing em off. We have held our wasp prices for 3 years now and so people know of us and we are going to hold em down for next year as well. but i just feel that we are missing something here, we have the webby address which brings in twice as much work as any other advertising but i still want more without high cost

Source: i113.photobucket.com

Source: i113.photobucket.com

Source: i113.photobucket.com

Cool van!

I think what puts people off calling is when numbers are not included free in mobile phone plans. I think that's the case with most 0800 & 0845 numbers?

we used to have 0800 numbers and stated they are free, but they never got used much either as people were afraid to use them in case there was a catch, and so they still phoned a local number, it seems to me that we are a suspicious race of people, and if its offered at a discount or free the question is why?
also the problem is now that the 0800 numbers are heavily charged for by mobile companies and so they are not used much and as the company that supplied our 0843 number said just to keep it active phone it once a month for 20 seconds from a landline. that would have been pretty daft cos it would have rung the landline that i was ringing the number from and it would show a missed call as my end would be engaged.

It seems to me that i am doomed to fail on this challenge and i dont understand Voips or whatever they are called.

Have you thought about buying some Skype numbers and using Skype forward system to get them to point at the number you answer.

Hi yes i had thought of that but again it is a paid option but can i have three different numbers ie different area codes

i decided to go back along the 0843 number route, and so i re ordered two numbers and decided to use them a bit differently this time, people can now have the choice which is quite handy seeing as we work a long way from home some of the time.
As the numbers are free i thought to hell with it, if people want to ring my mobile, local number or low cost 0843 number the choice is theirs.

Having read all of your replies i have decided to go back to the 0843 numbers and give the customers a choice of low cost 0843, mobile, or local landline, depending on how they phone us and from what depends on the charges, they have a choice now.
also we know that once we serve that customer they will normally come back to us if they have a problem in the future, as you say a good service is what they are after and at a decent price. we are offering the following which is printed on the back of our cards

Quote
As a returning customer, & on production of this card, we will charge you the previous year

0843's and 0844's do get some flak, a lot of it undeserved, but the reality is, it's capped at a maximum of 5p per minute, unlike the higher 10p rate 0871's or premium rate numbers.

We've got a block of 100,000 numbers that we utilise, and we track the call volume. From what I can see, no one seems particularly fussed about calling 0843/0844 numbers.

The cards sounds like a good idea.