How To Get A Toll Free Number For Your Business [Ultimate Guide]

Businesses needs to focus more on offering delightful customer experience and instant product support instead of worrying about the IT infrastructure and huge operational costs.

With a toll free number, you can reduce the operational costs and streamline customer service and product support processes of your business. It is an essential marketing tool for companies to attract more leads and build brand image.

Generally, people associate toll free numbers with brands that are trustworthy. As mobile devices are growing at an exponential rate, your business should consider the use of toll free numbers to penetrate a broader market of customers. 

In this ultimate guide, we will cover how you can get a toll free number for your business, how much it costs, and which factors you should consider while choosing your toll free number provider. 

 Content Index:

• Why your business needs a toll free number?
• How to get a toll free number for your business?
  • Step 1: Choose the right type of toll free number
  • Step 2: Pick the right toll free number provider
  • Step 3: Choose your pricing plan and get an account
  • Step 4: Configure your toll free number to take your business on the go

Why your business needs a toll free number?

1. Expand your business globally

If you want to expand your business globally, then getting a toll free number is an excellent decision to take. It helps you to establish an international presence for your brand. Just put your toll free number on your business website and other marketing materials to let .

2. Your business needs a modern marketing tool

Toll free numbers can serve as a fantastic marketing tool for your business. Get a toll free number and put it on your website and other marketing materials like pamphlets, flyers, etc. As toll free numbers are free to call, more people will dial your business phone. Thus, allowing you to attract more potential customers. Now, you can nurture those leads to gain trust and finally convert them into long-term loyal customers.

3. To measure the ROI of your traditional marketing campaigns

Tracking the performance of your offline marketing efforts can be tedious, but toll free numbers make this task easier. Place your toll free number of all of your offline marketing materials, including flyers, billboards, posters, product brochures, etc. and start tracking the number of leads coming from the respective campaigns.   

4. Improve your product support process

In the current era of globalization and industrialization, every business strives to provide the best customer services and support. If you want to delight your customers and make them stay with your business, then you have to seek better ways to provide support.

Toll free numbers serve this purpose as it allows your customers to reach out to your business without hesitating as they don’t have to bear the call charges.  

5. Get ahead of your competitors

If your competitors are not using toll free numbers to lure more customers, then it is the perfect opportunity for your business to get ahead and distinguish itself from others in the marketplace.

How to get a toll free number for your business?

Step 1: Choosing the right type of toll free number

Start with picking up which type of toll free number you want to get for your business. 

Different types of toll free numbers

1. Universal International Freephone Number (UIFN)

As the name suggests, UIFNs are valid across the globe, which allows you to connect with international audiences easily. People around the world will be able to call your business for free. However, UIFNs are expensive and only opt for them when you operate on a global scale. 

2. Country-specific toll free number 

There are two types of toll free numbers associated with this category.

• International Toll Free Number
  International toll free numbers allow users from a specific county which you have opted for to call your business for free. Let’s understand this with an example.

  Suppose you own a toll free number of United States, then your customers from the US will be able to call your company without bearing calling charges. However, if users from Australia will call your toll free number, then they will have to pay for the call duration.

• Local or Domestic Toll Free Number
  Domestic toll free numbers are valid only in the country for which you have opted in. Users from other countries will not be able to call your toll free number as your toll free number will be invalid in their countries.

  Let us understand this with another example. Suppose you have taken a toll free number for Australia, then people from the United States will not be able to call your toll free number as it is invalid in the USA. 

Which one is right for your business?

If you want people from all around the globe to call your business for free, then choose a Universal International Freephone Number (UIFN). However, UIFNs are expensive compared to other types of toll free numbers. If you have a tight budget, then opt for international toll free numbers or domestic toll free numbers.

Apart from local numbers and toll free numbers, you can also subscribe to vanity toll free numbers. Vanity freephone numbers are easy to remember. Additionally, they also allow your users to easily recall your business number and dial without hunting for it anywhere. 

Vanity numbers are either local or toll free numbers where alphabets are assigned to indicate or resemble your brand or service. For example, 1-800-taxicab, 1-800-flowers, etc. Vanity toll free numbers reflect your brand in your business phone number, and thus they are easier to remember for your users as compared to toll free numbers.

Step 2: Choose a good and reliable toll free number provider

Choosing the right toll free number provider is an important decision which you should make after assessing following factors:

1. Availability of your desired number

 The first and foremost thing is to check whether the cloud telephony service provider can offer the toll free number of your choice or not.

2. Easy to use admin portal

Check the admin portal of your toll free number provider before buying a subscription. The admin portal should be easy to use and allow you to manage call settings like configuring call queue management, ring group, monitor live calls, etc.  

 Features you get with your toll free number: 

• Live call monitoring – See the total number of live inbound active and ringing calls. Also, you can easily monitor live call queue, and ring group calls to analyze how your work process is going.
• Music on hold – With this feature, you can choose to play recorded music or a promotional offer when users dial your toll free number or when their call is on hold.

  The Real PBX offers an advanced feature called Text to Speech. This feature allows you to specify a message to set as music on hold. The best part is that you can choose from a variety of accents and even personalized the promotional message.

• IVR – IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, which allows you to set up an interactive environment for users and navigate their calls to respective departments of your organization like sales, product support, customer queries, etc.
• Ring Group – This feature lets you set up a group of extensions where user’s calls are notified to all the ring group members at the same time. Any idle agent can then answer the phone.
• Call Conferencing – With toll free numbers, you can easily set up call conferencing with your customers and team members.
• Call Recording – Record your customer’s call for analytics and training purposes. With The Real PBX, you can subscribe to this additional feature. After that, our cloud telephony system starts recording your user’s call and store them on the cloud in a secure manner. , and you can download them from the Call Details Record.
• Call Queue – The Real PBX offers a robust call queue management feature to reduce call drop rates. The call gets answered as soon as users dial your toll free number.

  You can then choose any custom music or any promotional message to play while your customers are waiting on the call. However, the moment your users dial your toll free number, you will start getting charged even if none of your agents have answered the call. 

• Missed Call Alerts – Get email alerts for missed calls via email. You can set the frequency of the emails. 

 Read the complete list of toll free number features.

3. Pricing plan

Ensure that your toll free number provider offers flexible pricing plans. Most toll free number service providers offer pay as you go plans. It means that you will only be paying for resources that you are using. 

The Real PBX offers both minutes-based and unlimited plans. Therefore, you are free to choose a pricing plan based on your inbound calling requirements. For example, you can buy a US toll free number with unlimited minutes at $20 per month with unlimited extensions ($39 per extension/month).

4. Reputation in the market

Perform an extensive background check on your toll free number provider. You can start by going through Google My Business reviews and then client testimonials on their website. Along with that, you can also monitor their social media profiles to check for any negative reviews posted by any user.

Additionally, there are many review sites on the internet where you can find additional info on the service quality of your toll free number provider.

5. Level of customization 

Customization means that whether the toll free number provider is ready to customize the cloud telephony service as per your business requirements or not. 

For large companies and enterprises, this feature becomes crucial as they have legacy software. For their best interest, they might require their legacy software and cloud telephony solution to work in an integrated manner seamlessly.

6. CRM integration

Many reputable toll free number providers offer CRM integration with your toll free number, which allows you to make calls from the Zoho CRM directly and efficiently manage lead contacts. 

7. Instant support

Before getting your toll free number, also review the customer support policies of your provider. Your business needs to get instant support in case there is any technical issue with your toll free number. Also, if your business runs even on holidays or 24/7, then it becomes predominantly crucial for your provider to offer customer services on those days too. 

Step 3: Choose your pricing plan and get an account. 

After choosing the right toll free number provider, decide how you will use your toll free number and, based on that, pick a pricing plan. Many toll free number service providers offer flexible pricing plans, and you are charged only for the airtime used. 

Step 4: Configure your toll free number

In this last step, you have to configure your toll free number. For example, setting up IVR to navigate the user’s call to a particular department in your company, forward incoming calls to your cell phone to take your business on the go, etc. 

The Real PBX cloud telephony solution experts can help you in setting up your account and configuring your toll free number as per your business requirements without any additional costs. 

Conclusive Summary

Without any doubt, a toll free number will help your business to cut down operational costs and provide delightful customer service and experience. This guide will help you pick which type of toll number is best for your business and how to choose the best toll free number provider in the market.

Claim your 10 days free trial to check The Real PBX toll free number services. Connect with our Cloud Telephony experts for a free consultation session where they will guide you to make an informed decision. 

Download The Real PBX Toll Free Number Solution Brief.