By Dan Baldwin, Editor
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Just when you think phone numbers themselves have become obsolete in an age of social media and smartphones, a client says to me, "Oh, and don't forget, I have got to have a new phone number that ends in '000' or something else that's really easy to remember".
I respond confidently, "No problem (I hope)."
Back where there was just a couple local phone companies that a business could get local phone service from, getting an easy to remember "vanity" number was not too difficult because just those few phone companies had access to all the unused numbers that existed in a particular area code.
That was then. But today, literally hundreds of "phone companies" are available these days to offer local phone service in any area code. These companies might be one of the old Bell phone companies or a cable company or a cell phone company or one of hundreds of "VoIP" phone companies.
Why is having so many phone companies in a single area code a problem? All the easy-to-remember, unused numbers are now spread across many phone companies. Worse than that, the different phone companies "own" all their unused numbers.
If you are able to find a phone number you like and want to use you are obligated to activate that number with the phone company that owns it. The phone company with the phone number is under no obligation to release that number to you so you can use it with another phone company.
So How Did I Find a Good Phone Number for My Client?
My client was starting a new division that was advertising on the television which was the reason for needing a vanity number and the client really wanted a number ending in "000" that was "easy to remember". The VoIP phone company we were placing the business with assured us that getting a vanity number would be "no problem".
It was a problem. Two weeks before our installation deadline, our VoIP vendor claimed there was no way to do any sort of "vanity search" with their underlying carrier vendors and the only way to filter through the carrier's unused numbers was to pull up each area code and prefix one-by-one and then go through all numbers in order hoping to find a vanity number. After several days of doing this we still had no decent numbers to choose from.
Trying to stave off panic, I Google searched "vanity phone number search" and found www.HostedNumbers.com a PATlive company owned by ATG technologies and www.TollFreeNumbers.com owned by Bill Quimby.
At the HostedNumbers site I was easily able to do a vanity number search but only after entering a city and state. (Because my client was advertising their phone number nationally I would have preferred to search all vanity numbers without narrowing down to a state and city first.) Because of this search limitation, to find cities with great area codes to start searching I went to www.AllAreaCodes.com and then made a list of the cities with an area code that would make a great 3-digit start to an easy to remember vanity number like, Washington D.C. (202), Albuquerque NM (505) or Napa CA (707).
After a couple hours penciling down several dozen possible acceptable vanity numbers for my client from HostedNumbers.com I called the VoIP carrier we were placing the business with and asked them why they didn't have a sweet vanity numbers lookup system like HostedNumbers.com.
My contact at the VoIP carrier asked me for a couple samples of the vanity numbers I found at HostedNumbers.com and we looked them up on www.FoneFinder.net to see who the underlying carrier was for the vanity numbers. We quickly learned that BroadVox and Bandwidth.com were the two carriers behind a majority of the vanity numbers were looking at.
Fortunately the VoIP carrier we were placing the business with also had a relationship with one of the carriers behind the vanity number we most wanted and they were able to claim the number as it was also available to the VoIP carrier. It seemed that while HostedNumbers.com has a terrific search platform for vanity numbers, they are only searching available number databases from several carriers -- not vanity numbers that they exclusively own.
So I lucked out by finding a number my client liked at HostedNumbers.com and then by having our carrier of choice having access to be able to reserve the same number. If this was not the case my second backup plan was to "port" the number away from HostedNumbers.com to my carrier. HostedNumbers.com claims they allow customers to port their numbers away but my carrier advised that number ports can take anywhere from 5 to 30 days which which in a worse case scenario meant my client would not make their TV commercial deadline.
TollFreeNumbers.com Rocks for Affordable Toll Free 800 Numbers
My client also wanted to advertise a toll free (800, 888, 877, 866 or 855) vanity number along with their non-toll free vanity number. For this option I had already decided to go to www.TollFreeNumbers.com owned by Bill Quimby as I had acquired some great toll free vanity numbers with him for my business clients in the past.
In under an hour at Bill's site I had compiled every combination of vanity TFN that my client might consider and then after a quick decision from my client the "purchase" was made and the RespOrg change (switching "ownership" control of the TFN from Bill's company/carrier to my client's carrier) was being accomplished.
Unlike porting that can take 5 to 30 days for non-TFNs, changing carriers on a TFN will usually only take a couple of days (two weeks at the max) if all parties are professionals and al the paperwork is done properly. Bill Quimby is the best in the business at fast number ports. If you're looking for a great toll free number and you need it right way there's no other place to go.
I asked Bill if he's getting into the non-toll free vanity number business like HostedNumbers.com and he replied that he was looking at some sort of play in that area. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with.
Let Your Telecom Agent or Independent Carrier Partner Find Your Number
The work it took me to find my client two acceptable numbers likely took a dozen man-hours (and I'm a 20+ year industry veteran). While a highly motivated business customer might have equal success it would have likely taken much longer.
If you're a business customer looking for a great vanity number, let your local telecom agent or independent carrier partner do the leg work for you. To find a "Recommended Partner" in your area please visit www.BusinessPhoneNews.com and click on "Recommended Members".
A professional telecom agent or independent carrier sales partner will ensure that you get a great number and then get that great number to work on the right phone service carrier.
This content is copyright protected. To license this content for your own website please contact Dan Baldwin at [email protected]. Photo credit iStock 19104725, Keywords: telecom agent, independent carrier sales partner, Bill Quimby, TollFreeNumbers.com, toll free number, vanity number, TFN, HostedNumbers.com, PATlive, ATG technologies, voip, phone carrier, resporg, easy to remember phone number, phone company, broadvox, bandwidth.com, port,
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