FREE 0870 number

For many people, 0870 is a mega turn-off, and I'd caution companies to think very hard before implementing it. Do not be fooled by BT's claim that 0870 is "national rate". It is in fact full BT national rate, and in effect BT have a monopoly on 0870. Anyone with a BT line who is bright enough to use an ISP over their line (OneTel, Tiscali, Telco, Adept....there are dozens) will pay a lot less than BT's charge for standard national rate calls (those starting 01 or 02). But they will pay BT's rate for calls to 0870. Even those who pay for BT Together pay the full rate for 0870. For example, I have a BT line but use Tiscali over that line for daytime calls. I pay 2p/minute to call national rate UK numbers and 3p minute to call the USA but have to pay 7.91p when I dial 0870! So I don't dial 0870 when I have a choice. If several companies are offering a similar product or service, I'll call the 0870 ones last. Maybe I'm just mean. But then I wouldn't do business with someone who can't spell stationery either! The main reason companies go for 0870 is probably to get a cut of the 7.91p. But will that revenue stream compensate adequately for lost customers?

Dave, Spelling corrected. I cut & pasted it from a website so I didn't realise the mistake. I don't run a company called Century but this one was the best offer I found so far. I am always looking for good offers or freebies and pass information to people. Why not!? I thought someone may benefit from the service. After all, everyone has different requirement! Juno

Sorry, Juno. I have to confess I thought you were touting for business. Not that my comments were not intended to be personal, I just wanted to warn others. There are times when 0870 is appropriate, notably when a company might want to move in the future and keep their phone number. But that's about it. There as been a lot of adverse press comment against 0870, and I know that OFTEL doesn't like BT's "monopoly" but apparently can do little about it. Incidentally, even "local-rate" 0845 is more expensive than most ISPs' full national rate.

Hi Dave I agree that every kind of number has a place, however they can come with many valuable uses (across all number types), such as: advanced routing to different locations, call recording, voicemail to email, call stats helpful to judge marketing response, to generate revenue to go towards the costs of providing certain services/information, timed routings, area plans i.e. call 0870 **** *** for your nearest store (system looks at the CLI and routes the call to the nearest store to the caller. These are just a few examples of the benefits to where 08 numbers are useful and are a lot cheaper to operate than the hardware to operate the same services. Again 0870 numbers are useful for cutting down on time wasters that are only too happy to waste 15 minutes of your time on a 0800 number but are happy to use your service without asking any questions when they know they have to pay for the call! As I've previously said within this forum, everyone has different perceptions of the different number types and whilst some dislike calling 0870 numbers there are plenty that really don't care what number they call as long as they receive the level of service they expect.
------------------------

Jamie
www.TamarTelecommunications.co.uk">href="http://www.TamarTelecommunications.co.uk">www.TamarTelecommunications.co.uk