How do toll-free numbers help businesses?
Starting in the early 90s, toll-Free 800 service became a viable business tool with the use on Vanity Numbers such as 1-800-FLOWERS. With these changes, rates have continued to fall and the majority of large users are now buying toll free services for less than 2 cents per minute. Toll-Free has become so popular that 800 is no longer the only toll free area code. Area codes 866, 877, 888 were all added to meet the increased demands of the end users. A toll-free vanity number or mnemonics is a 1-800 telephone number that is easy to remember because it spells something and means something like 1-800-FLOWERS or 1-800-BUSINESS. A great vanity number is easier to remember than a numeric phone number such as 1-866-348-7934. Businesses use easy recognizable 1-800 vanity numbers as both a branding and a direct response tool in their advertising since they are proven to increase response rates by 30-60%. In 2006, it was reported that AT&T paid over $1.32 million to acquire the Vanity Number 1-8
