4 Step Process to getting a great Toll Free Number!

10/06/2008

People often ask what the process is so I’ve tried to simplify and explain our process as much as possible, into 4 simple steps.

1. Find a Good Number

Probably the majority of our site is geared toward this step because this is the biggest weakness of most phone companies. But it’s our main focus because we know how vital a good front door is to all of your marketing. Check out our Search Section that explains each of our two main search tools, the Toll Free Search Engine and the Keyword Lookup. This post also simplifies the search process into 5 sentences.

2. Place your order

You can Activate whatever number you find available or backorder it if it’s in disconnect. There is information on Activations and Backorders in sections of our site. But this is extremely easy and just takes filling out a form online. We’re the only ones that do this anywhere near this quickly and easily.

Read MORE about picking a provider and transferring your number.

12 Ways to evaluate or pick a phone number

10/03/2008

After you’ve searched and searched and come up a couple different options for numbers how do you decide? First of all, don’t go too crazy. Sometimes people get so caught up in this that they really drive themselves crazy with this. It’s not rocket science and by the time most people are at this point they’re deciding between a couple choices, all of which are pretty good.

Read about 12 factors you can use to evaluate an 800 number!

1-800 TOUCH TONES

10/02/2008

We just added a new feature to the website. When you do a query with the Toll Free Search Engine you’ll hear the touch tones of the query you just entered. I know it’s just a bell and whistle (literally) but it does make it kind of fun to play with the Toll Free Search Engine.

We know you often have to do a number of queries to find a number available so we’re trying to make it fun and entertaining to do multiple queries. That’s also why we put a few random messages in the Loading message. Firefox users will only hear the tones for the first entry in each session but other browsers do it on all subsequent queries.

If you notice any other issues with the touch tones or the third ‘possibilities’ box let me know, because we just added a new server for the possibilities searches. We’re working hard to make our tools better and better for you!

We don’t play favorites

10/01/2008

Sometimes people ask if we can do any better for them on the pricing. I understand that everyone wants a deal but I don’t think it’s fair to give different prices any more than I think it’s fair to treat certain people better than others. If someone is willing to play games with the price, what else are they willing to play games with? Are they giving some people bigger discounts than they’re giving you? If you didn’t ask for a discount would it have been fair for us to charge you more?

The truth is, that we’re too big to operate like a flea market table or a garage sale. We’re not big yet, not are we too big to have everyone making up their own prices. We’re also the only organization in the vanity number business with straight forward upfront prices. Everyone else makes up the price depending on how much they think t customer can afford or how badly they want it. They negotiate with people all the time. But they’re starting at 10 times our most expensive type of number or more.

We have to run this business as a business, not a garage sale.

1-800 BAILOUT Special!!!

09/30/2008

After watching the president address the nation about the financial crisis we were talking and trying to figure out what things we could do to help people in this turmoil. We came up with a great new way to allow customers to get our best 4 star numbers for less than the 2 star upfront investment.

We’re only going to do this for a very limited time, until Election Day, November 4th. So for the next 38 days, we’ll get you one of our best 4 Star Premium Numbers that are usually $999, for 4 MONTHS for just $249. You’ll receive a form to set up an account with Opex and can pay less than 3 cents per minute for the nationwide usage for the service during the first four months. After 4 months, you can pay the remaining $750 to continue to use it and then can transfer it away. You obviously can’t transfer the number away to another carrier other than Opex until the balance is paid. But it’s your option to pay the remaining $750 at any point if it has worked out well for you. So it’s kind of like a 4 month test drive!
See a list of 200 4 star numbers you can get now for less than the 2 star price

Why the Providers Section is blank

09/30/2008

We give several good options that are cheaper and better than most people can usually find themselves, in the toll free manual that comes via email after you activate a number. Ironically I got this question on a day that I’ve spent a couple hours researching the new system and designing the database and data we need to collect and display.

We’re working on a more thorough database of phone companies. We don’t just want a list of companies and links to their website. We’re trying to make something that’ll make it easy for customers who aren’t familiar with toll free service to understand the main options and to be able to tell which companies are real solid companies and which just look good on the net. We also want to have a way for verified customers to leave real feedback and rank companies.

Read more about the providers directory we're working on.

• Overall Rating: 2.0

You only pay for Results!

09/29/2008

Only paying for results means we don’t get paid unless we get you the number we want. One of the biggest differences between us and large phone companies is that we’re accountable in everything we do. If we don’t get it for you, we certainly don’t charge you for it.

We're real people and we're reachable and accountable

The down side of being honest and upfront on the Internet

09/25/2008

Whenever you’re successful there are always a few people trying to tear you down. And unfortunately when you’re honest and open with people it gives them even more of a target to shoot at. This is especially true on the internet where some people love to say vicious things about other people just for fun. Add to that the fact that I give people my honest opinion about companies and point out negative things that go on within the industry and you’re gonna get a few stones thrown at you.

When you're honest and up front and successful you become a target

Toll Free Monitoring

09/24/2008

A lot of people come to our site wanting a specific number which often isn’t available. One important thing we can do to help you is to monitor the status of it for you. If you use our Keyword Lookup and put the term you’re interested in, in the Monitoring field and your email address and we’ll send you the status of each of the four area codes matching that term.

We’ll update this and send you a new email each month that shows a six month mini history for all four versions of that number. This doesn’t guarantee you that you’ll be able to get that number but it does help you to stay on top of it without a lot of additional effort. And since there is such a high turnover rate for toll free numbers it definitely pays to be patient. But make sure you have a good backup number though because it may not come out and you can always add the new number too if and when you do get it.

Affiliates Past and Future

09/24/2008

At TollFreeNumbers.com we don’t do any advertising. We earn our business the hard way, through natural search engine rankings and satisfied customers. Affiliate marketing is an important extension of that and we’ve tried a couple different things in affiliate marketing. We’ve had some issues with our affiliate program and have had some success and some failures. We’re going to try to correct those failures and build on the successes to make a better program for everyone.
Why we had to cancel the old Affiliate Program and what we’re looking to do next.