March 13, 2019

How Successful Companies Are Managing Large Phone Number Pools

The average smartphone user has 152 contacts in their phone. If you’re a digital marketer or telemarketer, however, you will have thousands — or hundreds of thousands — of contacts in your database. Factor in numbers that are no longer in service, and you probably have more digits than the Yellow Pages.

But what about the numbers you use to make outbound calls? How many do you really need to contact customers and maintain your sales targets? And how can you manage all of your numbers with a high degree of accuracy?

The Importance of Outbound Phone Communication

Despite the rise of email, SMS, and social media, the telephone still remains the most powerful communication method. 59 percent of people say they prefer phone communication because they want a quick answer to a problem, while 57 percent prefer to talk to a real person.

Telemarketing Continues to Engage

No other communication method can replicate the success of telephone marketing. Phone communication can boost engagement, increase revenue, and move customers through sales pipelines.

Here’s the kicker, though…

As a marketer, you need a pool of outbound numbers that you can use to reach customers. You might want to utilize the power of matching local area codes in order to target customers in a particular area. This helps the most successful marketing companies reach massive numbers of people.

But Your Numbers Are at Risk

The problem is, customers have the ability to block your number at a moment’s notice. This leaves you with no other way to contact them. If you rely on telemarketing to generate sales, you also need to use a bank of different outbound numbers.

But How Many Numbers Do You Really Need?

This all depends on the scope of your business. As a telemarketer, you need a large pool of numbers to maintain your sales targets. If you run out of useable phone numbers you’ve got a serious problem.

But there are a few questions you need to answer before you go any further:

If you rely on geo or area code matching, should you have one number for each of the 290 area codes in the United States? Or just one number per state? Should agents use unique numbers? Or share the same one?

As a rule of thumb, you should use a selection of different numbers from various areas in the U.S. This helps you target local customers and reduce the effects of call-blocking software. Multiple numbers can also boost cold calling success. Today, it takes an average of eight cold call attempts to reach a prospect — up from just 3.68 attempts in 2007. Using multiple numbers can increase the chances of a prospect picking up the phone.

It’s pretty easy to buy phone numbers for your telemarketing campaigns, and doing so will provide you with loads of benefits.

When Should You Buy New Phone Numbers?

Have you ever wondered why no-one is picking up your call? Or why customers have flagged your numbers as spam? This is nothing to worry about — it happens to all the big marketing companies.

Here’s the deal. Phone carriers block certain numbers if they receive enough customer complaints — something called carrier block. Plus, customers use various mobile apps to flag phone numbers from companies like yours and share this information with other users. Call Control and YouMail are just two of them.

When customers flag your number, it can have a snowball effect. If a carrier blocks a phone number with a particular area code, for example, no-one in that area might even receive your calls.

This is where it’s useful to purchase a few different phone numbers.

You might also want to buy a fresh set of numbers if you are expanding your geo reach and want to continue geo matching in a particular area.

Why is all of this so important? Well, call blocking is a bigger problem than you might think. If you want to find out the extent of the issue and how it impacts your business, head over to Caller ID Reputation. Here, you can find out whether phone carriers have flagged your numbers and how many apps have blocked your calls. If you have plenty of contacts in your database, you can also use this service to monitor the reputation of all of your numbers.

Port In/Out

When you purchase new numbers, you don’t need to get rid of all of your old ones, though. If you use important outbound phone numbers, such as valuable vanity numbers, you can port these into a brand new system. This is a great idea if you’re making the switch to a new phone carrier or updating your phone system.

Marketers need outbound numbers to survive — and lots of them. Purchasing new numbers will provide you with a lifeline if carriers block your numbers after complaints from customers. You can also replace stale and flagged numbers.

Investing in a phone management service like Twilio (which integrates with Caller ID Reputation) will help you target customers across the country and make it easier for you to communicate. Plus, you can port old numbers into a new system quickly and securely.

Want to check how many people block your outbound calls? Click here to try Caller ID Reputation for free for 5 days.