Divert options for 0800 numbers

The popularity of 0845 numbers is outstripping Free Phone 0800 numbers. Recent search engine statistics for February 2008 show that online purchases of 0845 numbers outweighed 0800 numbers by a factor of 3 to 1.

In recent years 0800 has been seen to be the way to go. Business people have known that they can attract potential customers with the lure of a free phone call so why this change in trend from 0800 to 0845?

A major advantage of 0845 numbers is that they offer one fixed annual cost to business owners. This is because business owners do not pay to receive calls on their 0845 numbers. Typically you will pay a modest set up fee to purchase an 0800 number plus an annual fee and that’s it – no nasty surprises.

This isn’t the case with 0800 numbers as businesses pay typically anywhere between 3p and 6p per minute to receive calls made on their 0800 numbers as well as a set up fee and monthly rental. If call traffic is high on an 0800 number then the monthly bills for call charges can rapidly rise to an unacceptable level. This can make the cost per enquiry much too high.

0800 numbers can be open to fraudulent use by employees and their families as well as salespeople. If your employee’s wife finds out that she can ring her husband at work for free by using the company’s 0800 number there is not a great deal anyone can do about it. There is no great incentive for your employees and their families to use an 0845 number to ring up work as they realise that they have to pay for the call just as if they had dialled the landline number.

A common tactic for telesales people is to go through a Yellow Pages, BT Phone Book or Thomson directory and just dial business that display 0800 numbers in their adverts. Obviously this practice greatly reduces telesales costs but can be incredibly frustrating for businesses who continually receive telephone solicitations on their 0800 number. 0845 numbers come into their own again as telesales people would simply not make the effort to just ring 0845 numbers as they understand there is a cost element to the call.

In many ways the increased popularity of 0845 numbers is a self fulfilling prophecy. The more 0845 numbers that are purchased the more they appear in adverts – the more they appear in adverts the more the public accepts and understands them. Try conducting a straw poll at your office by asking your colleagues what it costs to call 0800 numbers and 0845 numbers. Most people understand that 0845 calls cost the same as a local call so they do not represent a barrier.

Both 0800 and 0845 numbers give businesses the opportunity of a great monitoring and tracking service. The concept is simple – just put a unique number in each advert that you have and make sure that it doesn’t appear anywhere else. Look at the itemised bill you receive from your telecoms provider every month and it should list the numbers of calls your advert receives. At a glance you will be able to see how well your adverts are performing.

So, if you are considering purchasing an 0800 or 0845 number you have some decisions to make as to which one you go for. 0845 is making massive strides on 0800 number yet 0800 is a double edged sword offering free calls to your customers but being open to potential abuse.

This article is free to republish provided this resource box remains intact.

Ever thought about the state of paint by numbers? Many of us have warm recollections of paint by numbers. These were those, with lines and numbers all over and each number represented a different color. As a kid we would treat paint by numbers like a game.

These colors came along with the picture put together in a package and the result was supposed to be a picture that corresponded to the picture on the box or on the back of package. You can learn more about crafts at http://www.thecraftyfinger.com. For kids, these packages ultimately reached a point where hardly any actual painting was required and just wetting the paper produced the color. Proper paint by numbers kits are available which result in watercolor pictures of wild animals, or a snowy winter afternoon.

But earlier, in the 1950’s, this was considered to be an art form. You had the option of getting tutored in paint by numbers, and many hobbyists took it up, producing amazing imitations of other’s art and having them framed so as to adorn their homes. So much so that you could make a copy of Rembrandt!

Paint by numbers was a major source of income for many people. What a wonderful way to have fun and at the same time earn! It was a very productive method for people with idle time to invest time to produce a picture even if they were not arty.

Eventually some great artists were born, while others were happy with an artifact that they enjoyed creating to adorn their houses as articles of decoration. This way they could experiment and yet be completely aware of what it would result into. The popularity of paint by numbers was so high that people chose them over works by famous artists for their homes.

Paint by numbers provided people with a channel to invest time into. And it was not a hard and fast rule to adhere to the numbers. Though paint by numbers didn’t possess any unique attribute, many artists had found a way around. They would make minor modifications to the picture, like blurring of lines or leave out a section of picture not of their interest.

Paint by numbers in many ways was a very intriguing fact and its fame mystifies many people even today. Its popularity is credited to the fact that it made a person feel like an artist – a liberated mind. Nevertheless, some rules and safety guidelines exist and they are presented as below.

The popularity of 0845 numbers is outstripping Free Phone 0800 numbers. Recent search engine statistics for February 2008 show that online purchases of 0845 numbers outweighed 0800 numbers by a factor of 3 to 1.

In recent years 0800 has been seen to be the way to go. Business people have known that they can attract potential customers with the lure of a free phone call so why this change in trend from 0800 to 0845?

A major advantage of 0845 numbers is that they offer one fixed annual cost to business owners. This is because business owners do not pay to receive calls on their 0845 numbers. Typically you will pay a modest set up fee to purchase an 0800 number plus an annual fee and that’s it – no nasty surprises.

This isn’t the case with 0800 numbers as businesses pay typically anywhere between 3p and 6p per minute to receive calls made on their 0800 numbers as well as a set up fee and monthly rental. If call traffic is high on an 0800 number then the monthly bills for call charges can rapidly rise to an unacceptable level. This can make the cost per enquiry much too high.

0800 numbers can be open to fraudulent use by employees and their families as well as salespeople. If your employee’s wife finds out that she can ring her husband at work for free by using the company’s 0800 number there is not a great deal anyone can do about it. There is no great incentive for your employees and their families to use an 0845 number to ring up work as they realise that they have to pay for the call just as if they had dialled the landline number.

A common tactic for telesales people is to go through a Yellow Pages, BT Phone Book or Thomson directory and just dial business that display 0800 numbers in their adverts. Obviously this practice greatly reduces telesales costs but can be incredibly frustrating for businesses who continually receive telephone solicitations on their 0800 number. 0845 numbers come into their own again as telesales people would simply not make the effort to just ring 0845 numbers as they understand there is a cost element to the call.

In many ways the increased popularity of 0845 numbers is a self fulfilling prophecy. The more 0845 numbers that are purchased the more they appear in adverts – the more they appear in adverts the more the public accepts and understands them. Try conducting a straw poll at your office by asking your colleagues what it costs to call 0800 numbers and 0845 numbers. Most people understand that 0845 calls cost the same as a local call so they do not represent a barrier.

Both 0800 and 0845 numbers give businesses the opportunity of a great monitoring and tracking service. The concept is simple – just put a unique number in each advert that you have and make sure that it doesn’t appear anywhere else. Look at the itemised bill you receive from your telecoms provider every month and it should list the numbers of calls your advert receives. At a glance you will be able to see how well your adverts are performing.

So, if you are considering purchasing an 0800 or 0845 number you have some decisions to make as to which one you go for. 0845 is making massive strides on 0800 number yet 0800 is a double edged sword offering free calls to your customers but being open to potential abuse.

This article is free to republish provided this resource box remains intact.

Some of the available options for call routing of toll free 800 numbers are:

Time-of-Day (TOD) Routing: TOD is one of the simplest ways of routing. An example of TOD routing would be a company with two call centers, A (east coast) and B (west coast). Call center ‘A’ opens first and calls are sent to this location in the day time. However, as the time changes across the country, call are redirected to the call center ‘B’.

Day of Week (DOW) or Day of Year (DOY) Routing: Working of call centers depends on the day of the week and business practices. All call centers don’t work 24x7. They might be closed for weekends or other holidays. DOW routing handles calls that arrive on that specific day of the week. DOY routing allows for alternate routing on fixed holidays. For example: December 25th.

Area Code or Exchange Routing: A company may want their toll free traffic to route to their preferred location. If a company has a call center in east and one in west then they may want to direct calls from east to their call center in the east and so on.

Percentage Allocation Routing: Companies having multiple call centers prefer to choose this type of routing. Here, they allocate calls on percentage basis to each of their call centers. Example: A company with 5 call centers may choose to allocate 20% of all incoming traffic to each center.

All-Trunks-Busy Routing: This is again a very important routing method which handles unexpected call volumes. If a company's trunk facilities are full and can no longer handle any more incoming calls then an alternate destination is chosen and the calls are routed to that destination.

Ring No Answer Routing: Some carriers provide this unique facility where they can pull a call back into the network if not answered.

Emergency or Disaster Routing: Generally, companies setup a disaster plan to overcome both natural (floods, fires, earthquakes etc) and man-made emergencies (bomb threats). IXCs provide alternate destinations in case any such event occurs.

From the first day that man began to study numbers and their significance in every day life, some numbers have been assigned certain characteristics. Some numbers have been thought to be lucky, while others are considered unlucky. And it’s not just Western culture that has done this.

Cultures in Japan, China, India and Africa have done the exact same thing, but for different reasons. Let’s take a look at some commonly known lucky and unlucky numbers to see why some numbers are cursed and some are loved.

· 7 – Everyone knows that 7 is lucky. But why? The root of most lucky numbers can be found in religion. God, for instance, is said to have created the world in 7 days. There are also several references to seven in other places in the bible, like the length of festivals and the arrangement of the Sabbath. Seven also comes up repeatedly in ancient history. Until the 1800’s, there were seven known planets in the solar system, mathematician Pythagoreans considered seven to be the perfect number and as any craps player can tell you, seven is the most desirable role on the dice. In most major instances, seven is a lucky number from culture to culture. Seven is even the usual number of spots on a ladybug. Lady bugs are considered good luck in their own right.

· 4 – This number is bad luck in the far east. The pronunciation of the number four in Japanese is very similar to the word death, and because of this, four has been considered bad luck in Japan, Korea and China. It is considered very bad luck to give a gift that is made up of four pieces to someone. Many buildings in heavily Asian areas do not have a fourth floor, much like the way North American cultures treat the number 13. In Western culture, four isn’t necessarily considered lucky or unlucky, however, there are a few unlucky fours. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Christian bible, and most swear words are called “four letter words.”

· 666 – Six hundred and sixty-six is an interesting number. It is both extremely bad luck in Western culture but very good luck in many Asian cultures. As everyone knows, according to the Christian bible, 666 is the number of the beast and is synonymous with Satan. 666 might actually be the most avoided number in Western culture, followed closely by the number 13. But in cultures in Asia, the pronunciation of 666 sounds very much like the phrase, “things going smoothly,” and it is considered to be very lucky. Many shopkeepers will place a sign or plaque with 666 written or carved on it in their window as a good luck charm. The same goes for the front door of a home or apartment. In Western culture, 666 has appeared millions of times, almost universally in a bad connotation.

· 13 – The hysteria surrounding unlucky 13 in Western culture has become so commonplace that an actual sickness called triskaidekaphobia; the fear of the number 13. You would be hard pressed to find a building with a 13th floor in North America. The origin of this superstition is mainly unknown. In the famous painting of Jesus at the Last Supper, the 13th person at the table, reading left to right, was Judas, who betrayed Jesus. Others believe it is because of the tie-in with 13 and the lunar cycle. 13 is the exact number of full moons in a calendar year, and since people have thought that the moon controls emotion and makes people a bit crazy, then 13 is bad luck. In many Persian cultures, 13 is unlucky as well, showing that this superstition crosses cultural borders. And of course, Friday the 13th is considered very bad luck. It originates from the massacre of the Knight’s Templar on that date in 1307.

· 2 – In many Asian cultures, two is good luck. It is thought that good things come in pairs, which is a phrase that even appears in Western culture. It is used often in advertising or on menus in restaurants by saying that a product is doubly effective or it will bring double happiness. In Cantonese, the number two is pronounced much like the word easy, hence it is considered good luck there, as well. There is an emphasis on the number two in Western culture, as well, but not relating to luck.

· 8 – Maybe no culture in the world is more fascinated with lucky numbers than the Chinese. In many far eastern cultures, 8 is considered a lucky number to the point of obsession. A recent news article reported that the phone number 8888-8888 was sold for over $200,000 in China recently because it was thought that it would bring luck. In Cantonese, the pronunciation of the number eight is similar to the phrase “good luck.”

· 11 – Craps players know that 7 goes hand in hand with 11. In numerology, 11 is the first master number. In recent years, 11 has taken on a negative significance due to the events of September 11th, 2001 and the flight number of one of the doomed planes was American Airlines Flight 11.

Trying to figure out what your lucky numbers are is a personal decision. You may embrace historically unlucky numbers in an attempt to buck the trend. You may have a completely random number come up again and again in your life that proves to be lucky. Whichever method you choose, numbers can make a big difference in your life if we could just figure out their proper meaning.