0800 Freephone Numbers For Charities

Much mention has been made of ways in which charities can attract much needed contributions, especially in times of recession.
There are over 167,000 charities in the U.K. according to the Charities Commission and many of them are looking for innovative ways to improve their interface with the public.
0800 Freephone numbers are excellent and the new 0808 number range also assisst as they lower the barrier to entry to customers willing to contribute.

It is possible for charities to set up 0800 numbers free of charge and use them in various advertising mediums. Some larger charities are already using 20-30 different numbers to identify the relative

success of certain advertising campaigns. By receiving a monthly report its possible to correctly allocate future marketing spend to the most effective of these response mechanisms.
They can be used for the larger charities through the use of Direct Response Television Advertising or DRTV as its more commonly known. By adertising a memorable and catchy freephone number, charities are

able to attract much needed contributions.

One excellent feature of 0800 numbers is the captured Call Line I.D. (or CLI) information that is presented as part of the service. This can be used to assess which areas of the country to target for future

marketing activity. Bill posters in London, for instance, may be able to get a far better response rate than say Birmingham.

0800 numbers can be connected in less than 15 minutes and this helps to improve lead times to getting re-routed to alternative locations such as call handling centres in the U.K. and overseas. This re-route

facility can be achieved at short notice.

0800 is well established in the public mindset – according to some research conducted by the Henley Centre for Management in 2004, 93% of respondents were able to correctly identify that 0800 was free to

call. In addition, it was found that people were more likely to dial free numbers than chargeable ones by a factor of 185%, thereby increasing the chances of getting ‘hits’.

Charities may also want to move towards the utilisation of 03 numbers as most people are moving towards using their mobile numbers and the increase in mobile useage means that some of the 0800 number ranges

are not free to call off certain mobile networks. The 03 numbers do also provide network based statistics. Ofcom did consult on the use of 09 premium rate numbers for charities for their telephone helplines

for the use of contribute-as-you-go type payment models but it was felt that there was too much adverse public sentiment towards these numbers the idea was finally dropped.
Some charities seem to be getting on board with short code SMS services for attracting different segments of the market. 5 digit mobile short codes e.g. text donate to 64123 can be used to target individuals

who are more likely to be on the move and are more likely to use their mobile than there landlines.