Save Money With Number Porting

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For small businesses, every penny counts at the moment, which is why DBS are offering number porting, which could save you money on your 0800 freephone number or other numbers. 

DBS is one of the best known providers of freephone 0800 numbers in the UK, having been in business for 25 years. Based in Lincolnshire, they are members of the Lincolnshire Chamber of Commerce and have Investors in People status. They are therefore well established and respected.

Their Director, David Clarke, cares very much about helping small businesses, particularly as we are still getting through tough economic times. This is why DBS now offer number porting.

“If you already own an 0800, 0808, 0844, 0845 or 0870 number, then we may be able to help you save money by offering you a better rate through number porting” says Clarke. “Number porting simply means transferring your phone number from your existing carrier to us. Many people do this because they find it easier and more convenient to receive just one bill rather than having freephone numbers from lots of different providers. Others do it to save money. Either way, we can port your phone numbers to us with no disruption or fuss to you. You still get to keep the same number, so that you don’t have to give out a new number to everyone you deal with, change any adverts, or worry that there are customers out there with the wrong number for you. All that changes is that you save money, and you are billed by us instead of the carrier you are with now”. 

If you get your number from any of the following carriers, DBS are able to port your number:

    *      BT

    *     Cable & Wireless

    *     Core

    *     Energis

    *     Gamma

    *     Kingston

    *     Nevada

    *     NTL

    *     Opal

    *     Telewest

    *     Telstra

    *     Thus

    *     Torch

    *     Totem

    *     Worldcom

    *     Your

However, if the name on top of your phone bill doesn’t match any of the names above, it doesn’t mean that DBS can’t port your number, as most of these carriers have "resellers" of their services. If your reseller is connected to any of these carriers then DBS should still be able to port your number. If in doubt, give DBS a call about it. “Our telecoms department is very friendly and always ready to do whatever they can to help you” says Clarke.

In order to find out if they can save you money, DBS need to be sure that they can port your number, and also need to see a recent phone bill for the number you want to port. You can either fill in the form on the number porting section of the DBS website, or give them a call. You can fax them a bill using a freefax number, so it won’t cost you to make the enquiry. Once they know that they are able to port your phone number and save you money, they need your authority to do it. Instructions on how to do this can be found on the number porting section of the DBS website. Once the forms are completed, the switchover usually takes place over night, and the owner of the number doesn’t notice it has happened.

Move to wherever you want to be from just £15 + VAT!*

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If you want to expand your business to operate in new areas, can’t afford to rent lots of new premises in those areas but still want different phone numbers for all of those areas then DBS Telecoms has the solution.

How can a business grow without spending huge amounts of money that they don’t have in tough economic times when they really need to keep a bit of a safety net in the bank? David Clarke, Director of DBS Telecoms, explains how you can use a virtual number to make your business appear to have premises in whichever part of the country you like for a far cheaper price than buying or renting premises in those areas.

“DBS has a database which contains area codes for 479 different UK towns, cities and areas” says Clarke. “These are virtual numbers, which are also known as ghost numbers. They can be pointed at any existing UK landline or mobile phone number, and you can have more than one virtual number pointed to the same landline or mobile phone. You don’t have to live in a specific area to have a virtual local phone number for that area.”

“So, if you’re a company based in Birmingham, and you want to expand your business so that you carry out work in Coventry, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent, Northampton and Worcester, but you can’t afford new offices in those locations, then you can still get numbers for all of those areas which can all be pointed at your existing 0121 landline number in your head office. So you could get a virtual 024 number for Coventry, a virtual 0116 number for Leicester, a virtual 01332 number for Derby, a virtual 0115 number for Nottingham, a virtual 01782 number for Stoke, a virtual 01604 number for Northampton, and a virtual 01905 number for Worcester. These numbers could be put on adverts going out in those areas and on the internet, so that the company appears local in all of those areas. You could then put a ‘call whisper’ on each of those numbers, so that when you get a call at your office in Birmingham, when you answer the phone you get a short recorded message in your ear telling you which number the call is calling, for example ‘Nottingham call’ or ‘Birmingham call’. Thus you would know where the caller was expecting you to be.

If you use a fax machine it is also possible to get a fax to email virtual number to match your virtual phone number, so that your customers are phoning a Leicester phone number but then sending a fax to a Birmingham number. “Fax to email is a fantastic resource anyway,” says Clarke “as it saves your business money and resources and also helps the environment. For most things these days, email has replaced fax, but there are still a few occasions where a document needs to be faxed through to someone. It is such a waste of energy having to leave a fax machine switched on constantly for when these rare faxes are sent. Fax to email converts the faxed document to a PDF and sends it straight to your email inbox instead. You don’t have to print it, so you save on paper and ink, and you can store it in your computer files, saving space on your shelves and making it easier to find.”

“So, in this scenario, a company that previously operated only in Birmingham now operates in seven other major cities. Each virtual number has cost £15 + VAT to set up, and the monthly rental is £5 + VAT. If you had wanted the fax to email as well then that would have cost the same. The call whispers would have cost £5 + VAT to set up, and then £5 + VAT rental per month, although DBS offers discounts on multiple orders. Now think how much it would have cost to rent premises in all of those locations. That huge saving can instead be spent on staff, equipment, and other important resources necessary for the business to expand.”

DBS’s wide range of 479 different area codes, from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, mean that a company can effectively appear to move to wherever they want within the UK without having to fork out the huge costs of actually doing so, thus giving them far more money to use on other issues.

*virtually using a DBS virtual phone number!   

Widen your net with local phone numbers

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Having a series of different virtual local phone numbers pointed to the same phone number is a far cheaper option if you want to expand your business into different areas but cannot afford to buy or rent new premises there, says DBS Telecoms.

The great recession meant huge financial difficulties for a lot of companies across the UK, and indeed the world. Although the recession is now officially over, the after effects are still being felt, and for some companies the real pain is only now beginning to filter through.

Perhaps because of this, virtual local numbers have seen a huge rise in popularity. David Clarke, Director of DBS Telecoms in Lincolnshire, a leading supplier of local numbers as well as freephone 0800 numbers, has a theory as to why this is.

“When money is in tight supply, you need to make as many cut backs on non essentials as you can in order to stay afloat”, says Clarke. “There is no bigger cost than premises. Companies like to have offices everywhere they are operating in order to have a connection with that area, because people like to know that the company they are dealing with is local, and because that is what you expect a business to do. For example, if you were supplying a service such as rat catching in Lincoln, you would be expected to have an office in Lincoln that people could phone you on and that you staff would work out of. But why? Who comes into the office? The answer is most probably the staff who answer the phone, the postman and the window cleaner! Generally if you’re providing a service, customers either phone you or contact you via the internet, but are seldom going to pop into the office. In a world where everyone has a mobile phone, to have an office purely as a place where people can answer the phone is a very expensive way of doing business”.

What Clarke is effectively saying is that if you don’t need an office, don’t bother having one. Don’t have an office just for the sake of having an office, it’s a waste of money and there are better ways of doing business. “For example, if you have lots of different offices in multiple locations purely because you want to operate in those locations, but all you ever do is employ staff to answer the phone in each of those offices, then you could save money by just having one office, with a series of different virtual local phone numbers with area codes for the offices you would have had. All of these can be routed through to the same phone line, with a different call whisper on each one to let you know when you receive the call which branch the caller thinks they are calling.”

So, if you operate and wish to carry out work in Lincoln, Boston, Sleaford, Louth, Grantham, etc. and want to appear local to each of those locations, you do not need to have an office in each of those locations. DBS have 479 different area codes for virtual local numbers, so will have all of the different area codes needed for you to create as many different phone numbers as you wish. Therefore, in Sleaford you can advertise your company with a Sleaford number, in Boston with a Boston number, etc. but they would all go through to the same phone.

Of course, if you are happy with the premises you have, but would like to branch out into other areas but cannot afford more offices, then these ghost local numbers are a great way to widen your net without much additional extra cost. You can easily get some local numbers for other areas you would like to operate in to appear more local to those areas, without having to move offices or get any new ones. Local phone numbers are therefore a great way of growing and expanding your business without risking your financial stability.