What are 0808 numbers?

If you have gone to our site wanting to purchase 0800 numbers, and instead have found 0808 numbers – don’t panic!

There is no difference between the two numbers.

An 0808 number is exactly the same as an 0800 number.

So, both 0808 and 0800 numbers are freephone numbers when called from a landline phone.

This means that 0808 and 0800 numbers are great for showing customers that you value them, and therefore that customer service is high on your priority as a business.

Because 0808 and 0800 numbers are free to call from a landline, and the recipient of the call instead pays for the call, it encourages more people to pick up the phone and make that initial inquiry.

Both 0808 and 0800 numbers also give your company a national presence because they are non-geographic numbers. This means that they are not associated with any geographic area of the UK in the way that, for example, an 020 number is a London number. Therefore, your business is not portrayed as only serving one geographic area, but instead as providing a service across the UK.

So why are there both 0808 and 0800 numbers when they’re both the same? Quite simply, because freephone 0800 numbers are so popular, OFCOM introduced 0808 numbers several years ago as, in time, the 0800 number range may run out of numbers. Using 0808 numbers means that people have a much greater range of freephone numbers to choose from than just the dwindling number of 0800 numbers.

To see our current range of 0808 numbers, please visit our website.

What are Non-Geographic Numbers?

A Non-Geographic number is a telephone number with a prefix that does not link it to any geographical location – other than the United Kingdom.

So, for example, an 020 number means that it is a London number, an 0121 number means that is a Birmingham number, an 0131 number means that it is an Edinburgh number etc.

With non-geographic numbers, there is no such association with an actual place – the number could be for a business or an individual anywhere in the UK.

Many larger businesses find these ideal if they want to operate across the country rather than in one specific geographical area – people don’t think that a business only operates in the south east or the north west if they have a non-geographic number.

Many smaller businesses also use non-geographic numbers because it makes them appear to be larger than they actually are.

Different types of non-geographic numbers can bring different benefits to your business, depending on your requirements.

Examples of non-geographic numbers include freephone 0800 and 0808 numbers, lo-call 0845 numbers and revenue sharing 0844 numbers.

Non-geographic numbers are “pointed” to your existing landline or mobile phone number, can usually be set up within an hour, don’t require any equipment or machinery to install, and are available to anyone – not just businesses. 

For more information on non-geographic numbers, please visit the DBS website.

How could DOBNA help your business?

Reading the question above, you would be forgiven for thinking to yourself “what is DOBNA?”

DOBNA is one of the Extra Features available on our 0800, 0845, 0844 and local numbers.

It stands for Divert Calls on Busy or No Answer.

It allows us to route calls through to alternative numbers if you are unable to answer calls.

All you do is supply us with a list of alternative numbers, and we take it from there.

So, if someone calls your 0800, 0845, virtual or 0844 number and you are on another call, then the call with be diverted to the next number on your plan, which might be a mobile, another colleagues phone, a home phone etc.

Or if you are out of the office, the call can be diverted to your mobile, so that you receive the call wherever you are.

The feature means that if you are away from the office, you can still take calls, which makes your customers feel valued as they know that you are always available to help them.

For more information, watch our video about this feature, visit our website, or call us on 0800 046 1688.

How fax to email can save time, money and the environment

We offer a wide variety of 0800, 0845, 0844 and local numbers as telephone numbers, but we also offer these numbers as fax to email numbers.

So, if you have an 0800, 0845, 0844 or local telephone number with us, you can also get a fax number with the same prefix so that your type of numbers match.

So, if you have a London phone number, you can get a London fax number to match, or an 0844 fax number to match your 0844 telephone number.

Having your fax number as fax to email can save your business time and money, and also helps the environment.

The fax gets sent straight to your email inbox, so you don’t have to leave a fax machine on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you don’t have to print out every fax that you receive, and you don’t have to keep checking the fax machine to see if you have received a fax. You can store the fax on your computer or in your emails with other relevant documents, or you can delete it if you don’t need it.

Thus, you save paper, toner, electricity, ink, time, money and the environment – and you free up some space in the office where the fax machine and files of paper that came out of it used to be!

What are 0845 numbers?

What are 0845 numbers? To many people, numbers that start with 08 are all the same, but nothing could be further from the truth.

0800 numbers, for example, are freephone numbers when called from a landline – the caller doesn’t pay anything to make the call, and the cost is instead paid by the recipient.

0844 numbers are revenue sharing numbers – the caller pays slightly more to make the call, and the recipient doesn’t pay anything to receive the call, but instead receives a rebate.

0845 numbers are somewhere between the two.

They are “lo-call” or “low call” phone numbers – a play on words, as they cost the same to call from a landline as a local number, and the cost is low.

Callers pay between 3p and 5p per minute to call an 0845 phone number from a landline, and customers don’t pay anything to receive the call.

Like both 0800 numbers and 0844 numbers, 0845 numbers are non-geographic numbers. This means that the 0845 part of the number is not associated with any geographic area other than the UK. For this reason, they are often referred to as national numbers. 

Also like our other non-geographic numbers, 0845 numbers are pointed at your existing landline or mobile phone.

For more details about our 0845 numbers, click here to read about 0845 numbers to landlines, and here to read about 0845 numbers to mobiles.

Make sure you customers get the greeting you want them to have

When your customers or potential customers call your business, unless you are answering the phone yourself then you have very little control over exactly what the customer hears. If one of your employees is feeling grumpy or tired, then the first words the customer hears might not be the cheerful, friendly, helpful greeting that you would like them to hear.

However, if you add the Greeting Message feature to whichever number you have with us – whether it’s an 0800 number, 0845 number, 0844 number or virtual number, then you know that the first words your customer hears when they call you will be the words of your choice, said in exactly the right tone.

The Greeting Message is added to your number, so that when someone calls your number, they hear a recording such as “Thank you for calling the XYZ Company, your call is important to us and will be answered shortly”. The message can say exactly what you would like it to say, and makes your business appear professional, friendly and efficient.

The call is then answered after the message has been played. For more information on the feature, watch the video or call us on 0800 046 1688.

How do I get an 0800 number?

An 0800 number is a freephone number if called from a mobile.

Often, people think that you have to be a large company to have an 0800 number, or have a nationwide presence. They think there is some sort of criteria you have to conform to in order to have an 0800 number. And then they think you have to have some sort of extra phone line or expensive equipment involved in order to use it.

However, this is not the case, and getting an 0800 number is far easier than you probably think.

To get an 0800 number, all you have to do is visit the 0800 number page of our website, and choose either 0800 numbers to landline or 0800 numbers to mobile – depending on what type of phone you would like your 0800 number pointing to.

Then, you choose which number you would like to buy from the list of available 0800 or 0808 numbers on the page.

This gets added to your shopping basket, and when you are ready to make your purchase, you simply fill out your details, including the existing phone number that the 0800 number will point to.

Your 0800 number will be pointed to your existing landline or mobile number – you can change this number whenever you want to.

If you order an 0800 number during the week between 9am and 5pm, your number will usually be connected for you within the hour.

Visit our website for more information, or call us on 0800 046 1688.

How to keep on top of your business with online call statistics

One of the handy extra features available for our range of 0800, 0845, 0844 and local phone numbers is Online Call Statistics.

This feature allows you to go online and look easily look up statistics for all of the 0800, 0845, 0844 and local numbers that you have with us.

You can use this feature to see lists of phone numbers that have called you, the time that they called you, how long the call was, how quickly the call was answered, if you missed any calls and if so how many, and more.

This feature is ideal for knowing if you have enough staff in place to answer calls, by seeing how long it takes you to answer calls and how many you are missing.

If you are based in different offices, have multi-branch companies or different franchises, then it is a great way to make sure that other people in your company are providing a high level of customer service.

Also, if you have multiple numbers, it is a great way to keep a close eye on which numbers are working for you and which aren’t. For example, if you use one 0800 number in one magazine advert, and a different one in a newspaper advert, and one number receives 100 calls and the other only 2, you know that one advert is worth continuing and the other one isn’t.

Click here to read more about our Online Call Statistics feature and our other great extra features.

Never miss a business call again with our handy voicemail feature

If somebody calls your business number when you are on another call, are busy, or when your office is closed, it doesn’t look very good to your customer or prospective customer if the phone just rings, or if they are faced with an engaged tone, and cannot leave a message. Chances are if they are a new customer, they are not going to keep calling back – they will just phone a competitor instead.

It is therefore a good idea to add our voicemail feature to your business numbers. It can be added to any of our 0800, 0845, 0844 or local numbers. The feature provides you with a personalised voicemail box – you can choose exactly what the message says, and we will record it for you. So, even if your customer cannot speak to you, they will at least hear the friendly, welcoming message of your choice.

One of the great benefits of this feature is that as soon as someone has left you a voicemail message, we will email that message to you as a recording, so you can listen to it straight away through your emails if you wish to. You can therefore hear their message whenever and wherever you are, so if it is urgent, you can get back to them straight away.

Another great part of the feature is that you will also be emailed the phone numbers of any calls you miss where the caller does not leave a voicemail message – so you can still call them back, thus minimising the amount of business lost through missing phone calls. 

How to make your business appear bigger than it is

There are plenty of ways to use telecoms to make your business appear to be bigger than it actually is.

A key one is the type of phone number you use. If you give out your main business number as your mobile phone number, then this suggests to clients or potential clients that you are a small business or a one man band.

If you use a local phone number as your main company number, then it suggests you are a company doing business only in a specific area – eg. you’re a London company or a Birmingham company or a Liverpool company.

However, if you use a non-geographic number such as an 0800 number or an 0845 number, then you are saying that you are a national company – these numbers are not specific to any geographic location other than the UK, so will make your company appear to be a national company. Any company can have them, and they can be pointed to your existing landline or mobile, so can make you appear to be bigger than you actually are.

You can then use a range of extra features to make your business seem even larger, for example the “Press 1 for Sales” (see video) feature inviting your callers to press a number for a different department (these can all point to the same phone), and call queuing, telling your callers they are in a queue and their call will be answered shortly. These are features callers associate with large companies, but are available to all businesses.

More calls than you can answer at any one time? Try our Call Queuing feature

What do you do if you have more calls coming in to your office than you can answer?

Do you let the phone just carry on ringing?

Do you ask the person you are already on the phone to if you can call them back?

Does the person calling just get an “engaged” tone?

If you do any of these options, then you are making your company look unprofessional, and also potentially losing a large amount of business. If customers or potential customers have trouble getting hold of you when they want to, then there is a high chance that they will just phone somebody else instead.

One of the answers to this problem is to add our “Call Queuing” feature to your 0800, 0845, local or 0844 number.

If people call you and you are unable to immediately take their call, they will be put into a queue. The feature will then play music to them, tell them their position in the queue, and play messages to them such as telling them their call is important to you and will be answered shortly.

The system can hold up to 50 calls in a queue. As soon as a phone becomes free, the call gets put through to it.

This system can be used by anyone with one of our numbers and is easy to add – no extra equipment is required. It is ideal for small, medium and large businesses. For more details, please see our extra features page.

Why use the Call Recording feature?

We offer a range of different extra features which can be used with our 0800 numbers, 0845 numbers, 0844 numbers and local numbers. One of the most exciting features is the Call Recording feature.

The Call Recording feature does what it says on the tin – it records your inbound telephone calls received on the numbers you have with us.

You can choose to have all of your received calls recorded, or just a selection of calls. Alternatively, you can choose to start recording a call whilst the telephone conversation is in progress. Most of our customers choose to have all of their calls recorded.

Why would you want to record your calls? There are a number of reasons. For some companies, calls are recorded for training purposes. If this is the aim, then the best option is probably to choose to have a selection of calls recorded.

However, another key reason is for records. If you are having an important business phone call, there might be a lot of detail discussed. You can take notes, but sometimes it can be hard to focus on the call and take thorough, accurate, detailed notes at the same time. And however good you are at note taking, there is always a chance that something might be missed. With call recording, you can listen back to the call as many times as you want, and if there is any future disagreement about what was agreed in a phone call, you can listen back to check.

When the call finishes, the recording is sent to your email address straight away, so you can save the call to your computer in your files if you so wish.

For more information, please see our extra features page.

What is a Call Whisper?

One of our most popular extra features is the “call whisper” feature. We believe it is such a great feature that we offer our customers a free 30 day trial when they order an 0800, 0845, 0844 or local number with us. Why do we like it so much?

Well, all of our numbers are pointed to an existing landline or mobile phone number. So, when somebody calls you, you don’t know if they are phoning your existing landline or mobile number as a personal call, or if they are phoning your local or non-geographic number as a business call. The type of call you are receiving can obviously change the way in which you answer the call.

Some people may have more than one company, and may want to point different numbers for different companies to the same phone for convenience. The problem with doing that is that they don’t know which company the person on the end of the phone is calling, and so don’t know how to answer it.

A third problem can be having multiple local numbers pointed to the same phone, and then not knowing which area you are meant to be in because you don’t know which local number has been called.

Call Whisper is the solution to all of these problems. When you receive a call to your 0800, 0844, local or 0845 number, you will hear a short recorded message when you answer the call to let you know which number is being called. The caller just hears the continuing ringing tone. You then know how to answer the phone call.

You can add a whisper for each number, and the whisper can be customised to say whatever you would like it to say.

For more information, see our extra features page. 

The importance of looking local

Depending on what type of business you have, you might want to portray yourself as a nationwide company, or as a local company. If you want to carry out work nationwide, then we advise that you have one of our non-geographic numbers for your business – either an 0800 number, 0845 number or 0844 number, depending on which one suits your business needs best.

However, if you want to appear to be a local business, even if that is to lots of different localities, then you are best having virtual local numbers. These are ideal if you are based in one area, but want to appear local to lots of different areas. So, for example, if you were based in Bristol but wanted to operate across the whole of the south west, appearing as a local business, then you could have an Exeter 01392 number, a Plymouth 01752 number, a Taunton 01823 number, a Penzance 01736 number, a Devizes 01380 number, and of course a Bristol 0117 number and Bath 01225 number. These are just examples, but they can all be pointed to the same phones in an office so all of your calls still go through to the same place, but appear to be more local than they actually are.

The reasoning behind this is that lots of people still prefer to use a local business for certain trades, and when looking for numbers will only go for area codes that they recognise, as they then know that the business is based locally. With lots of local phone numbers you can appear in lots of different local telephone directories as well. A local area code says to potential customers that you are a business that operates in their area, know the area, and are nearby if there are any problems.

Why use fax to email?

We offer fax to email numbers as all of our different numbers – including 0800 numbers, 0845 numbers, 0844 numbers and virtual local numbers.

They have to be a different number from your telephone number if you already have one of the above, but we believe if you use a fax machine, there are huge benefits to having a fax to email number.

Firstly, it means you can get rid of your fax machine. You don’t have to leave it switched on 24 hours a day 7 days a week so as not to miss a fax. This saves quite a lot of electricity.

However, it means you can still receive faxes, so if customers wish to send you a fax you are able to give them a fax number.

It also saves paper, as the fax is sent straight to your email inbox, so you only print it if you want or need to.

With the fax in your email inbox, it helps to create a more efficient filing system.

Finally, if you already have an 0800, 0845, 0844 or virtual number, it means that your fax number will match your telephone number, so you don’t end up with a non-geographic phone number, but then a fax number revealing you are in Essex.

Why small businesses should consider 0844 numbers

Many businesses choose to have an 0800 number because they are free for their customers to phone from a landline. The business, rather than the customer, pays to receive the call, which is a fantastic marketing tool if the business can afford to do it. However, not all small businesses or start up businesses can afford to pay the cost of receiving their telephone calls.

That is why 0844 is a great alternative. Your customers only pay 5p per minute to make the call to you from a landline, so not a premium rate, and you then receive 2p per minute of that charge as a rebate. This is a fantastic option for SMEs as it means they don’t have to pay for their calls, but instead get some money back which helps provide a top up to their income, especially if they receive lots of calls.

0844 still has the other benefits that 0800 numbers give small businesses. It is a non-geographic number and so makes the business appear to be a national company rather than a small local company operating only in one area and only providing services to that area. You can also add all the extra features to 0844 that you can to 0800, including call whisper, the “press 1 for sales” service, and call queuing. For small businesses and start up businesses, 0844 is worth considering.

0845 numbers: the perfect phone number compromise

Quite often when businesses are deciding which phone number to have for their company, they are stuck choosing between two extremes.

The first option is freephone 0800 numbers, which means the company would foot the bill for the calls received so that the customer, if phoning from a landline, doesn’t have to pay for the call.

The second option is charging the customer a higher rate to phone in, with some of the money from the call going to the company, a helpful top up to a company’s income in a tough economic climate.

However, there is a middle route, which is sometimes forgotten about or overlooked: an 0845 number.

Like the other options, 0845 is a non-geographic number, which means the 08 code doesn’t indicate your geographical location. This therefore gives your company the appearance of a national company, rather than a company that only does business in a specific local geographical location.

Unlike 0800 numbers, you don’t have to pay to receive the call, and unlike premium rate numbers, your customers don’t pay a huge amount to make the call. 0845 numbers are known as lo-call or low-call numbers, meaning the cost to call them from a landline is low, the same price as a local call. Therefore, your customers don’t have to pay much to make the call if using a landline, and you don’t have to pay anything to receive the call. A perfect compromise!