By Dan Baldwin
If a prospective customer or business partner calls 411 directory assistance in an effort to get your Southern California phone number, what happens?
Are you having trouble getting credit extended to your business? Maybe your prospective creditor couldn't find your business in the phone directory.
When's the last time you called 411 yourself to make sure your multi-location business phone listings are correct in both your main location and all your satellite locations?
Business Phone Listings & Yellow Page Ads are Different
Many business owners cancelled all their Yellow Page ads long ago in favor of Google ads or some other form of Internet marketing. Because many people equate Yellow Page ads with White Page business listings, many people neglect to make sure their business phone listings are kept up to date after they stop paying for Yellow page ads.
It's not uncommon for a business owner to brush off a business listing when switching from AT&T or Verizon to some other business phone service provider by saying, "Oh we don't need those listings because we're advertised on the Internet".
While the Internet may be sending a business all their new customers, proper business phone listings are still required to ensure that a business is seen as credible in a local community. Business owners need to pay as much attention to their 411 listing as they do to their 911 service.
Call 411 Yourself to Make Sure All Your Listings are Correct
You may have decided that your business does not need AT&T, Verizon or the other old "Ma Bell" phone companies because you've rolled your service to business VoIP or some other new business phone service, but you really do still need the "big 3" phone companies for your proper 411 listings.
While there are many business directory listings services available to you on the Internet that claim to get you listed for free or for a fee, none really come close to matching the reach and breadth of the 411 directories of the big phone companies as all the other directory services start with the directories of the big phone companies.
To see how messed up your 411 directory listings are, start by making a list of how you think all your business entities ought to be listed if all your listings were perfectly correct. When making the "perfect set of imagined listings" for your business, put yourself into the mind of your customers and prospects.
Ask yourself:
- What specific cities do my customers think my business is located in?
- What are all the different DBA business names my customers use for my business?
- Do my customers want to be provided a local or toll free number when calling 411?
- Do the city phone listings need to have a physical address associated with it?
Once you've got your "imagined list" of how your listings should exist, start calling 411 from the cities in which you should be listed to check to see if you're listed as you want to be listed. Make notes of the listing discrepancies so you can quickly fix them.
"Foreign Listings" and "Remote Call Forward" Numbers are Quick Easy Fixes
If your local business phone service is still with AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink or any of the other "incumbent local phone companies" they are obliged to list your main business phone number in their 411 directory. You have to pay for extra listings.
If you've switched to another one of the competitive local business phone companies, it's your new phone companies duty to make sure they have you properly listed in the main phone company 411 directory. If they do it correctly, great. If you want to take matters into your own hands, contact the main phone company and ask them about a "foreign listing" or a "remote call forward number".
Purchasing a foreign listing from AT&T, Verizon or CenturyLink obliges them to list your non-AT&T, Verizon or CenturyLink number in the 411 directory of any city for about five dollars per month per listing per city. This service works great for listing cell phone numbers, toll free numbers or even "ficticious" Google Voice numbers.
If you have an old main company phone number that you don't want to cancel for some reason when you switch your service to a business VoIP phone company, you can request that the old phone company convert the live working phone line to a "remote call forward" or RCF number.
The RCF service costs about $21 per month plus usage for each call that gets forwarded to whatever working phone number you want it to ring to. The nice thing about the RCF service is you get a business listing with it. Be advised though that RCF service is pretty expensive if you get a lot of phone calls to the number as the cost of the usage per minute will add up quick.
Ask Your VoIP Provider About Foreign DID Numbers & Their Listing Services
One of the great features about VoIP is the ability of the more advanced business VoIP phone companies to be able to get your business a "working business phone number" in any remote city that you want and have it ring at a single remote physical location without having to pay extra usage fees as we saw with the RCF service above.
As an example, let's say that you're an accounting firm that offers tax return services and you've got small offices all over the state. Now let's say that because of the economy you're going to close your storefront offices and have your accountants work out of their homes. What do you do with the main direct phone numbers of all those old brick & mortar satellite offices? Turn them into VoIP numbers and have them ring at the home office of the workers or the main office of the business - without usage charges!
While most VoIP companies do the foreign VoIP numbers pretty well, not all of the VoIP companies are as good at making sure your local listings all keep showing up in the big 411 directories like they used to. When contracting for VoIP business service you really need to grill the VoIP provider about their listing services. See if they're cheaper, the same or more expensive than the foreign listing service offered by the main phone company.
Listing Recource Links
Verizon "Get Your Business Cell Phone Number Listed" Page
"List Yourself" Listing Service This service may or may not work. There seems to be mixed reviews. They provide free service to individuals and charge for nationwide business listings. If you have successfully listed your business nationally using this service please let us know.
ATL RespOrg Services If you have a national listing 411 directory listing project to complete and you're getting nowhere working with the individual phone companies, contact Aelea Christofferson, owner of ATL. You won't find anyone smarter in the US when it comes to managing a lot of local business VoIP phone numbers.
Trust Your Local Telecom Agent or Channel Partner to Get Your Listings Right!
If you're working with a professional telecom agent or channel partner in your local metro area who is trying to earn your long term business you can be sure that they know and understand the importance of getting all your business listings correct.
Looking for a Southern California based, vendor neutral business communications technology service expert that can help you out with your multi-location telecom or data network problems?
Click here to learn about how we might be able to fix your problem for free, then contact me directly at 951-251-5155 or [email protected].
BaldwinTel helps multi-location businesses across the United States but specializes Southern California especially San Diego County, Orange County, Los Angeles County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County.
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