0845 numbers can now be used for the life of the business and it is for this reason that scores of business centres up and down the country and indeed overseas are turning to 0845 numbers to further enhance their revenue streams and retain the customer for life.
Early stage
Small businesses that may work from home to begin with can take up residence in fully serviced offices in early stage growth.
It is possible for the business centre owner to rent the number or indeed port the small businesses existing home or office number into their business centre number range.
If they have broadband telephony via IP it is possible to port out-of-area numbers into the plan – If for instance a client has a Sheffield based telephone number on a particular exchange i.e. 0114 272 3150 and the business centre has a different number range on a different BT local sub-exchange i.e. 0114 250 3450, then it is still possible to port the number into the business centre and have all calls answered there by a live receptionist at the agreed rates between the parties.
During their occupancy
0845 can be redirected to overseas and mobile numbers so it is now possible to get the number pointed to a group of underlying Direct Dialling Numbers that are set up in a hunt group. One of these numbers in the hunt group may actually be an international telephone number, so that in the event that no-one is in the UK office, Its possible, using the non-geographic 0845 number for calls to be routed off-net into non-UK destinations using follow the sun principles, so out of hours answering and overseas inbound call centres can take the calls.
For instance, you might be an MD for a holiday lettings company in Marbella but you actually live in the Spanish resort but have your mail and calls initially handled in the UK but out of hours you may wish to go online; change the terminating number for the 0845 and answer the call on your Spanish mobile number.
If the 0845 comes with online statistics on the number of incoming calls; then its possible to reconcile this with the billing system.
After the ‘small business’ leaves the Business centre
Clearly, the business centre owner never wants to loose custom, but there will always be companies that move out of centres as they seek to expand the business and may need more space or want to own their own therefore when the client leaves its now possible for that business owner to take its number with him and this is an opportunity for the centre owner to continue renting that number for the life of the business as it is a number for life. It also gives the centre owner the opportunity to cross-sell other services such as mail forwarding and any other services as it sees fit.
