There was a time when a business relocation meant not only all of the traditional logistical challenges involved in getting people, equipment and furniture from A to B but also the need to potentially change your telephone numbers.
In fact, at one time even moving a relatively short distance within the same major city may have resulted in the obligatory need to change your telephone number, with all the implications of that for things such as stationery, business cards, advertising and so on.
If your move were over a significant distance, your entire telephone number including dialling prefixes would also have needed to change. In fact, today that may still be the case unless you choose non-geographical telephone numbers.
Why retain your existing numbers?
In the past, the effort associated with ordering and printing stationery carrying a new telephone number, may have been a significant cost and logistical inhibitor.
It may be fair to say that today that remains an issue, although perhaps proportionally not as significant as it may once have been.
What may be far more serious today are things such as:
- you may have worked hard to get your phone number to be the first number of instinctive choice for your clients. Essentially, it may be seen as part of your brand and changing it may undermine much of what you have previously achieved in these respects;
- existing advertising may have an intended lengthy shelf life but that may be totally undermined if it cannot be left in place due to the fact that it is now carrying a number that is no longer correct;
- you may have relationships with customers and suppliers who interface directly and possibly even automatically with your systems through dial-up services – they may all need to be notified and their systems changed if you intend to change your number.
Are there options?
Assuming that some of the above effects are unpalatable and ‘do nothing’ is therefore not a serious contender, you may be faced with one of two choices:
- re-route your calls from your original number to your new geographical based number, wherever that may be;
- adopt non-geographical numbers as your strategic solution.
The former option may be perfectly viable and even desirable, particularly in situations where you may wish to maintain a token physical or marketing presence in your original location.
The second possibility may offer the attraction of meaning that you are free to locate your business wherever you wish and however often you may need to move, your number stays the same and goes with you. It might be particularly appealing to newer businesses that have no legacy numbers to deal with.
So, no need to change stationery, issue number change notifications to customers or scrap existing advertising in a hurry, should you need to relocate your business.
These options may be something worth considering further and we’d be only too happy to discuss them with you.
