Forum Moderators: LifeinAsia
I run a telecommunications company with direct ecommerce sales being our only method of distribution. We are thinking of building out a toll free service that would be sold online: anyone could come to our site, pick their own 800 numbers, pay by credit card, and have them provisioned instantly. Bells and whistles like voicemail, routing to different numbers by time of day, routing to cell phones, international forwarding, etc will be available as a la carte options. Everything will be managed in real-time via a control panel, including reports on call history and a bunch of other cool stuff.
Questions:
1) Do you think website operators (your clients) would buy toll free numbers and find value in them? Pricing would be around $3 per month + 6.9 cents per minute US/Canada, no contracts
3) based on your professional experiences, do you think webhosting companies would be interested in reselling this service to their customers? What type of reseller models work best? Would 20% of revenues be a compelling offer?
4) Which of the following are extremely important to resellers: *us taking care of billing, fraud risks, etc. *us taking care of customer service directly *3rd party unbiased reporting of signups, revenues, etc. for tracking?
We are talking to some large companies about resale ops, but we are a small and entreprenurial company and think that other small/medium entrepreneurs (like many of you on this board) will be a better and more effective distribution channel.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
1) Do you think website operators (your clients) would buy toll free numbers and find value in them? Pricing would be around $3 per month + 6.9 cents per minute US/Canada, no contracts
Yes, but may be to high for small web sites.
3) based on your professional experiences, do you think webhosting companies would be interested in reselling this service to their customers?
Would 20% of revenues be a compelling offer?
The thing that really counts is service.
To me your prices sound "good enough". But the question is can you really deliver the service. That is a rhetorical question, as I already know your answer. But, please think about this carefully.
To me, as a web host and a site designer/promoter, we would jump at your offer and not even want the kick back if you could really deliver to our clients good service.
We will not "back" anything that doesn't really work. We will "back" anything that is 100% reliable.
The hurdle you have is credibility. Convince us of that and we will be your best friends......and so will everyone else!
Voicemail is extra, but if you divert to a regular landline (as opposed to SIP or VoIP) you can run a standard answerphone service (albeit only one call at a time).
I'm sure there's a value in there for online retailers.
Vanity numbers (<LOCAL RATE> WIDGETS) would probably be a chargeable service.
I'm not sure people are so worried about freephone these days are they?
I don't mind paying local rates.
TJ
I second the motion that your customer service and service in general has to flow smoothly, especially while you are growing....the price seems right..
it seems over 10% of all sales occur via a toll-free phone line if it's offered...this probably increases overall sales.
I'm surprised - but that's very interesting.
Where are those stats from?
Thanks,
TJ
Perhaps the UK is different, but our feeling in the US (imho) is that toll-free numbers lend credibility to a business. We get many customers who would rather speak to someone before purchasing on a website. Often, they just want to make sure the company is real, and a voice on the other end gives them the confidence to purchase. I don't have any hard numbers on sales improvement, but for my site it is also around the 10% range. Live chat didn't even come close to that. People just seem to like picking up the phone.
