3 Tips when Considering a Vanity Number

A vanity number is a combination of alphanumeric characters and numbers, such as 1-800-FLOWERS. This customized combo takes the place of a traditional phone number and is often utilized to make your business’ phone number instantly recognizable and memorable. While a vanity number could be locally based, 555-CARS for instance, it is often built on the toll-free platform where there are seven customizable digits, instead of just four. Continue reading

3 Things You Need to Know about Toll-Free Numbers

As the demand for toll-free numbers has grown, the combinations available with the 800 prefix have dwindled. To keep pace, several new prefixes were added to the mix. Now, numbers with 888, 877, 866, 855 are also toll-free.  Even with these, many of the desirable 7-digit combinations for vanity numbers using these prefixes are taken.

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WATS – The Origin of the Toll Free Number

The year was 1967. The Doors released their self-titled debut album, Louis Leaky announced the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya, the Vietnam War raged, and NASA launched the first Saturn V rocket into orbit.

It was also the year that AT&T launched the “inward WATS,” or Wide Area Telecommunications Service, better known as “toll-free” telephone service. INWATS was introduced to reduce the time spent by operators processing toll-collect calls for businesses. Back then, long distance calls were expensive and businesses quickly seized the opportunity to use the service to provide superior customer experiences. The oldest and most well-known of the toll-free area codes in the United States, “800,” was the “.com” calling card for successful businesses.

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