During the initial years when the concept of toll free numbers was introduced, it remained a luxury facility meant only for large sized corporations having multiple lines. The simple reason was the toll free number facility was costly and smaller businesses could not afford it.

Things started to change towards the close of the previous century and 800 numbers became cheaper and within the reach of the small and mid sized businesses. With liberalization of the economy, business people were attempting to offer totally free calling for their customers and the use of 800 numbers is now continually growing.

Interestingly, there has been a scramble for 800 numbers - principally because toll free numbers proved to be a great marketing tool to expand customer base, provide better CRM and boost sales. Customers also began to rate high the businesses having toll free numbers and felt encouraged that they need not pay for the calls they were making. Clients who see that you have a toll free number will be more likely to trust your company.

You can also transfer carriers once you have an "800" number which means that they can be transferred between one provider company to the other. Since the demand for "800" prefix toll free numbers shot up steeply, the number got exhausted and this led to the industry service provider using 855, 866, 877 & 888 prefixes. If the present demand pattern continues, the time may not be far off when we will have 844, 833, 822 and so on!

The toll free numbers are so called because the called party pays for all the incoming calls including the long distance calls. This is a great blessing for business enterprises as customers will be encouraged to call more often. In fact certain studies have conclusively shown that mentioning toll free numbers in trade ads results in 30 percent increased responses.

Another benefit of toll free number is it is scalable. This means smaller businesses and start up businesses just pay for the usage or calls to their toll free number and their bills will only increase as their usage and business increases.

You can seek a vanity toll free number that is proven to tremendously increase customer call volumes. Please understand that with a vanity toll free number, you can take a giant leap over your competitors as customers can easily remember your number and not your competitors. The fact is vanity numbers are easily committed to memory and thus your existing customers can readily call you.

A vanity number is any phone number that uses the letters on the phone's dialer to spell out a word or business name. Probably the most obvious use of vanity numbers are with businesses such as 1-800-FLOWERS, HP (1-800-HP-INVENT) or APPLE (1-800-MY-APPLE).

A vanity number has numerous rewards for all businesses regardless of their size and scale of operations. Any vanity number provides your business a special identity as well as gives your company a respectable image. Several market research studies have gone on to show that vanity numbers raise the response rate of your ads simply by 30% or maybe more.

If you like to obtain a vanity 800 number, figure out the word or phrase you want before you try to set it up. When you have decided on the word or phrase that works well with your business, find out if it is available.