What is a 1-800 number?

Who pays for the call

On a regular call, the caller pays. That sounds obvious, but it is also a barrier: a customer who needs to ask a small question, an older donor with a limited plan, a person in distress who thinks twice before dialing. A toll-free number reverses the direction. The organization bears the cost, and the caller pays nothing.

The idea is not new. Toll-free calling started in the United States back in the 1960s, with the 800 prefix, and spread from there around the world. In Israel, such numbers start with 1-800, and everyone knows them from the ads of big companies and service centers.

How it works

A 1-800 number is really just an alias for a regular number. When someone calls it, the network recognizes it as a special number, passes the call to the number behind it, and charges the cost of the call to the organization instead of the caller.

As for what happens once the call arrives, there is no difference. It can reach an IVR menu, a queue or an extension, just like any incoming call.

The difference is in the bill. On every call to a toll-free number, the organization pays, usually by the minute. A long queue with music costs money. A call forgotten on hold costs money. That is why organizations with a toll-free number pay special attention to wait times.

It is also important to understand what does not change: the caller does not get a different service, and the agent does not know whether the call cost anything. To everyone, it is a regular call. The whole difference sits on one line of the monthly bill, but it is a line worth keeping an eye on.

The family of special numbers

Exact rates and rules vary from provider to provider and change over the years, so the table shows only the general picture. 1-900 numbers are usually subject to stricter rules, such as announcing the price in advance, to protect consumers.

The closest thing to 1-800 for advertising is the short number: both are easy to remember and both are nationwide. The main difference is who pays.

Who It's For

• Service and support. A company that wants customers to call with a problem instead of giving up and leaving.
• Help lines. A chesed organization or support line, where cost must never stop anyone from calling.
• Order lines. A business where every call is worth an order.
• Organizations that serve an older audience or a population with limited phone plans.

A toll-free number isn't just for big companies. A nonprofit that runs a help line for the elderly, or an institution that wants parents to call without thinking about the bill, can benefit from one too. The question isn't the size of the organization, but how important it is that no one skips the call because of the cost.

And who is it less suited for? A small organization whose calls are mostly long and unrelated to sales, or a line that gets a lot of pointless calls. There, a regular number or a short number is usually more economical.

Advantages and Limitations

The advantages are clear: more people call, because they have no reason to hesitate. A toll-free number signals that the organization wants to hear from its customers, not just sell to them. And it is nationwide: the same number from anywhere in the country, with no area code.

The limitations are talked about less, but they matter:

• Variable cost. The bill grows with the number and length of calls. A busy month means a high bill.
• Pointless calls. When the call is free, people who don't really need anything call too. Some calls will be mistakes, curiosity, or children playing with the phone.
• Only from within Israel. An audience abroad needs a different solution.
• Memorability. Ten digits, even if they start with 1-800, are harder to remember than a star number.

Because of these limitations, many organizations keep a toll-free number for service and support only, and a regular or short number for everything else. That way the toll-free line is reserved for those who really need help, and the cost stays predictable.

Another consideration is advertising. A toll-free number that appears only in small print at the bottom of the website won't make much difference. If you are paying for the calls anyway, the number should appear in a prominent place, and customers should know the call costs them nothing.

Common mistakes

• Opening a toll-free number and forgetting about the queue. A ten-minute wait with music is ten minutes at the organization's expense, and an irritated customer at the end.
• An IVR menu that is too long. Every second of playback costs money. A short menu saves both time and money.
• Not checking the reports. Without regular tracking of call volume and duration, it is hard to know whether the number is worth it.
• Advertising it abroad. A customer who dials from abroad and can't get through thinks the organization isn't answering.
• Leaving it open at night for no reason. Outside business hours, a short message with your opening hours is better than waiting in an empty queue.

What to check

• Wait times. Every minute in the queue costs the organization. A well-organized queue, a callback and a queue-position announcement all shorten the time.
• Calls outside business hours. What the caller hears, and whether the call should end with a short message instead of a long wait.
• Dialing from abroad. Toll-free numbers usually work only from within the country.
• Tracking. Call reports by number, so you know what the number really costs and what it brings in.

When it pays off: a one-page calculation

The question "should we open a toll-free number?" comes down to simple math, and you can do it before you commit. You need three numbers: how many calls per month, how many minutes an average call lasts, and what one call is worth to the organization.

Say an order line for a business gets 500 calls a month, averaging 4 minutes per call. That is 2,000 minutes the business will pay for. If one call in ten ends in an order, that is 50 orders. Now the question is clear: are 50 orders worth the bill for 2,000 minutes, and above all, how many of the 500 callers would not have called if the call had cost them money? If the answer is "almost all of them would have called anyway," the toll-free number did not add much. If the audience counts every minute, it brought in the orders.

Signs it is worth it:

• A call brings in direct revenue: an order, a donation, a registration.
• The audience is price-sensitive: older adults, limited phone plans, people in distress.
• The organization is measured on accessibility, for example a helpline or a service it is required to provide.
• Calls are short and to the point.

Signs it is less worth it:

• Long support calls that are unrelated to a sale.
• Many idle or repeat calls from the same callers.
• An audience that calls anyway, such as regular customers with an unlimited plan.
• A queue with a long wait that cannot be shortened any time soon.

A good way to decide is an experiment: publish the toll-free number in one place only, for example in a newsletter for a specific audience, and after two months compare the number of calls and the results against the regular number. The call log by number gives you the answer without guessing.

Alternatives to a toll-free number

A 1-800 number is one way to remove the cost barrier for the caller. There are a few others, and some are cheaper:

Note the callback row. It gives most of the benefit of a toll-free number, since the caller pays for one minute at most, without paying for every minute of waiting in the queue. A caller reaches a regular number, hears "We'll call you back when an agent is available," confirms, and hangs up. When their turn comes, the PBX dials them and connects them to an agent. The organization pays for one outgoing call, which it would have paid for anyway, and not for ten minutes of music.

And there is an alternative people forget: simply answer quickly. An organization that answers within seconds brings the caller's cost down to a few agorot, and then the difference between toll-free and not almost disappears. Sometimes an extra agent during peak hours is worth more than a 1-800 prefix.

Example: a nonprofit's helpline

A nonprofit that runs a helpline for lonely elderly people decided on a toll-free number, because its audience is exactly the kind that counts every minute. Here is how it set things up to keep the bill under control:

1. The toll-free number serves the helpline only. Donors, suppliers and volunteers get the office's regular number. That way not a single minute of a volunteer meeting is logged on the expensive line.
2. Clear hours. The line is open from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. Outside those hours, a twenty-second message plays: "The line is open during the hours of... In an urgent case, leave a message and we will call you back." No empty queue playing music at night.
3. No menu. Someone calling a helpline wants a person. The call goes straight into the volunteers' queue, with a one-sentence greeting.
4. A hunt group for the on-duty person. When no volunteer is free for a minute, the call moves to the on-duty person's mobile. A long wait on a toll-free line costs money and loses callers.
5. A monthly look at the log. At the end of each month the coordinator looks at three numbers: how many calls, the average duration, and how many hung up while waiting. A rise in average duration is a sign the volunteers need a shorter script, and a rise in hang-ups means another volunteer is needed at that hour.

The result: a line whose cost is predictable, because every minute on it is a minute of conversation with someone who truly needs it.

When the bill jumps: symptoms and causes

The call log is the main tool here. Before deciding to close a toll-free number "because it's expensive," see where the minutes come from. In most cases they come from waiting, not from conversation.