by Mark Waldin, Inside Edge, 11/08/11 Ever since the advent of caller id service companies have used out of area area codes to screen incoming calls. They’ve known that anyone calling from a remote area code was a sales person wanting nothing more than to waste their time. For this reason many/most service companies do not answer calls coming from out of area. They are making a big mistake.
With the advent of number portability and cell phones, the use of random area code numbers has been growing exponentially. Most people moving from one geography to another DO NOT BOTHER TO CHANGE THEIR PHONE NUMBER. I have been monitoring the growth of this phenomena for some time and have considered it a small nuisance. My customers that reject these calls have only lost opportunities marginally.
Since early summer this has radically changed. In order to stay close to the service market and direct response marketing I run my own direct to consumer service company. The business is seasonal with traffic building in August and becoming extremely robust by October. This season I have out-of-area area codes associated with legitimate prospects explode. As many as 20% of the inbound (legitimate) calls are now out-of-area.
The conclusion is simple, service companies that ignore out-of-area inbound calls do so at their own peril.
