What are vanity numbers and how do they work?

Virtual telephone numbers, such a Freephone or Premium Rate numbers, are
intended to encourage potential clients to call. These numbers help
create a professional brand image of an organisation that serves a
nationwide audience, and they are - if chosen well - easy to memorise. 

To make your Freephone or Premium Rate number even easier to remember, register a vanity number. 

In this article we talk about what vanity numbers are, how to dial
them and why a vanity number would be the perfect choice for your
organisation.

What is a vanity number

The easiest way to explain what a vanity number is, is by giving you some examples.

Supermarket giant Lidl uses vanity number 0900-LIDLINFO for its customer service in the Netherlands. 

Another example would be 1-800-FLOWERS for the U.S.-based flower delivery service. 

Vanity numbers work because a word is easier to remember than the
number combination it replaces. How that works is what we’ll show next.

How to dial a vanity number

Take a look at the dial screen of your mobile phone or the dial pad
of the telephone on your desk. You’ll notice how below each of the
numbers 2 through to 9 there are three letters printed. 

Dialing a vanity number is as simple as pressing - letter by letter -
the corresponding keys. So to dial 1-800-FLOWERS, you would type 1 800
3569377.

You can see how “FLOWERS” is much easier to remember than “3569377”.
Replacing the numbers in your telephone number with a word makes your
number instantly memorable.

The length of a vanity number depends on the length of telephone
numbers in a given country. Prefixes are never included in the vanity
word.

Vanity words do not, however, have to exactly match the length of the
telephone number. They can be several characters longer. The extra
characters will simply be ignored by the telephone network.

The advantages of vanity numbers

Australian research has shown that the use of vanity numbers results
in a significantly higher conversion rate for businesses. According to
the research, incoming phonecalls can go up by as much as 290% when a vanity number is used, as compared to using a regular telephone number.

Vanity numbers offer unique opportunities for those who wish to
market and promote their businesses in an original way. In a separate
article we will talk using vanity numbers for marketing and branding.

Getting your own vanity number

The availability of vanity numbers differs from country to country.
Depending on the country of your interest, our staff can help find,
register and set up your own vanity number.

Just tell us what you're looking for and we will do the rest.