Non-Geographic Numbers and Premium Rate Services | Cortel Telecom Ltd - Unified Business Communications, Mobile Phones, VoIP, CPS, PBX and SIP Gateways

Non-Geographic Numbers and Premium Rate Services

The strategic use of phone numbers can have a big impact on business. In some instances, freephone numbers are beneficial, as you encourage people to contact you by paying for their call. In others, such as competitions, sports news or results, traffic or weather updates, you can ask customers to pay for the call they make by setting up a Premium Rate Number. They're happy to do so, as they're receiving a valuable service, and it is great for you too, as you earn money from every call you receive.

Who It's For

  • Any company who offers information services such as traffic or weather updates, financial news, sports news, specialist information, horoscopes or tarot readings.
  • Businesses such as computer software companies who need to provide a help line. The cost of providing the service is offset against the revenue generated from the calls.
  • Any business operating a short-term sales promotion or competition. The cost of the incentive is offset against the revenue generated from the calls.
  • Charities wanting to set up lines for donations.

How It Can Benefit Your Business

  • Your customers have one number to dial from anywhere in the country to get the help, support or information they need. 
  • You earn a portion of the income generated from each call you receive, which we pass directly on to you.
  • As an optional extra, you have access to on-line reports, using our Customer Report Generator, which shows you how well your numbers are working and allows you to monitor and control call patterns. This helps you make informed management decisions about how you develop your Premium Rate Numbers and improve business efficiency.
  • You can activate new numbers remotely via a dial-up mechanism using Remote Number Provisioning. This reduces the time it takes to get a new number up and running to within 4 working hours (working hours are from 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday).

What It Does

  • Provides an income from incoming calls made to your numbers. 
  • Offers a choice of tariffs, from 5p to £1.50 per minute, or a Single Drop Charge where a fixed payment is made for each call
  • Enables you to choose the call answering option that suits your business requirements, such as a pre-recorded message, interactive routing or a live service, manned by your personnel. 
  • Routes calls intelligently, depending on your requirements.

Routing Options Include:

  1. Date of year.
  2. Day of week.
  3. Time of day.
  4. Distribution - calls are routed between different call centres dependent on agreed percentages.
  5. Diversion - calls can be forwarded to alternative locations if lines are busy or unanswered.
  6. Geographical - calls can be routed to specific answering points based on their area or origin.

How It Works

Premium Rate Numbers provide a suite of numbers for incoming calls from customers. Your business may only need one telephone number, or it may need several. We can set up as many as are appropriate for your requirements. You decide on the tariff the customer pays, and you earn an agreed portion of the revenue generated.

Our Commitment To You

  • We make sure Premium Rate Numbers are easy to control and manage as we can support sophisticated and complex call routing plans. 
  • We provide each customer with a personal account manager. 
  • Premium Rate Numbers are available nationwide. 
  • We can set up the service within 5 working days. 
  • We install the Customer Report Generator and train your staff to use it. 
  • We can also install Remote Number Provisioning and train your staff. 
  • All Premium Rate Numbers are regulated and, in some cases, monitored by the Independent Committee for the Supervision of standards of Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS).