When choosing an inbound number type it's always wise to consider your customers and competitors.
Inviting your customers to call you free of charge demonstrates the value you place on their business and your desire to communicate with them. The benefits of 0800 and 0808 Freephone numbers have been proven over many years by companies and organisations of all sizes and in many sectors.
0845 local rate numbers are an excellent business all rounder, they can be used to generate new business and also for customer service and support.
Customers pay only fractionally more than they would to call a UK local geographic number but can be in the same local area as you or hundreds of miles away. You do not pay the full cost of the call as with 0800 & 0808 numbers, you share the cost with your customer
0844 numbers are increasingly being used by companies both large and small, as a replacement for 0870 numbers. Unlike 0845 and 0800, no call charges are levied to you, in fact, depending on the volumes of calls you receive, we will make a revenue share payment to you.
The cost to the caller remains the same regardless of time of day or day of week; you can choose the tariff your customers will pay from 2 ppm through to 5 ppm though the range of choice tends to be 5 ppm. 0844 numbers can also used for low cost international dialling and as contact numbers for UK based friends and family of ex-pats - we would simply point an 0844 number to your home in Europe, USA or Australia and your callers would pay as little as 3 pence per minute.
0870 numbers are known as national rate numbers and are charged at the same cost to the caller wherever they call from within the UK; generally daytime calls are charged at 6 to 8 pence per minute during business hours with costs to call reducing at evenings and weekends.
Whilst it is typically perceived that the attraction of 0870 numbers to businesses promoting them is the revenue share payments received, they are in fact the only non geographic number range that can be called from outside the UK so they are invaluable to any company or organization with an international client base or workforce.
There has been much confusion in recent months due to OfCom's announced intention to align the cost to call 0870 numbers with the cost to call 01 and 02 numbers thus removing the revenue share and generally creating a cost per minute to the number owner. Unforeseen technical problems resulted in OfCom putting their plans on hold however it is anticipated that 0870 numbers will attract call costs from Autumn 2008.
With generous revenue share payments, 0871 numbers are utilised by companies and organisations that need to generate income from inbound calls. They are ideal for customer support desks, technical advice lines, ticket agencies, hotel reservation desks and charities.
03 numbers have recently been launched by the industry regulator OfCom. The new 03 numbers range will formally be known as 'UK-wide' numbers and are being introduced as an alternative to 08 business phone numbers, such as 0870 and 0871 numbers.
Consumers will have a clear understanding of the price that they are paying to call 03 numbers, as the cost of calling will be the same as calls to 01 and 02 geographic numbers.
The 030 range has been designated by OfCom for use by Public Bodies and Non Profit organisations. The range includes prefixes 0300 and 0303. Diva will be delighted to investigate your eligibility for 030 numbers and will source a memorable number for you where this is confirmed.
The 033 range does not carry eligibly criteria and therefore are open to any business or organisation who wishes to use them.
03xx numbers will be opened up for international access but estimated timescales are circa 2010, though some countries will open up the ranges prior to that date.
For businesses who require a UK presence or specific city location, but do not have a physical office and do not wish to take a UK 08 or 03 number, we can offer local geographic numbers; we have number ranges in most major UK cities.
We can route calls to all UK fixed numbers, UK mobiles, all international fixed and mobile numbers.

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