I have a friend that is starting a business and is trying to decide whether to go with one phone number over another. The one phone number would be XXX-888-9877, and the other number would XXX-603-1314. Those are the choices that the phone company have for them. She asked what my opinion was and I told her that I thought that the number that is XXX-888-9877 would be the best one because it to me is much easier to remember. Sure it would be great to have XXX-888-8888 but those numbers are very hard to get. She said that she would like to get some other opinions so I thought I would post them on here and see what this board might come up with. It just seems logical that the one that is XXX-888-9877 is much easier than the other choice but she wanted to get more opinions.
I don't have to remember any numbers, they're all just sitting in my phone, available to me at any time and with virtually no effort. If I have to look up a number then it really doesn't matterwhat it is. If I think I'll need to call it morethan once it goes into my contact list. As technology develops these sorts of issues are quickly becoming non-issues.
My vote is for 603-1314. To me this seems easier to remember. :scratchchin: Hope this helps. As a sidenote, I also agree with Kizmet. I don't recall learning/memorizing new phone numbers lately as most of them are just stored in my smart phone. And if I need a phone number then I look it up on my phone.
I vote for XXX-888-9877, because that one, to me, seems easier to remember and because the proximity of the digits has more of an "I meant to do that" feel to it. We don't know what business your friend is starting, so it's tough to say whether easy memorization matters, but the digit proximity makes it look more professional, as does the 888 repetition.
I vote for the 888 number as well. When I opened my business many moons ago, the phone company accidentally gave me a 5050 number that was reserved for the annual muscular dystrophy local donation line. Fortunately they found out their mistake quickly and changed it before I bought all my marketing materials. Then they offered me two numbers that were somewhat close (but certainly not as memorable at the time) and I chose what I thought would be best, and it's worked out. My competitor has a number that you can spell out, and he pushed that for a long time, but lately I notice he's given up and just publishes the numbers now.
One of the few times it matters, I think, is if one is doing radio or TV advertising. During the 9 years we were marketing the Edinburgh Business School MBA in North America, we did a lot of radio advertising.* Ads were much more productive after we acquired (through a number broker) 800-MBA-0505. She might also consider Google Voice. They have tens of thousands of phone numbers available for free, which can be linked to any other number . . . and a really nifty search engine to find numbers that spell words. I was able to get [area code] 564-6232, which spells out "JOHN BEAR." I used it regularly for a while, but I've backed away from it, since the letters on many phones are very small, and on some phones non-existent. ________ ** Radio spots are extremely variable in price based on time. When we were doing it, a minute of drive time on a popular station was $1,000 while a minute on the same station at 3 in the morning was $50. I proposed running 3 am ads saying, in effect, "Hey, if you're listening to the radio now, your probably either unemployed or working at some dead end job. Would you be interested in a good on-line MBA?" The folks in Scotland said, "No, thanks."
I heard once that radio ads should strive to repeat the number at least 3 times so listeners would remember it long enough to call. I wonder if that is dying off now.
