Mobile numbers Vs land lines

bullfrog007

A questions if someone can answer it for me:

I have a landscape business, and I use a mobile number as my main, and only contact number on my website.

What I am wondering is,

Does a mobile number on its own give a potential customer a 'This guy might be a bit dodgy' feeling or has the market accepted mobile numbers on their own

I am always looking to improve my sales, and its something I have thought about. If I change the mobile number on my website to a land line number, or have both, could it help encourage more customers over the sales line.

Another question if anyone can help. Does the domestic market place tend to stick to whats familiar to it.
My business address is based in the Southside of Dublin, walkinstown to be excat. I provide a service all over Dublin, but for some reason, the vast bulk of my orders come into the Southside, roughly 90%.
I have tried to figure out why the Northside is'nt as busy, and one of the ideas that popped into my head was that potential customers might look at my business address, walkinstown, and then feel I am too far away from them in the Northside and they would rather use a company closer to themselves.

Now I could be over thinking this problem, but If I was using a landscaper, I would try and use one near to me.
If you think about ordering a Taxi, you would tend to use a local operator, as opposed to a company on the farside of the city.

Any advice or opinion would be great.

premier10

I think it depends on the type of business you are running, if you have an office based business and you only advertise a mobile number it tends to put me off as being a bit amateurish.

However in your line of business if you had a landline, i would still ring the mobile because i'd kinda be thinking "this lad is hardly going to be sitting on the couch waiting for the landline to ring"

You could get a landline and divert it to your mobile if you thought it would help.

Re the north/south side debate, it's like 2 different countries, people prefer to stay local, someone they know, or someone they've heard of.

Oasis678

In relation to the northside/ southside issue maybe you could try giving an address in the northside as well to see if that would get you some business. You can google virtual office which will get you a postal address on the northside that you can use.think these start from around 40 yo yos a month or you might have a good friend who will let you use his address. good luck

On the phone number get a landline and have it diverted to your mobile number.
For the northside, on your website say "We cover Blanchardstown, Coolock, Finglas" you don't need to say your address is there. That could be the ticket!

NathanKingerlee

I think mobile numbers are fairly well accepted for certain professions, like 'premier10' says. In a way you can kind of hide the mobile part of it by having the number as +353 (0) xx xxx xxxx.

I think there's nothing worse than multiple phone numbers, so whatever you go for I think you should just have one printed number, which can always divert to another number if need be. You'll probably pay for each phone number that's diverted though - I know we do.

With a professional voice message and a proper email address; not a xxx@eircom.net or xxx@hotmail.com address, but xxx@dublinlandscaping.com; these are the main things as opposed to mobile or landline number. Down in Kerry/Cork most of the business work vans have mobile numbers on them.

Instead of your address being printed, if you bullet-pointed the areas you serviced, would that work? You could begin the bullet points with the quiet areas you're trying to move into, with your current areas bullet-pointed below that; as the current areas sounds like there taking care of themselves.

DubTony

Re the phone number. I'd definitely have a landline. I looked at a van the other day for a guy who installs new gutters and facia. The only number was a mobile and the other contact info was a hotmail address. The reg on the van was a 2 year old Cavan reg, and I saw him in Tallaght. The whole thing just looked dodgy to me. I'd definitely have a landline, and I'd be inclined to use it to confirm appointments as it will ensure customers that you're not just a fly-by-night operation.

As for going Northside. Why? If your southside business is bringing in 90% of your work, why not try to concentrate more in given areas. This could help you reduce traveling costs, and if you encourage customers to give you referrals (offer a one off discount or one off free extra service - you could clean their gutters ) you'll be more inclined to get new business. Word of mouth has a lot going for it, and a good service business that operates in this manner can almost cut out advertising costs completely.

danbohan

DubTony wrote: »

Re the phone number. I'd definitely have a landline. I looked at a van the other day for a guy who installs new gutters and facia. The only number was a mobile and the other contact info was a hotmail address. The reg on the van was a 2 year old Cavan reg, and I saw him in Tallaght. The whole thing just looked dodgy to me. I'd definitely have a landline, and I'd be inclined to use it to confirm appointments as it will ensure customers that you're not just a fly-by-night operation.

As for going Northside. Why? If your southside business is bringing in 90% of your work, why not try to concentrate more in given areas. This could help you reduce traveling costs, and if you encourage customers to give you referrals (offer a one off discount or one off free extra service - you could clean their gutters ) you'll be more inclined to get new business. Word of mouth has a lot going for it, and a good service business that operates in this manner can almost cut out advertising costs completely.

The reg on the van was a 2 year old Cavan reg,

that might explain the lack of a landline , costs old boy

i think its much better to have a landline as well as a mobile maybe am just old fashioned

AndyJB

bullfrog007 wrote: »

A questions if someone can answer it for me:

I have a landscape business, and I use a mobile number as my main, and only contact number on my website.

What I am wondering is,

Does a mobile number on its own give a potential customer a 'This guy might be a bit dodgy' feeling or has the market accepted mobile numbers on their own

I am always looking to improve my sales, and its something I have thought about. If I change the mobile number on my website to a land line number, or have both, could it help encourage more customers over the sales line.

Another question if anyone can help. Does the domestic market place tend to stick to whats familiar to it.
My business address is based in the Southside of Dublin, walkinstown to be excat. I provide a service all over Dublin, but for some reason, the vast bulk of my orders come into the Southside, roughly 90%.
I have tried to figure out why the Northside is'nt as busy, and one of the ideas that popped into my head was that potential customers might look at my business address, walkinstown, and then feel I am too far away from them in the Northside and they would rather use a company closer to themselves.

Now I could be over thinking this problem, but If I was using a landscaper, I would try and use one near to me.
If you think about ordering a Taxi, you would tend to use a local operator, as opposed to a company on the farside of the city.

Any advice or opinion would be great.

Hi,
I'm maybe a bit old fashioned but I'd always prefer calling a landline number. Just gives that feel of traceability.

Instead of paying line rental for an '01' number you could get a VoIP number from someone like Blueface.ie for about €10 p/month (I'm a user not an employee!!). I receive calls at my desk via my VoIP phone but you could just as easy divert calls to your mobile. When not diverted there's an answer machine service that e-mails the voice messages. As an iPhone user I can make and receive VoIP calls when I'm out and about in wifi hot spots (most shopping centres, hotels and pubs). When I call from VoIP my customers see call coming from my VoIP landline number.

May sound complicated but it's actually very easy to setup.

On the south/northside thing as someone has already mentioned if your business is all local(ish) stick with that and build on it for the moment. A €300 job southside is worth more to you than the same northside. Time there & back, traffic and maybe tolls on M50 etc etc.

Best of luck.

Acoshla

I have a mobile number for my business, and a hotmail email too actually, but I find that in my line of business it's never been a problem, as it's not a big operation so the mobile number doesn't seem too dodgy, most people know it's only me working there so having one direct contact number isn't a problem.

For me as a customer it would depend on the business whether it affected my opinion or not. For example if it was a tradesman who worked for himself a mobile number would seem normal, a guy on the go, but if it was an office based company I would assume they would have a landline number.

Fergal C

I agree with the view that you should also have a land line number. I feel that it is more trustworthy and when deciding between two service providers I'd be inclined to chose the one that had a land line.

I also think the suggestion of focusing on your strengths and building the business in your area is a great one.