Gone are the days where only large corporations can afford Interactive Voice Response Systems for their business (AKA- IVR Systems) it was no more than a few years ago that companies would find that they would have to spend at least £1,000 to have their own push button IVR Call Management System.

These days though due to stiff competition companies with as little as just 1 employee can adopt their own IVR Software for as little as £149.99, which includes 9 push button prompts (press 1 for sales, press 2 for accounts etc), Online Call Management, Call Statistics and even Whisper Call - which designed for small businesses notifies the person who answers the phone which person / department the caller requires before he/she’s connected.

However when revenue finally ends on 0870 numbers, this year or next it is likely that hunderds of businesses who use 0870 phone numbers with their Hosted IVR System that there going to find that their line rental on these lines and their IVR system will shoot straight up, why? Because not only will their business no longer receive revenue from their 0870 calls but neither will their telecoms provider!

So the telecoms provider will be looking to fill this void and my prediction is that many will increase or begin charging a ludicrious line rental or possibly even a INBOUND call charge, which obvioulsy defeats the object of revenue generating 0870 phone lines! So if you want my advice I’d recommend if you have a 0870 number at the moment consider phasing it out and introduce a revenue generating 0871 number or local rate 0844 number.