Numeric Futures Services Glossary

UK NGN – These are Non Geographic Numbers or Virtual Numbers and include 0800 numbers, 0845 numbers, 0871 numbers, 0844 numbers and 090x numbers. Depending on your use case you may want to choose the appropriate number type as some are free for the caller and others offer a rebate to you. Numeric Futures rebates are rates are the most competitive around. Compare our pricing with our competitors and see for yourself.

IVR – Interactive Voice Response is the technology that provides the ability to automate interactions from a caller. These can be pre-recorded voice prompts and menu options that are presented to a caller. The touch tone telephopne keypad entry is captured by the IVR and determines the flow of the call. Modern IVR platforms can also offer the ability to recognise speech (voice recognition) and roite calls appropriately to either pre-recorded messages to transfer calls to an advisor or call centre agent.  

Contact Centre – A facility used by companies to manage all customer contacts through a number of channels or mediums including phone, fax, email, SMS, web chat, letter and increasingly social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This ability to manage multiple contact mediums in one platform has become very important to reduce costs, centralise management and good reporting across the board.  

International Toll Free Numbers – This is essentially a Freephone number (toll-free).  0800, 800 0r 1-800 number is a special type of phone number that is free for the caller. The cost of the call is charged by the carrier to the called party (company). This is primarily a sales tool to attract callers or allow customers to reach you without any call cost to them.

Worldwide Local Numbers – These are local phone numbers allocated in the desired Country and City that can be pointed to any destination number globally. You may want to offer a local phone number in Australia for customers to be able to contact you easily from Australia without incurring International call costs. These numbers can be pointed to your number of choice, mobile or landline based in the UK or anywhere in the world.