The Ecommerce Workshop

Does your company still advertise using 0870 numbers? Are you a customer with a strong viewpoint for or against?

Well, I remember when grabbing an 0845 or 0870 number meant your business looked professional, big, or indeed gave it a corporate image that belied it’s true status.

Now that many telephone service providers, including mobile services, include free calls to any network or a fixed landline, could this be the end for non-geographical telephone numbers (such as 0116 etc.)

I have spoken with quite a few of my clients over the last few months and the camp is till divided.

Many of them like the corporate image an 0870 number portrays but some have ditched this number completely.

Well, here are my two cents as both a customer and a consultant.

As a customer, if the product or service I am looking for can only be supplied by this company and they only use an 0870 number. I will first try and spot any online contact method (form, email etc.) If none are available, then I shall bite the bullet and call them…even if it does cost me Xp per minute!

But if there are other options, they will rapidly slide down my list. Why? Not because I am a tightwad..honest, but because I feel they have not looked at their customer demographic close enough!

As a consultant, I would advise against using this number alone. If you wish to  keep the number then by all means do, after all you have paid for it. But in the interest of your customers, ADD A GEOGRAPHICAL (OR FREEPHONE) NUMBER TOO.

So, as you embark on buying that new company stationery (did I mention you can get free business cards from VistaPrint…), think hard.

What does your telephone number say to your customers.

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Try the steps below as we will see if your laptop can FTP:

1. Make sure that your Port 21 is open in your Vista Firewall.
2. Check to see if you can connect to the server using the active mode.
3. Open up the command prompt
4. Type ftp (lowercase) and press enter
5. type open sitename.com and then press enter
6. Enter your name and password when asked
7. Type dir and then press enter. If you can then see the directory structure of the FTP server then you know that you can connect.
8. Type close and press enter
9. Type quit and press enter
10. Change settings in IE 7 (I have only tested this fix with IE7)
11. Under the Advanced tab in IE Tools\Options
12. IMPORTANT: Uncheck the “Use Passive FTP (for firewall and DSL modem…) checkbox
13. Check the “Enable FTP folder view (outside of Internet Explorer” checkbox

Mapping FTP drives
This may be slightly non-intuitive too. You have to map a drive to the FTP server in order to preserve the settings of the server.

Open Windows Explorer
Choose Tools\Map Network Drive menu
Click the “Connect to a Web site that you can use… ” link.
Follow the instructions…

I have assumed you are using windows vista (if not, you can buy it here and save over £10 on the upgrade) if not, let me know….

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