In today’s mobile-first age, our phone number has become a primary identifier of any individual and organization.

While most customers have eliminated their landlines and are relying on one mobile phone number to be reached, the opposite is true in the business world. Companies can now leverage new technologies to create multiple numbers in order to increase customer engagement. This is why a vanity phone number can be such an effective tool for raising brand awareness, and enhancing a company’s visual identity across online and offline channels.

When a customer can quickly and easily remember a vanity phone number he/she saw on an advertisement or other marketing vehicles, they are more likely to use it. Companies, in turn, can leverage a customer’s mobile number as a unique identifier to facilitate quicker and easier future interactions. Being able to analyze historical data in real-time and determine if the customer is new or has called before, means the caller’s experience can be tailored to provide a higher level of service and support and reduce the cost to their business.

There is a huge opportunity for distributors that offer more than one service to customers, to sell via their mobile phones. Distributors can direct all their channels of an effective multi-channel marketing campaign — phone, email, website, mobile app, chatbot, messaging platforms, etc. — to the one device customers carry with them all day, every day, their cellphone.

When a customer calls that vanity number, the distributor should take the opportunity to direct them to their other communications channels as well. For example: include your email address in the text message, a link to your website where they can begin conducting their own research and/or place an order, or direct them to a messaging platform window where they can pose questions to a human customer service agent or a chatbot.

Another benefit for companies is the ability to create multiple vanity numbers that connect and lead customers back to one central place, whether that is the main office or a call center. This is specifically useful for contractors and distributors since they offer customers multiple services.

Being able to create a vanity number for each service, such as plumbing or HVAC, enables them to advertise each service without having to invest in separate call centers or phone lines.

Today, it’s also possible for companies to share one vanity number across multiple regions, even within one state. Communications networks can detect where someone is calling from using the same geolocation tagging technologies that enable navigation apps to deliver real-time turn-by-turn directions, and connect that customer with the service provider they are looking for in their area.

What that means is that even if a distributor in Los Angeles might be using a certain vanity number, a company in Miami will be able to utilize that same number since only local calls will be transferred to them.