What does your phone number say about you?

I am not talking about numerology and your business phone number!

Rather, I am talking about the actual presentation of your business phone number. Take a look online, or go through your hoard of business cards. You’ll see five basic categories of phone number presentation:

• Dashes: 616-241-5195
• Parens: (616) 241-5195
• Dots: 616.241.5195
• Nothing: 616 241 5195
• Unique: 616/241/5195 or (616) 241/5195…or some other odd hybrid.

Same information. Five different approaches. What does each say about you and your company?

I went though a stack of 205 business cards that I started throwing in a fruit cake tin about 6 years ago. Here is what I found in my not-at-all-random sample (after all, I don’t keep every b-card in my fruitcake tin!):

• Dashes: 54
• Parens: 72
• Dots: 36
• Nothing: 15
• Unique: 28

Why did I do this? I did this because clients present their phone numbers in one of these five basic ways. As I write client direct marketing copy, I often have to think “are they parens people, or are they dash people? How do I present their phone number in the copy? Is it important to my client’s identity to remain consistent with the phone number presentation?”

So I started to wonder: which way is best for each company? Which style represents the company in the most optimal way? What should I recommend to different companies as we go through business system designs?

I have to admit, I have my own bias. I’m pragmatic about phone numbers: I want the right people to call me at the right time. So this is what I was thinking before I began my little research project:

• Dashes are the best. They are the easiest to read. It should be a standard. The phone book uses dashes, and that’s good enough for me.
• Parentheses look old-fashioned... and visually bulky and cumbersome. Clunky. They take up too much space.
• Dots look like IP addresses, and I roll my eyes whenever I see them. They look self-important and self-conscious, as if screaming “we’re trying to be all hip and fashionable and techno-trendy here”.
• Unique styles smack of desperation. They’re trying to look different for the sake of looking different. It’s a phone number, for Gawd’s sake. You want people to call you, not be impressed because you had the temerity to use a slash when a dash would have done. This company spends too much time focusing on the wrong details.
• "Nothing" looks like a printer malfunction. It looks like a lack of commitment. Incomplete. Shoddy.

But how did I come to hold such biases? Perhaps my odd assortment of business cards led me to believe what I believe. After all, I personally touched each card and each business over the past 6 years. And after a cursory review which involved sorting my 205 b-cards, here is what I found:

Parentheses might look old-fashioned….but their businesses stick around for a long time. The companies who use parentheses enjoy longevity: only 11 out of the 72 parentheses style cards in my fruitcake tin are now out of business (about 15%). And many of the out-of-business companies were small businesses that went away because the owner retired or sold the business. And most of the successful companies represented in this pile have been around for decades. Some of the big brand names in this pile include: Whirlpool, EDS, Qualcomm, and the Bank of Montreal.

Dashes say “I’m here to stay”. Of the 54 “dash” presentations, only 5 went out of business (about 9%). And tons of successful small businesses are in this pile: Realtors, car dealers, plumbers, consultants, designers and artists: but this category also contained a number of big names like Caterpillar, Nextel, and Lockheed Martin.

Nothing leads to nothing. Of the 15 business cards I had in my fruit cake tin that used the “nothing” presentation, 5 (33%) are out of business. (Think about that if you’re inclined to just use spaces in your telephone number. ) Some big companies in the “nothing” presentation pile include Arthur Andersen, H&R Block, and Cummins.

Unique seems to work for established businesses. Five of the 28 hybrid/unique style cards are also out of business; but curiously, all 5 are very small businesses. Two ad agencies, one technology consulting firm, an auto detailer, and a rent-a-car shop went out of business. The big brand names from the “unique” category include: AT&T, United Way, and Wachovia.

And the scariest presentation of all… Thirteen out of 36 “dots” style phone number presentations are now out of business. That’s a scary 36%. Four (that I know of) that are still in business are just barely hangin’ on. Most of the cards in this pile are in marketing, advertising, art, design, or new technologies, or some sort of trendy hybrid. Some of the big companies that still use “dots” successfully include Steelcase and Robert Half Technology.

My conclusion? Over the course of 7 years of collecting business cards, I have probably come across my bias for dashes subconsciously.

Dashes seem to say “call me” – which is exactly what you want customers to do if you want to stay in business. And dots seem flaky - exactly the sort of business that isn't in it for the long term.

Oddly, I didn’t think the parentheses style would be so successful. But because it looks so old fashioned, perhaps that gives people a sense of comfort and stability. The idea that a business has been around for a while tends to encourage customer phone calls.

What style of phone number presentation do you use?

¶ 7/27/2006 01:30:00 PM