1-800-Gone

Kevin Maney at USA Today:

The 800-number — for 40 years a part of daily American life — is doomed. Like what happened to pay phones. And milkmen.

This would be very bad news for phone companies, which rake in $12 billion a year from toll-free numbers.

The 800-number’s destiny first occurred to me a couple of months ago as I stood outside a neighborhood hardware store looking at Weber gas grills. On each grill was a sticker that said if you have any questions, call this 800-number.

Clever, right? Just about anyone who is out looking at Weber grills is probably carrying a cellphone. And a Weber call center person no doubt can explain the grill better than a part-time hardware store clerk.

Except there’s something odd about this equation. Just about everyone who has a cellphone has a flat rate package for local and long-distance calls. In other words, as I stood there with my phone, there really would’ve been no difference whether I called a toll-free 800-number or a “toll” 847 area code number at Weber’s headquarters in Palatine, Ill. Both calls would’ve cost me essentially nothing.

But if I call Weber’s 800-number, the call costs Weber at least a few cents a minute. Those calls add up to millions of dollars a year for a company like Weber.

Huh, I thought. Why would a company spend all that money it didn’t have to spend?

At some point, this will reach a tipping point. Companies will decide they no longer need an 800-number to allow the vast majority of consumers to reach them. When you add it all up, the toll-free-number industry is just going to collapse.