Vanity numbers and phone systems that make you spell first or last names should become extinct for businesses that expect people to dial from a cell phone.
RIM (Blackberry) has a 41% market share of smart phones and the overall smart phone market is 15.2% of all cell-phone users. Blackberry’s are great phones (I use one personally), however one thing Blackberries don’t do is show you the alpha keypad translation like a land-line phone.
Go ahead, try calling a company phone system and typing in the name Swatorski, Zlinksy, or even Jones on your first try from a Blackberry. Call 422-Blue to reach the St. Louis Blues or 1888-GET CHARTER... you get it. Now try it while driving - whoops, watch out.
Vanity numbers promise improved sales and brand recognition because a consumer can commit to memory and dial later - that still makes sense for consumers. However, if your target audience is comprised of business people than give it up. Companies should be striving to make it easier to buy or service their customers, but, now they are upsetting 41% of business users with a bad brand touch, or worse, no touch at all (I still haven’t figured out how to dial charter!).
