Changes to Consumer numbers December 2022

We are making changes to the numbers which connect callers to the consumer service. Some of you will need to take action as a consequence of these changes.

Background

We are moving to a new telephony provider in December. In preparation for this we have taken stock of all numbers currently pointing to the IVR - this is the main phone menu for the Consumer Service.

For all our current numbers we have considered the following:

What is the purpose of the number?

What is the current usage?
If the number was discontinued what would be the impact?

We have 321 numbers within our Consumer Service. A significant proportion are not public facing but allocated to trading standards. We would like to streamline these in preparation for our system move so that this can be as efficient as possible and reduce any unnecessary cost and technical complexity.

Analysis of TS numbers

What is the purpose of the number?

Originally 08 numbers were allocated to individual TS so that we could track the rate of calls which transfer to the service from different partners but this is something on which we no longer need to track or report.

What is the current usage?

We have analysed traffic through the numbers over a 6 month period. Of the 264 numbers, 187 have had no calls during this period so would appear to be effectively obsolete. Of the remaining numbers 46 had fewer than 10 calls during this period.

Our decision

Given the above findings we have decided to only maintain the most frequently used number.

Going forward this number can be used by multiple partners with no impact as we have no requirement to track at such a granular level how a customer has routed to the service.

The number being maintained for the purpose of transferring from Trading Standards to the consumer service is 08081566720. This number has been used by Bristol TS previously.

What you need to do

If you wish to continue giving clients the option to transfer directly to the consumer service from your own telephony menu, you will need to instruct your IT / telephony provider to change from your programmed number to 08081566720.

As these numbers should only be ‘behind the scenes’ there should be no requirement to update any public facing information, but you may wish to check that you are providing up to date information about consumer service numbers.

See our public website for details of our freephone numbers.

Timeline

You can make this change as soon as you wish but we appreciate you may need some lead time. The existing numbers will remain active until the end of November and after this the client will hear a message asking them to redial and the call will not be connected. This message will only stay on until early next year and at that point the numbers will be completely discontinued.

Public Facing numbers

We have also made the decision to discontinue the non-free phone consumer numbers. The consumer service introduced free phone numbers in February 2020. Since then we have had a message on the old numbers to advise that a freephone alternative is available but we have continued to connect calls to the service. We have been monitoring traffic through this number and it has significantly dwindled with the vast majority of clients now contacting our freephone numbers.

From December our non-freephone 03 numbers (England - 0345 4040506 and Welsh speaking - 0345 4040505) will no longer connect callers to the consumer service. Clients will hear a message asking them to redial on the freephone number - England 0808 223 1133 and Welsh speaking 0808 223 1144.

From early 2023 this number will be completely discontinued so there will be no message for clients.

Please ensure that in all websites and any literature, you provide our up to date freephone contact details.

If you have any questions about the above information, please do not hesitate to get in touch.