How to get a London phone number?

The sixth largest economy on earth is that of the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Northern Ireland). No wonder you want to expand to the capital London with your company, even despite Brexit.

But how do you go about that logistically? A local office, especially within London, requires a hefty investment and may not even be necessary in the early stages. Still, for customers in the London, it is desirable that you are easily accessible to ask questions or make a purchase. An English-language website with a phone number far away is then a turnoff.

With a 204 prefix phone number belonging to London you give this market what it asks for. You show that you know the local customs and serve your customers according to local expectations. Your company shows it is committed and comes across as much more reliable. In addition, a local phone number offers a more favorable calling rate, which makes calling extra attractive.

Available London phone numbers

Belfabriek was already known in Europe for a wide range of phone numbers in Netherlands and Belgium, but did you know that we can also offer phone numbers of basically any city in Europe? One of those cities is London. Which happens to be one of the most popular phone numbers among our customers.

What prefix does London have?

As already mentioned earlier in this article, the prefix of London is 204. Other variations you might run into are 203, 207 and 208.

History of London phone numbers

Around the turn of the millenium, the British telecom authority Ofcom, decided that all London phone numbers should start with (0)20. In 2000 they introduced 0207 and 0208 phone numbers. In 2005, 0203 was added as well. These number groups were enough to satisfy demand up until 2019. London was running out of phone numbers. Hence, Ofcom introduced 204 phone numbers. As of this moment, around 30 million 0203, 0207, 0208 exist. There are 10 million possible phone numbers per range. As you can imagine, most easy to remember phone numbers in those ranges have long been gone.

Because 0203, 0207, 0208 phone numbers are running out, Belfabriek cannot offer these.
However, no need to be disappointed. The latest addition 0204 can be registered through Belfabriek. We can help you register your preferred 0204 phone number. This can be a phone number that is easy to remember for yourself and your customers (provided it hasn't been registered already). Let us help you register your ideal 0204 London phone number.

National alternatives

In case you do not want to be tied to London only. Consider national phone numbers. These UK based phone numbers speak to customers from Brighton up to Edinburgh.

Toll free 0800 and 0808 phone numbers

A Freephone number is a phone number that is free to the caller, as long as that person calls from a landline. When someone calls a Freephone number in the UK from a cell phone, the caller will be charged a minimal fee. Exactly how high these are depends on the provider. Some mobile providers in the UK even stop charging a minute rate at all for calls to NGOs, for example.

These toll-free 0800 and 0808 phone numbers are not tied to a particular city or region. Because it is free or at least cheap for callers, they are happy to grab the phone to call you. A Freephone number is great to use as a loss leader for organizations where calls often lead to sales, reservations, quote requests or donations. Examples include pizzerias, cab companies and charities.

In the UK, a Freephone number started with 0500 until the year 2014, but gradually all numbers were being moved to the 0800 and 0808 prefixes. At the Belfabriek, you can easily register a Freephone number that starts with 0800 or 0808. UK customers nowadays expect toll free phone numbers to start with 08xx. It is not expected that this will change anytime soon. Therefore buying a 0800 or 0808 phone number is a future proof investment.

National 030 Numbers

Numbers beginning with 030 are non-geographic numbers with a local rate. This rate is the same for subscribers with a landline as with a cell phone.

The 030 numbers are also usually within subscriptions with a fixed number of call minutes, so many callers will consider this a 'free' number. This makes 030 numbers an attractive alternative to a Freephone or Premium Rate number.

Other local numbers

You can also turn to Belfabriek for other local phone numbers.

For example Manchester 01618, Leeds 0113, Glasgow 01418, Belfast 02895, Cardiff 02921, 01 Dublin, Birmingham 01213 and 01214. These are just a few examples. As noted, you can register the local phone number of any city in the United Kingdom. Contact our support staff to assist you without obligation.

Registering your own virtual UK phone number

Whether you want to register a phone number in London or any other UK city, at Belfabriek you can easily handle the application online. We will take away all the headache dealing with British agencies.

In our UK numbers shop you will find a sample list of available numbers. Do you see a suitable number in the list? Then you can order your own England service number from us today.

If you do not see the number of your choice, or if you have any questions, please contact our customer service by phone, e-mail or contact form. Our English, German, Spanish and Dutch speaking customer service will be happy to answer them.

Many extras

Whichever UK number(s) you choose, at Belfabriek you will enjoy a host of free extras. Thanks to our Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system we can port your London number to any phone in the world. This way you can easily handle incoming calls from the wherever you are based. That's a good thing to have when it's still a bit too early for you to open a physical office in the UK.

The IVR makes it possible to link many functions to your UK telephone number. In fact, we make optimum use of that possibility. With our additional features, you not only improve your callers' experience and thus create additional goodwill, but you also learn how to get the most out of your telephone department. Specifically, you will receive the following extras with your UK number.

Call statistics

My Belfabriek is an extensive statistics dashboard that shows you how many incoming calls you have had, what the busiest hours are, which numbers you are called from most often, and so on. The statistics are updated live, so that you can, for example, immediately deploy more staff when the pressure demands it.

Queue

What about when all your employees are busy? The call queue plays the music of your choice and periodically tells callers how many are waiting before them. If the queue is too long, you can ask them to leave a message.

Digital answering machine

Also free is the digital answering machine feature. Callers can leave a message and you will immediately receive an e-mail with the link to the audio recording. So if you want, you can take immediate action and call back.

Selection menu

Callers may have a variety of questions. With a selection menu you can quickly put them through to the right department and the right person. The menu creates calm in your department and prevents unnecessary manual transfer.

Call recording

Allows you to record every phone conversation with your
British callers, which is ideal for quality control and setting training goals.

Register your London phone number now

As you can see, when seriously attacking such a large
market, it is important to have all the details in perfect order. More than a
detail, a phone number is a communication channel with which you answer
questions, create goodwill, generate leads and score direct or indirect sales.
If only the best is enough for you, you've come to the right place.

Register your professional London phone number today and
within a few days you will benefit from your international reach and the many
extras our cloud based phone system offers.