Trying to speed up the 800 Transfer Process
The toll free number transfer process wasn’t really set up with speed or efficiency in mind. It’s designed to give carriers time to try to win the customer back, not to transfer numbers as quickly as possible. But unlike other carriers, my goal is not to keep customers but to process the transfer requests as quickly and efficiently as possible. So in order to speed up the process of transferring a toll free number from one carrier to another I have developed a unique system. Carrier’s aren’t required to use it, but if they do it can speed up the transfer process for you.
The standard process is to contact the carrier you’re moving to and get a Resporg change form (sometimes called an LOA) from them. You fill it out and fax it back to the new carrier. They enter the order and forward the fax up their chain of command through their resporg department. The resporg department then forwards it to the releasing carrier’s resporg department who has a couple days to accept and release the number or reject it. They can only reject it for a couple reasons, basically if any of the information is incorrect, illegible or out of date.
The process overall requires the signed information to pass through several layers of bureaucracy especially in larger phone companies. I often find that smaller companies process these much faster as they tend to have fewer layers of bureaucracy. But there are reasons for bureaucracy too and even though I want a number to be transferred as quickly as possible, I don’t want to release it until the appropriate orders are in place for the number, in order to insure that the number isn’t misplaced.
Conclusion
I preapprove most numbers on my resporg and under my direct control. But whether a carrier wishes to use this expedited process is up to them. Many of the ones which we work with the most generally do, but the larger ones are a little too structured to do anything other than their standard process. I will still respond and approve those within 24 hours or receiving them, quicker than any other regular resporg.
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Joel says:
March 27, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Hi Bill,
We emailed back and forth regarding some advice I was seeking.
Specifically – I have been involved in 800phone sex for almost 20 years. The way the services operate have us place the numbers into the bureau’s name and under their control. They pay the transport fees and pay us based on billable revenue.
I want to know about gaining control over my numbers. I have been reading about and gathering information on the resporg process. If I understand correctly, I could utilize a “be your own resporg” service or an independent resporg — and by doing so, would guarantee that the ownership of the numbers remains with me.
Example: http://oncallresporgsvcs.com/
I understand that you are in indep resporg as well.
Would this method solve my issues about protecting the number?
And does it come down to how much I trust the indep resporg as well?
Joel
Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
March 27, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Joe,
There are two levels of control or protection you could get. The first is just transferring a number over to them rather than using one that they provided. You don’t want them to be able to say that they provided that number as part of their service, so you can cancel their service but you can’t take their number with you if you want to leave. You can overcome this be obtaining a number with independent proof of ownership and transferring the number over to them. That way if you can prove that you had the number active before you transferred it to them you will be able to transfer it away.
The second level of control would be to use a third party resporg service for the ongoing service. That is stronger than simply having proof that you had it active before transferring it because you’re not turning over the resporg to the service. The service wouldn’t ever be able to stop you from taking it away because it wouldn’t under their control at all if they just give you a local number to send the calls to and you handle the cost of getting the calls to that local number.
We can help you in either case if you want it. Any number you get from us is active and we provide the best proof of ownership in the industry. More importantly we also back that up and will help to prove your ownership or resolve any issue related to the ownership and control or portability of your toll free number. We always try to resolve it first by communicating with all of the parties. But we have occasionally had to go further and yank numbers or even fight to protect the ownership of our customer.
We don’t provide the ongoing service, but we do maintain the resporg for our customers that select Opex. We set that up to make the process faster and we work together fairly well. We don’t promote that as a benefit as much as we probably should, but we definitely protect not only your ownership but your customer information as well.
Your comment about having to be confident in the resporg is true. I don’t know anything about the resporg service you mentioned. Their website looks fine but it’s kind of shallow. If you want to evaluate independent resporg services you should also certainly look at ATL (ATLC.com). They are a very good service.
There is one other way you could get an independent resporg without even paying any more, and that’s to use a service that uses ATL. I’m going to do some research on this and write an article on it. But to summarize that, if you use a company like Touch Tone Communications, to route the calls to the local number of the service bureau it’s kind of like using a domain name proxy service to hide your name from the whois information.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions or need help with anything else.
.Bill Quimby.
Dan Sullivan (1 comments.) says:
April 30, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Bill,
If I buy an 800 number from you can you change the resporg number for me up front to save me some time?
In otherwords can I just give you a visa number for the available number I choose and you just fill in my touchtone communications resporg number when you do the paperwork?
Dan Sullivan
Bill Quimby (678 comments.) says:
April 30, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Dan,
I could change the resporg releasing it to any other resporg, but doing that before they contact usually creates a mell of a hess or extra work at the least. They wouldn’t know where to send the calls or who to bill. That’s why you give them the information first and they send us the request when they’re ready for us to release it. It’s not as bad when it’s a smaller resporg but it’s still better to use the normal process because doing things outside of the normal process tends to create more problems and delays.
And releasing the number ahead of time we only save the time it takes for them to fax us the request and for us to respond to the request. It wouldn’t make the new company set it up or do their part to make it work any faster. They would still take just as long to do their part. We also do our part lightning fast, usually within a couple hours or at least the same day. And we’ll even do it in real time right over the phone if the new resporg calls us with the information. That’s how to get it expedited. Just have the phone company call us when they’re ready for us to release it. They should still send the paperwork so we have it for the record but we’ll make it work as quickly as possible for you!
Bill