"Toll Free" or "Call Us" Before Phone Number

Question

This two parts, a general question and a question specific to my situation:

1) Is there any research that shows whether phone numbers in website headers have a higher conversion rate if they are next to a "Call us at:" or "Contact Our Toll Free Number:"? Do customers need to be told that the number is toll free?

2) I'm currently implementing a website design and have a pretty busy header. The phone number is large (23px) and the client would like to add a 16px "Toll Free Customer Support" before it. I feel this may be unnecessary because people know how to use a phone number.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

It depends on your user base and if they know if a number is a toll free number or not. Toll free numbers are generally 1-800 numbers but there are cases in other countries where the toll free code might be different. Refer to the screenshot below taken from this site:

With regards to your second question, If your user base is well aware that your number is toll free, I think you should be good to go. However you should also be aware of the fact that users get attracted to the word free and hence might be more inclined to use the number more then.

Answer 2

Wording of "Call us" in my opinion is a better "Call-to-action". Should the user worry that it will cost her, a trailing message of "Toll Free" after of below the number, even in parenthesis, would eliminate such worries.

Some nice articles covering the "Call-to-action" buttons can be found here: http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/good-call-to-action-buttons/

and here:

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/inspiration/call-to-action-buttons/

If marketing think the word FREE would elicit more calls, perhaps they are right, but it would also depend on the sophistication of your users (some have come to beware this word, common in all sorts of dodgy web sites).