Sprint’s new mobile-to-mobile vanity service doesn’t cut it for business owners but gives creepy speed daters a new tool to up their creepiness factor.
Sprint recently announced a new service for their mobile phones called StarStar Me. It’s basically a vanity call forwarding service to your existing Sprint cell phone number. As you know, we provide toll free vanity numbers so it piqued our interest. After further review, we think Sprint has missed the mark with their mobile vanity experiment. The way it works is the user pays monthly for a vanity word/phrase after two star symbols, e.g., **MATT.
Here’s why we think you can do better:
Mobile to Mobile ONLY?
Did you give out your new **AWESOMESAUCE number to a new business contact? First, you should change your vanity, **AWESOMESAUCE isn’t very professional. Second, if they call you from their office landline or VoIP phone system, they won’t get through. The service only works from mobile phones to other mobile phones. If there’s any chance the person you’re giving your StarStar number to might call you on a non-mobile phone, you now have two phone numbers to give them – making things more complex instead of less.
Where are the Features?
When someone calls your StarStar Me number, you can set it up to ring your phone, reply with an automatic text message or voicemail, or reply with your contact information. Sending your contact information is a neat trick, but if they have your number, don’t they already know how to get in contact? Simply said, it’s lacking in features. There’s no auto attendant, no call announcement, no call forwarding to other phones, no call screening – all features that business owners need and can get with a full-featured virtual phone system.
Limited Set of Numbers
Having only one prefix (**) dramatically decreases the chances of getting your desired number. The example Sprint uses is **SARAH but good luck getting something that memorable. It reminds me of when AOL Instant Messenger was popular. When I wanted a screen name, “Peter” was unavailable, “PeterH” was unavailable, “PeterH1″ was unavailable, and before I knew it, I had a username so complex no one was going to remember it by memory alone. One of the advantages of toll free numbers is you have multiple prefixes (800, 855, 866, 877, 888) to increase your chances of landing the vanity number you want.
Bad for Business, Great for Creepers
We’ve ruled StarStar Me out as an option for a serious business owner, so who can this service be designed for? To be honest, I’m stumped here. Maybe I’m just too “new-school” but I only have about two phone numbers memorized because I don’t need to remember them. Sprint says StarStar Me is ”Your Memorable Mobile Number,” that premise is flawed if you can only use it from other mobile phones. How many phone numbers do you have memorized? It’s probably a lot less than you knew ten years ago because cell phones store the numbers for you. When you make a call on your mobile phone, you’re probably looking up a contact by name, not number. With companies unable to dial your StarStar Me number from their business phone systems, this service must be for social situations. Good luck telling that cute girl you hit it off with at the bar that she can call you at **NICKELBACKFAN69 – that one might just backfire.
What do you use your toll free vanity number for?
