Team Partners Telecommunications

Do first impressions count?

Posted on Aug 22, 2026  | Tags: local numbers, marketing numbers, phone numbers, overseas numbers

Would you agree that perception is everything?

You may need to think about that for a moment…because here’s the next part of the question, is perception necessarily truth? Before you think that this month’s blog is turning into an epistemological discussion, it isn’t, but it is about perception and how first impressions make all the difference.

Let me answer that question about perception: no, perception is not necessarily truth, but it very often rests and becomes truth to you. And perception is very often formed by first impressions, so much so that once a first impression informs one’s perception about something, it very often sticks, even though one might subsequently discover that the actual truth is quite different.

Ok, enough of all that, what’s the point? It’s this. The first impression that people form about your business is the one that will last the longest and it doesn’t need to be true, perception, as we say, is everything.

This begs the question; what image of your business does John and Jane Public first meet as they go about their daily life? Perhaps more pertinent, what image would you like them to have and retain? Our guess would be that yours is a successful and thriving business, perhaps with employees out on the road and support staff back in the office, and there’s nothing that shouts the opposite of this more than having an email address that has @gmail.com, or @icloud.com, @googlemail.com, @hotmail.com, or any other generic domain names attached to your business. Honestly, it’s the telltale sign of a one-man band, and even if you’re not, if you have an email address like this, that’s what it’s saying and that’s how you’ll be perceived. Our advice? Buy yourself a domain name that suits your business, even if it’s just hello@yourname.co.uk. Talk to us and we can help you.

Another telltale is only having a mobile number on your business card, van, newspaper advert, flyer. Again, the message this conveys is that you work on your own and there’s no one else to take your calls. It’s you or nothing. And the underlying message, other than the obvious? Well, if you’re not well or on holiday, the work stops; if you’ve got more than one job on, the other might get priority; if your van breaks down, that’s it. That’s probably not how you want to be perceived.

If you’re not yet fully convinced, there’s another side to this that should persuade you. It might be great to give the impression that you’re always instantly available to your customers (but not if I’m paying you to work on my job at the time), but practically being at everyone’s beck and call 24/7 is a pain, especially for your other half. You have an option, we can organise a local landline number that automatically redirects calls to your mobile when you want it to, but that diverts unanswered and out of office calls to a professional voicemail, another member of staff or a call answering service, solving all your problems! You retain the flexibility of your mobile whilst not being bugged by it, and your customers are happy too. Interested? Give us a call on 0117 379 00 33.