Does Your Firm Have Too Many Numbers?

I was wrapping up a second mortgage with my local bank when I noticed that, for some reason, they were now using seven-digit telephone extensions. That meant that you had to dial an 800 number and then seven more digits to reach a particular person.

Most business cards already have at least three phone numbers (direct, cell and fax) and maybe an 800 number, too. And a lot of people do business from their home, which means another number to remember. It's getting to be a real pain entering all that stuff into my contact manager, even without the added burden of a seven digit extension.

It's not just telephone numbers. I know companies that have ordering systems so complicated that it takes a manual, a help file and two days worth of training, just to be able to define a product configuration that a customer can actually use.

High tech firms are the worst. For example, if you purchase Quickbooks from Intuit with the direct deposit feature, you need a 21-character install key code, an 18-character registration number, a 20-character serial number, an 11-character group number. That's 60 characters worth of unique identification information (not including a seven digit pin), which means that Intuit could theoretically support

999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999

unique users. Hey, I'm all for ambitious business plans, but this is ridiculous.

This gratuitous numbering bugs me because it wastes time. Some day, a smart marketing geek (they do exist) will figure out that it's a competitive advantage to dump some of the gratuitous numbering schemes and make it simple to conduct business, rather than an endless exercise of keystroking. And among the sales folk working for that company (not to mention the customers) there will be great rejoicing.