How (And Why) to Use Phone Numbers to Find Time Zones

Cold calling and SMS campaigns are two of the best ways to interact with your customers and create relationships that go beyond simple transactions. But there’s a catch: you must get the timing right. No one loves being woken up from sleep or being called about business while enjoying their dinner. For SMS marketing, you want your messages to be opened promptly, especially when elements like limited-time offers are involved. That’s where time zones come into play.

Knowing your customers’ time zones has a crucial role in the success or failure of your marketing campaigns. Here’s why and how you can use phone numbers to make that possible.

First Things First: Why Should You Determine Timezones?

Knowing a customer’s time zone can be a challenging undertaking, especially since it involves incorporating additional tools such as Trestle’s phone number verification API to ensure the data you’re dealing with is accurate and reliable. That way, you won’t waste resources and invest effort without getting results.

But even though this process is challenging, it is important for the following reasons:

1. Higher Connection Rates

It’s always a great idea to call or text your customers and prospects during business hours since they are more likely to be available and ready to engage. This means you will have better connection rates and a higher probability of reaching your marketing goals.

2. Pleasant Customer Experience

As mentioned before reaching out when customers are most responsive is a crucial tactic in marketing. More responsive customers are a vital recipe for better engagement, higher satisfaction, and greater trust.

On the contrary, ignoring time zones makes it more likely you will call during inconvenient times. That makes your business look spammy, especially to prospective customers.

3. Lesser Missed Connections

When contacting your customers, you should try your best to avoid missed calls and undelivered SMS messages. Some people will switch off their phones or put them in a “Do Not Disturb” or similar mode to avoid disturbance when sleeping. Therefore, determining your customers’ time zones so you can call them when they are likely to be active is a crucial success tip in marketing.

4. Compliance

Another crucial reason to determine your customers’ time zones is to ensure compliance with telemarketing laws. Your customers have preferences, in addition to being protected by telemarketing laws and regulations like ‘Call Time Restrictions’ and ‘Do Not Call Registries’. Establishing time zones helps you steer clear of issues associated with ignoring such regulations.

How to Find Time Zones Using Phone Numbers

Here’s how to determine a user’s time zone based on their phone number:

1. Country and Area Codes

The first digits of a phone number that’s in an international format should help you determine its country of origin. For instance, any number with a “+44” prefix should be from the United Kingdom. Similarly, numbers with a “+1” will most likely be from the United States or Canada.

If calling numbers in certain countries, area codes will give you a more precise location. In the United States, local phone number formats are (XXX)-XXX-XXXX while international phone number formats are +1 (XXX)-XXX-XXXX. The (XXX) is the area code. A “212” area code, for example, will be from New York City.

2. Use a Phone Validation Service

Looking for greater accuracy when determining phone number time zones? Try phone validation services. These tools not only determine whether a phone number is accurate, but they can also use reverse lookup functionalities to reveal more information about a number such as the owner’s name, address (location), carrier information, and other details.

3. Asking Customers Directly

If all else fails, consider sending your customer an email or SMS message asking what their preferred contact time is. This is a respectful and effective approach since any customer who gets back to you is clearly interested in hearing more from you.

Supercharge Your Campaigns With Trestle

Your business thrives on sales and marketing efforts. If customers don’t know you deal in certain products or services or that your business even exists, how will they become interested? But still, you want to do your marketing the right way, and that’s something Trestle can help you with.

Thanks to their ingenious phone data validation, verification, and enrichment APIs, you can now understand your customers better and foster relationships that promote success!