Why is it so much more popular in the USA to use letters for business phone numbers eg 1-800-DEALS-R-US?

Question

Many landline phones & all mobiles in the UK also have the alphabet on their keypads, but it just hasn't caught on over here. I'm not really surprised as I don't really have a problem writing the number down if I am genuinely interested in their product/service + nowadays you just need to remember the company's web address instead and get their phone number from the web.
The most we do is use easy to remember free-phone numbers like 0800 663366
Comments? Would the US approach make you any more likely to contact them to buy something?
Is the US approach loosing popularity now that most company's have web addresses?

Answer 1

One possible reason-- Americans probably drive more often than Britons on average. This means that a lot of the advertising that Americans are interested in comes over car radios where we wouldn't really be in a position to write it down.

It's also possible that Americans just got into a habit of putting letters onto the phones before Britons did and as such its been possible for a written message to be used for longer and its just become a convention. A thought anyway.

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Frankly, I feel that alpha phone numbers are a lot harder to dial. There are at least three letter choices for each number. For my time and effort, just give me the numbers and stop trying to be cute with 1-800-GET-LOANS.

Answer 4

i think that is why american business culture is different from european, american companies are more tend to be honeset, think of the ease of aprroach from potential customer save money for the customers. the uk companies are tend to save money for themselves, the americans are tend to build a big future pictures, big picture.

Answer 5

Please use numbers, letters are annoying.