Toll-Free 800 Number

The 800 number made the national call center possible and, with it, the phone-order catalog and direct response businesses that came before e-commerce. Before it, a customer calling long distance had to pay or place a collect call through an operator. Early service was expensive, sold as fixed-rate lines tied to geographic areas, so heavy users such as hotel chains adopted it first. Once merchants printed toll-free numbers in catalogs and ads, they built order entry and fulfillment operations around phone orders. Today's customer service lines and WISMO calls follow the same model, and their cost is one reason brands invest in proactive tracking emails.

• Order Management SystemOMSSoftware that routes orders from every channel
• WISMO RateShare of orders that prompt a status question
• Tracking NumberNumber that follows a package's scans

• Montgomery Ward Mail-Order Catalog1872 · A one-page price list starts US mail-order retail
• Sears, Roebuck Catalog1888–1993 · A watch catalog grows into a US mail-order giant
• First Secure Online Purchase1994 · An encrypted card payment buys a Sting CD online

1. Wide Area Telephone Service (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
2. Why Do Toll-Free Numbers Start With 800? (Mental Floss) mentalfloss.com