We’ve all heard the catchy little songs that help you remember a phone number. “Call 1-800-I FLY SWA” for Southwest might be the most popular in the airline industry.
Other travel companies use the same mnemonic/memory aid idea. JetBlue uses 1-800-JetBlue. Amtrak uses 1-800-USA-Rail. And Holiday Inn often suggests in their ads to call 1-800-Holiday. (Which is actually the number for all their Intercontinental Hotel Group properties.)
Tour operators, which admittedly are less likely to require a quick emergency call, love this concept even more. Which can and has led to confusion. For examples, Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays uses 1-800-2-Hawaii. Hawaii World, a formerly competitive brand uses 1-800-4-Hawaii. (In this case, Pleasant Hawaiian bought Hawaii World, so they can redirect wrong numbers.)
Even small companies get into the act. My favorite airport parking garage, which does all inexpensive valet parking, gives out “claim check” numbers with a printed phone number ending PARK. (Thus they know both to pick you up and to go get your car.
Not only can they be cute marketing phrases, these mnemonics can be practical for those who have trouble remembering numbers.
Until you get a Blackberry.
While waiting for the parking shuttle on Sunday, I noticed a gentleman looking at his claim check, then looking at his “Berry”, and muttering that “how the heck was he supposed to guess the number.?” Just by weird chance – I have a memory for numbers – I told him the last four digits of the phone number were 7275.
A Blackberry, like many other smart phones, has a great little keyboard. So it’s a lot easier to text or write emails. But what it does not have are the three letters on each number (ABC on 2, DEF on 3 for example.) So there is not an easy way to translate like the older style cellphones.
But as more and more Americans go to the smartphones, and Blackberries and the equivalent are now available for almost nothing, this problem will get better before it gets worse.
Yes, for a fee, most mobile phone companies have directory assistance, so eventually you could probably reach an operator and get the correct number.
But when you are in a hurry, or “want to get away”, and only have a smart-phone handy, that “1-800-I-FLY-SWA” may not seem quite so cute.
(Photo by SheepHerdingLlama on flickr/creative commons)
