I used to use this at the grocery store/kmart/wherever and just tell them to pick the top name off the list of 50 or so that came up per area code, (woohoo key constraints!) but eventually they caught on.
Poor Jenny can't get a rewards card anywhere these days.
For a while Meatball Shop (a New York mini-chain of, well, meatball-focused bar/restaurants) was doing this for takeout orders placed in the restaurant.
I'm not sure if they still do, but it basically meant whoever was the poor person assigned to the takeout counter that day had to spend at least half their time dealing with people saying "Why do you need my phone number? I'm right here!"
I think they said it was to track customers' ordering patterns over time, which was interesting, but also kind of overkill (and probably misleading, since they wouldn't know when the same people sat down to eat in the restaurant or at the bar).
Hmm, it looks like the number is used for directory assistance [0] in North America at least.
>Throughout North America, 1-XXX-555-1212 will connect to directory assistance for the specified XXX area code
I wasn't able to find a link between that number and TellMe/MS. They appear to have had the 1-800-555-TELL (8355) [1] number but no mention of the 1212 number.
Though a google for the number +"Microsoft" reveals they appear to use that number in a couple of their SQL server books [2]
The stylist is often confused why there are 20 people with that phone number.