…and Get Your Customers to Answer!
At the end of the business day, nothing matters more than the integrity of our name. It’s what makes people decide whether to buy from us or not, or even whether to pick up the phone when we call. And, when we do reach out by phone, how they perceive each call can determine how (or whether!) the relationship develops.
Further complicating matters, your call—and the chances of it being answered—are affected by what the FCC thinks of your dialing practices, the differing algorithms of each carrier, how your calls are labeled, how many fraudulent calls your customer typically receives, or even just their mood when your number flashes up. There are lots of ifs, ands, and buts outside your control, but fortunately there are now some proactive options to improve your odds.
1. Utilize Dialing Best Practices
One of the most basic ways to keep customers happy and answering is simply respect for their time. Don’t call them well into the evening, and don’t call them too frequently. Follow all the rules in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and around the Do Not Call (DNC) list, which also focus on respecting your customers. And be thoughtful about how you manage your auto dialer and your phone numbers. Learn more in “Dialing Strategies for Success.”
2. Monitor Your Delivery
You might be a perfectly legitimate business with perfectly legitimate reasons for calling a customer, but your calls might still show up on their screen as “scam,” “spam,” or even “fraud.” How do you know?! But one thing is for sure: they won’t be picking up those calls. Fortunately, companies like Commio partner Numeracle can provide you with live spot checks and actual screen captures for verification. Don’t wait till the stats come back and all your calls were left unanswered.
3. Manage Your Reputation
Things can escalate quickly from a mislabeled call to blocked calls to ugliness in the carriers’ algorithms and a blemished brand. If calling is critical to your business, companies like Numeracle can not only monitor how your numbers appear. As soon as a number gets mislabeled, they have the expertise and the connections to get it remediated quickly, preserving your caller reputation.
4. Get Your Number Branded
Once you have dialing best practices in place and your numbers (and reputation!) are being proactively managed, you might wish to consider having your number branded—i.e., have your name appear on the screen with each call. While this step isn’t always necessary, and certainly not for every business or every number, it does provide clarity about who is calling and can increase answering by up to 23% according to Numeracle.
5. Know Your Customer
“Know Your Customer” is at the heart of STIR/SHAKEN legislation, requiring telecom providers to attest to the reputation of their customers and their numbers. New Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations require a prompt response to requests for call traceback details. They may also tell the provider to shut down the illegal traffic, “substantially similar” illegal traffic, or even all traffic from an upstream provider.
Bad traffic could also affect a provider’s standing in the carriers’ algorithms, which in turn would affect their other customers. This makes it important for legitimate callers and providers to vet who they’re working with and maintain the cleanest possible ecosystem. Read more about Know Your Customer here.
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Consumers have had it with illegal calling, and reducing or eliminating it is critical to the ongoing success of telecom providers, contact and call centers, and any business that depends upon the ability to reach customers by phone. Removing bad actors is perhaps the most important challenge facing the FCC right now, and the three primary carriers all have algorithms in place now to catch these fraudsters before their calls even arrive.
Unfortunately, these safeguards have the tendency to catch legitimate callers in their wide net, resulting in mislabeled, unanswered, or even blocked calls. That’s why Commio has partnered with the Entity Identity Management experts at Numeracle to offer customers options for protecting their numbers and their brands. Benefits include:
- Elevated customer engagement, with enhanced customer trust
- Increased calling efficiency and an improved bottom line
- Long-term protection of your relationships, your brand, and your business
To learn more about how Numeracle can help you optimize your phone numbers and your brand, contact us.
