Your business may rely on outbound phone calls, whether it’s for customer support, appointment reminders, or sales. However, how do you know if all your calls are reaching all your customers?
It’s not your team making mistakes, or that your message isn’t relevant.
Your call reputation score might quietly be telling carriers whether your call should be trusted - or treated like spam.
Once you’re lost that trust with the customer, communication starts to break down - and fast.
Outbound strategy used to be simple: dial more numbers, reach more people and close more deals. And this strategy worked for years. Nowadays, carriers no longer reward volume - they reward trust. Excessive calling without proper controls can trigger spam flags that block 20-30% of legitimate outbound calls before they even ring.
Across call centers, that adds up to an estimated $658 million in lost revenue from unanswered or blocked calls. Every. Single. Day.
What makes this worse is how customers react. Research shows that 32% of customers abandon a brand after just one poor call experience tied to flagged numbers, even if they trusted the company before. This means that even one mislabeled call can undo years of brand loyalty and trust building.
A call reputation score is basically a trust rating assigned to each phone number your business uses. Carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile - along with analytics platforms like Hiya and Truecaller - are continuously evaluating outbound numbers. These are based on:
The bottom line is that the higher the score, the more likely your call will ring normally. The lower it drops, the more aggressively it will be filtered, sent to voicemail, or blocked completely.
The scary part is that most businesses don’t even know that their score is dropping until their performance starts to tank.
When a number earns a low reputation score, the impact is immediate and measurable. Here are three reasons why low reputation scores hurt.
Reason #1: Calls Stop Connecting
Numbers with lower attestation ratings (typically B or C) are far more likely to be flagged as spam or “Spam Risk”, especially on Android devices. Once labeled, over 85% of those are answered - and even loyal customers hesitate to pick up.
Reason #2: Customers Lose Trust Fast
Call labeling doesn’t just affect answer rates; it also changes perception. Studies show 80% of consumers won’t answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize, and spam labels instantly reinforce that hesitation. For consumers, “Spam Likely” doesn’t mean “maybe spam.” When customers just see the word “spam,” they don’t engage.
Reason #3: Business Spend More to Get Less
When calls stop connecting, companies often respond by hiring more agents to hit the same targets. On average, call centers overspend about 15-20% on additional staff when reputation issues block about one in five outbound dials.
Meanwhile, the total business losses from blocked outbound calls now exceed $240 billion annually.
Call reputation scoring follows consistent signals. Here are some to keep in mind.
Carriers assign attestation grades from A to F based on how confidently they can verify the caller’s identity.
Calls with a B or C attestations are more likely to receive spam labels, even if and when the calls are legitimate.
High call volume from a single number raises alarms - and quickly. Many carriers flag numbers within 72 hours if dialing patterns look automated or excessive. Experiences outbound teams usually rotate 10 to 20 numbers daily to avoid triggering spam thresholds.
Low answer rates, especially ones below 10%, signal to carriers that recipients don’t want the calls. Even valid outreach can be penalized if engagement drops too low. One common way to fix this is local presence dialing, which matches outbound numbers to the recipient's area code and improves pickup rates.
Spam reports through apps like Truecaller and Hiya can blacklist numbers for one to three months, regardless of volume controls or authentication. In regulated industries like healthcare and finance, carriers often require over 95% of positive engagement to avoid being classified as high risk.
Cases like these aren’t rare and, in fact, are becoming more common nowadays.
In every case, communication failed before conversations even started.
Rules around outbound calling are tightening - fast. Unmonitored numbers are becoming permanent liabilities.
Call reputation scores decide whether your customers hear from you at all. Today, 20-40% of outbound calls are either blocked or filtered, costing businesses $658 million every day in missed connections. As spam volumes continue to rise, carriers prioritize A-rated numbers and leave the rest behind.
Brands that ignore reputation risk lose nearly one-third of customers even after a single bad call experience. Reputation beats volume every time.