New customers often come to us saying, “My calls are getting blocked or tagged”. Can Quality Voice & Data help? The short answer is Yes. The number one way to avoid this is to use a carrier (like Quality Voice & Data) that will sign your calls with an A Attestation.
Here we'll explain what the basics of call blocking and tagging, plus a summary of SHAKEN attestation levels, and how to fix the problem so you can start making your business calls without the nuisance of calls getting blocked or labeled.
Businesses of all shapes and sizes are being told by customers and prospects that their legitimate business calls are being labeled as spam, telemarketer or scam likely. This obviously has a negative impact on the business’s ability to contact customers and prospects like they are accustomed to doing.
Another problem is that some calls are blocked before the call is even delivered to the call recipient’s handset. Blocking decisions are often made based on algorithms and data found in various databases and there isn’t any transparency or communication back to the business that originated the call to let them know that the call is blocked. At least today, that is the case. In the coming months, carriers will be required to give a cause code when a call is blocked. That will enable the originating carrier and the customer of the originating carrier to identify that their calls are being blocked and then attempt to remediate and overcome the decision that the terminating or intermediary carrier has made.
But back to a legitimate business call that is mislabeled as spam, telemarketer, or scam likely. There are a few reasons why a business may experience having their calls incorrectly labeled by the telephone carriers. We’ll go over some of the most common ones below.
If you make a high volume of outbound calls from a small number of Caller ID DIDs, it is likely that prospects and customers have reported the incoming calls as spam or telemarketer. The apps that have been installed on most wireless devices make it easy for an individual to report your call (and mark your number) as spam, regardless if you are a legitimate caller or not.
To avoid this from happening, be careful to be respectful by limiting the number of call attempts to a single customer or prospect in a day, week and month. A good rule of thumb is no more than 1 call attempt per day, no more than 3 call attempts per week and no more than 8 call attempts in a month. In my experience, if you don’t reach a customer or prospect in 8 call attempts, the likelihood of getting an answer decreases exponentially with each attempt beyond 8 call attempts.
Also, make sure your team knows that call etiquette is of utmost importance. Most spam risk reports are done prior to answering the call (which avoids answering the call altogether), but some reports made be made after the call.
Always answer incoming calls when a prospect and customer attempts to call your business back after a missed call appears on their phone. This is a common courtesy that should be extended and as a bonus, it will help you reach your customer contact goals without making an additional outbound call attempt.
With the implementation of STIR/SHAKEN, each telecom carrier that originates a phone call must include an Attestation Rating in the meta data of the call. Attestation Ratings are A, B, or C. A is the highest rating and C is the lowest rating. See more details below about the ratings and what they mean exactly.
Terminating carriers use that rating to make decisions on how they will handle the call and if the call will be potentially blocked or labeled. The implementation of STIR/SHAKEN was a major milestone in the telecom industry’s fight against illegal robocalls and scammers. STIR/SHAKEN has made it significantly more difficult for a nefarious actor to make illegal calls, to get them delivered, and to hide their identify from the regulators.
An A Attestation is the best rating.
A-Attestation (Full attestation) indicates that the telecom carrier that originated the call knows the customer that initiated the call and the customer is authorized to use the Caller ID that the call is being originated from. In other words, the business who made the call is who they say they are. This ensures that Caller IDs are not being spoofed, and the carrier can trust that the call is legitimate.
B-Attestation (Partial attestation) indicates that the telecom carrier that originated the call knows the customer that initiated the call but does not have an LOA indicating that the customer is authorized to use the Caller ID that the call is being originated from. In other words, the business is a known entity, fully documented by the carrier through Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures. However, the telecom carrier doesn’t have an LOA on file from the business proving that they have authorization to use the Caller ID that the call originated from.
C-Attestation (Gateway attestation) means that the telecom carrier does not know the caller’s identity and the source of the call cannot be identified. This simply means that the call has been routed through a gateway that is STIR-SHAKEN compliant. Calls with this level of attestation are most likely to be blocked or tagged as spam.
Quality Voice & Data is a company that specializes in helping businesses overcome this problem. They are an authorized SHAKEN Service Provider, which means they can sign calls with an A Attestation. This level of attestation tells other telecom carriers that the call should not be blocked or negatively labeled. You shouldn't have to think about if your phone number is showing up as spam anymore.
In addition, Quality Voice & Data has built sophisticated networks to ensure calls are delivered directly to the largest carriers (no middle carriers), further ensuring that calls are delivered with an A Attestation.
The experts at Quality Voice & Data work with each customer to determine the best course of action to take to ensure their calls are not flagged as spam. This may include using a different network or carrier or signing each call with an A Attestation.
With Quality Voice & Data, businesses can rest assured that their telephone calls will not be blocked or labeled as spam. This allows businesses to communicate effectively with their customers, partners, and employees. Contact Quality Voice & Data today to learn more about how we can help your business.
Talk to an expert about our elastic SIP trunk telecom services with SHAKEN A Attestation, Caller ID Monitoring & Remediation and our Caller ID management tools can help your business today.
Angela Garfinkel currently serves as Director for Quality Voice & Data. With 30+ years of call center and business process outsourcing experience, Angela provides the QVD team with key insights to support product development, marketing and sales.