Increased robocalls and scams have made it much harder for legitimate businesses to reach their leads and customers. Eventually, STIR/SHAKEN should stop these annoying, harmful practices and help the public trust incoming calls again. Until then, all companies should use phone number reputation optimization to build better relations with consumers.
Obviously, phone number reputation optimization best practices won’t solve all of your outbound call challenges. However, adopting the right approach can give you a competitive advantage that leads to higher conversions and better customer service.
Start by ensuring your call center uses the following phone number reputation optimization best practices.
Best Practices for Phone Number Management
Managing your phone numbers well can improve their reputations and make it easier for representatives to reach their contacts. Critical approaches to phone number management for reputation optimization include:
Registering all of your phone numbers’ CNAM data with carriers so caller ID screens will display accurate information.
Purchasing more phone numbers than you think you need so you always have backups available.
Retaining ownership of numbers so that you can reintroduce them to future campaigns.
Buying phone numbers only from reliable carriers that won’t try to sell you numbers that already have tainted reputations.
Additionally, you should only buy phone numbers from carriers that can ensure A-attestation ratings. Service providers can verify your identity and display accurate information about your business when your numbers have A-attestation ratings.
Dialer Software Configuration Best Practices
Dialer software configurations can influence your phone number reputation optimization. An improper configuration will likely lead to more unanswered calls because carriers and third-party apps will apply warnings to your numbers.
Best practices for dialer software configuration include:
Reviewing your KPIs to spot problems like high drop and abandonment rates. High rates likely mean that you must reconsider your dialer software’s configuration.
Paying attention to how many calls come from each number so you can avoid overdialing.
Understanding the pros and cons of various outbound dialers (such as predictive dialers, preview dialers, progressive dialers, and power dialers) so you can choose an option that matches your campaign goals.
For inbound calls coming from customers, your contact center should use an automatic call distributor (ACD) that directs calls to representatives trained to handle the customer’s concern.
You might need to experiment a little before you find the right configuration. Just focus on your KPIs to determine whether adjustments improve or hurt your performance.
Best Dialing Practices
The right dialing practices help build trusting relationships between your brand and consumers. These strategies make your employees and managers responsible for phone number reputation optimization. Essential dialing practices include:
Using proper scripts that help representatives communicate with leads and customers.
Training agents on how to use empathy when talking to people.
Understanding what practices often get calls flagged (e.g., being rude to customers, pushing sales too aggressively, and dialing people on the do-not-call list.)
Following ethical dialing practices, such as only using legitimate lead lists and pruning your contact lists regularly.
Your employees are the face of your company. You need to ensure they know how to treat people well to keep your phone number reputation high.
Comply With Industry and Federal Regulations
The FCC hasn’t always taken an active approach to enforcing federal regulations. That’s starting to change. In early 2022, the federal agency targeted two carriers for failing to implement STIR/SHAKEN by the mandated deadline.
Clearly, you want to avoid fines. However, federal regulations exist for good reasons unrelated to whether you get fined. Following them will help your brand and phone numbers maintain positive reputations.
Some of the most important regulations to adhere to include:
Removing all contacts registered with the DNC.
Checking the Reassign Number Database to avoid contacting people on the DNC who recently changed their numbers.
Only calling households between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. (within the contact’s time zone).
Your industry might have some additional regulations you need to follow. For example, any company working with the healthcare industry needs to follow HIPAA regulations that protect private information.
Know your industry’s regulations so that you can stay compliant.
Best Practices for Phone Number Monitoring
Even the best strategy for phone number reputation optimization can fall short. That’s why you need to take a proactive approach by auditing your rich call data (RCD) and monitoring your numbers for flags.
RCD auditing helps ensure smartphone screens display your:
Organization’s name and logo
Department name
Reason for calling
BatchDialer’s Advanced Plan makes it easy for you to audit RCD with most major service providers and phones.
BatchDialer can also show you what consumers see when you call them. If any of your numbers receive a flag or negative label, the platform will send you a screenshot. All screenshots come from actual devices, so you get to see exactly why people don’t answer your calls.
You can’t leave your phone number reputation to chance. Sign up for a free trial with BatchDialer to manage your numbers more effectively.