Bad actors, robocalls, and impersonation scams have made consumers wary of calls from unknown numbers. Most people feel that answering those calls is too risky. Unfortunately, this puts your business in a challenging position when you want to connect with consumers for legitimate reasons.

To improve your business answer rate, consider using the following efforts to improve dialing trust among consumers.

Building consumer dialing trust starts with ensuring that caller ID screens display accurate information about your business and phone numbers.

Data hygiene removes inaccurate, incomplete, and duplicate information from your outbound call list. If your list contains “dirty data,” your representatives can damage your brand reputation by calling the wrong people. This can unintentionally result in underserving your customers and annoying other consumers.

Improve your data hygiene by scrubbing call lists to remove duplicate leads, numbers on the Do-Not-Call Registry, and numbers on your internal opt-out list. You should also check the Reassigned Number Database (RND) to maintain accurate contact information.

Other important steps include:

Ethical dialing habits will help you avoid unwanted labels and flags while boosting your numbers’ reputations. Critical steps involve:

Register your phone numbers with carriers so that they can provide consumers with accurate information when you call them. Also, take advantage of rich call data (RCD) to display your business’s name, phone number, logo, and reason for dialing.

Registering your inbound numbers with Do Not Originate (DNO) registries can help prevent scammers from spoofing your number and brand to trick consumers.

Many factors can affect what caller ID screens display when you call someone. Consumers might see inaccurate or misleading information when:

Proactive caller ID monitoring will notify you when numbers receive excessive flags. In addition, this can indicate whether you need to assess your outbound dialing behavior.

Ideally, you should receive screenshots from real devices connected to popular service providers. That way, you get to see precisely what caller ID screens display when your representatives place calls.

Your industry reputation can influence dialing trust with consumers. If carriers, analytics engines, and third-party apps don’t trust you, they will communicate that to consumers via negative flags and labels. They might even block your calls from reaching consumers.

The following strategies will help you build a positive reputation among the companies you rely on to reach customers.

All companies should vet their clients before giving them access to services. This step is especially important for companies associated with the telecommunications industry.

Know-your-customer (KYC) standards have become increasingly necessary in recent years as bad actors take advantage of loopholes to defraud consumers. The FCC keeps trying to close these loopholes and hold service providers accountable, but it’s an ongoing struggle that will take time to resolve.

Maintain a positive industry reputation by confirming customer identities, knowing what your customers do, and monitoring customer identities to catch unlawful behaviors as soon as possible.

Caller ID Reputation takes these steps before giving potential clients access to free trials. Your business should do the same.

STIR/SHAKEN uses attestation ratings to rank each call’s trustworthiness. Unfortunately, not all service providers meet STIR/SHAKEN guidelines, making it difficult for your calls to earn the highest A (Full Attestation) rating.

If you don’t have an A attestation rating, your calls might not reach their destinations, and consumers might receive caller ID warnings.

Work with carriers that can meet STIR/SHAKEN guidelines and monitor your attestation rating to improve your business’s reputation.

Companies that don’t comply with dialing standards can face hefty fines and industry blacklisting. The FCC recently made it clear that it would not tolerate any business that falls short of standards. Late last year, the agency removed 20 businesses from the Robocall Mitigation Database, effectively severing their access to carrier networks.

No one, including service providers, is immune from retaliation. If you or your service provider doesn’t comply with standards, expect fines and potential blacklisting.