This article provides an example setup you can use to filter changing spam numbers out of your main call flow, for cases when blocking individual numbers is not enough.
User Level:
Admin
Why do spam numbers keep changing?
Spoofed ID Spam Calls
Caller ID spoofing or number spoofing is a method commonly used with robocalls, wherein incoming spam numbers will look almost identical, but with the last four or five digits changed to make blocking more difficult and time consuming. We can redirect these spam calls out of the main queue using a condition splitter.
Filter Out Spam Calls with Condition Splitter
The condition splitter is a type of action available for Essential, Expert, and Custom plans within the call flow designer. Using a condition splitter is great for cases where a user wants to automate the filtering of incoming calls based on the call data.
In order to sort out these spam number patterns, we can set conditions which filter all incoming calls by their beginning digits.
Example Case:
A company is receiving an influx of spam calls that start with the same country codes and beginning digits. The last four digits of the incoming numbers change daily, making it impossible to preemptively block numbers.
Number patterns: [+420 887 78x xxx], [+420 778 87x xxx]
Goal:
Recognize and reroute incoming spam calls to a separate branch where they will be automatically marked as resolved.
Steps:
Navigate to the Numbers tab from the lefthand sidebar and find the number which is being affected by spam calls, then click the
blue pencil iconnext to it.Click
Configure Call flowin Basic settings.
In our example, we want to add a condition splitter as the first step in our call flow, in order to remove certain numbers from the regular route. Click the
blue + iconnext to the number at the beginning of the call flow, and from the action types select Condition Splitter.
Click
Ok.Notice that our preexisting call branch has become a branch off of the Condition Splitter step. In this branch, open the step settings by clicking the
cog icon.Check No other condition is met, and click Confirm in the confirmation popup. This setting ensures that any number not matching the recognized spam number patterns will proceed through the call flow as expected..
Now, we need to create condition steps to filter out recognized spam numbers. In this example, there are two patterns we want to detect, and we'll create separate actions for each. To begin, click the
+ iconto add a new action, and select Mark Call as Resolved.
Scroll to the Condition Splitter settings section. As a Property, we select Call - External number, which refers to the external or contact number calling in. For an operand, we can choose starts with. Type in the first spam pattern, without spaces. From our example, the first number would look like:
+42088778.
Since another pattern has been identified to indicate spam numbers, repeat steps 6 and 7 for the third branch of the condition splitter. Alternatively, you can use the Copy Call Flowfeature to duplicate the "Mark Call as Resolved" step into the third branch and update the pattern in the condition settings.
We have now created a call flow structure to automatically sort out numbers with known spam prefixes. From this point, we can add more action steps to our main call branch as necessary. At the end of the editing process, make sure to click
Save flowto save your changes.
This guide explains the process of setting up a call flow for a specific number to identify and filter out spam callers using certain phone number patterns. By marking these calls as resolved, your agents will see an indication in their dialer app that no callback is needed for these calls.
💡 Quick Tip: Do you know the full phone numbers of the spam callers? Use CloudTalk’s Blacklist feature to block these numbers for inbound, outbound, or both types of calls. This helps save your agents’ time. For more details, refer to the Blacklist documentation.
Have more questions? Contact our Support team. We're always happy to help!