As robocalling and spam-calling become increasingly pervasive, legitimate businesses struggle with their outbound calls being labeled as "Likely Sales", "Spam Likely" or "Scam Likely," leading to lower answer rates and damaged reputations.
There are many challenges in the spam ecosystem, but CloudTalk's experts are here to help your business create a plan to help you reach your audience.
How do calls get labelled as Spam?
Telecom operators use analytics engines to monitor call traffic patterns and flag calls as likely sales, spam, or scam, to warn consumers against risky calls.
Unfortunately, these engines can flag legitimate business calls along with actual malicious calls. The exact parameters of their algorithms are deliberately not public and frequently updated so spammers and scammers can't commandeer them.
In the USA, there are 3 primary analytics engines employed by the 3 major carriers
Verizon - TNS (Transaction Network Services)
T-Mobile - First Orion
AT&T - Hiya
The good news is that there are both common sense best calling practices and carrier registrations and anti-spam tools at businesses' fingertips to avoid mislabelling and flagging.
1. Traffic patterns - the way you're calling
2. Number inventory - the numbers you use to call
3. Number registrations - how you protect your numbers with operators
1. Call Traffic: Best Calling Practices
If you are planning to do widespread call campaigns or use CloudTalk diallers, we can help guide you how to maintain a positive caller reputation, minimize risk of your calls being blocked or flagged as spam, and improve answer rates.
Traffic patterns that can trigger the spam algorithms
Spam Calling Indicators | What you can do |
Fluctuations in Call Volume: | Maintain a consistent outbound call volume and avoid sudden spikes in traffic that deviate from regular patterns. |
Call Volumes: | Diffuse your calling over different numbers - giving each agent their own number for outbound dialling |
Low Answer Rates: | use numbers that give you the closest local proximity possible - in USA we can get numbers from all major cities and towns.
call during ideal business hours.
If the recipient doesn't answer utilize Voicemail drop |
Short-Duration Calls or High Abandon Rates | Aim to call verified leads and have your calls at least 15-30 seconds, or intros that will result in instant hang-ups |
Repeated calls to the same numbers with low answer rates | keep your contact lists and campaign schedules clean and clear |
Frequent Complaints and Blocking: If many recipients block your number or report your calls as spam, your number may be permanently flagged | abide by local telco regulations (both in your country and the recipient country)
only contact people who have opted in to receive a call from you
If a callee asks you not to contact them anymore, remove their number from any further contact |
Making calls to numbers on the DNC registries | Stay compliant with applicable local laws and regulations related to telemarketing, both in your country of operation and your prospects’ territory
Comply with all national "Do Not Call" lists (e.g. https://www.donotcall.gov/ in USA) |
2. Number Inventory Practices
Segment your number inventory
Separate numbers into public, permanent inbound numbers and temporary, outbound sales numbers, that can be cycled as needed. Do not use the same number for multiple purposes.
Inbound “clean” numbers - official, published website or advertising numbers
“clean” for inbound calls only
outbound calling to established contacts
If outbound campaign calls are not made on these numbers, they should not need to be changed, and your resources will not be wasted if these numbers were used on print materials, web campaigns, or other promotions
Outbound sales or campaign numbers - numbers specifically designated for outbound campaigns or activities that might generate spam tags from your specific use case or traffic patterns.
3. Number Registrations
Despite following all calling best practices, your numbers may still accumulate spam tags over time if you have high call volumes.
CloudTalk recommends these steps to optimize the outbound reachability of your numbers’ inventory and connect with as many prospects as possible.
A. Register Numbers in Hiya Connect
Hiya Connect registers your numbers with carriers' spam-flagging systems. Read CloudTalk's guide to using Hiya here.
Each carrier relies on a different analytics engine to combat unwanted calls, provide caller identification, and apply spam or fraud tags to suspicious calls.
In the USA, there are three main engines used by each major operator (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T).
You could register your numbers individually with each carrier, or in The Free Caller Registry, a unified, free portal of USA numbers with these three largest Analytics Vendors.
However, Hiya Connect is the strongest option. It registers your numbers not just with the main USA engines, but also on
all Samsung devices worldwide
B. Enroll in STIR/SHAKEN Verified Calling (USA-only)
STIR/SHAKEN verification registers your numbers with the carriers' call authentication systems. Read CloudTalk's guide STIR/SHAKEN here
STIR/SHAKEN is a call authentication protocol used in the USA to restrict illegal and fraudulent robocalling. Carriers use authentication tokens to calls to validate each call's origin.
While all of CloudTalk's USA calls are sent with a Stir/Shaken validation, we can ensure your calls are verified with the highest A-level Attestation by registering your business and numbers with our carries.
You can read more about Attestation-levels and follow our registration guides here.
Have more questions? We have answers. Reach out to our Support team. We're always happy to help!