Throughout the industry, there are continued and increasing efforts to reduce unwanted calls to consumers. These efforts can often lead to calls being screened or blocked. This can make it difficult for your legitimate business calls to reach customers and get answered.
Positive Caller Reputation Basic Do’s and Don’ts
- Comply with all "Do Not Call" lists (e.g. https://www.donotcall.gov/ US Only), and other Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) Act 47 U.S.C. § 227 requirements (US Only).
- Keep your calling list(s) up to date and remove phone numbers that don't connect. Calling or texting disconnected numbers mimics the behavior of autodialers generating spam calls.
- Revenue.io provides registration services for our customers to build trust within the telephony ecosystem. The following features allow you to register your business within these systems:
- STIR/SHAKEN: Register your business for SHAKEN/STIR. Increase trust in your calls by displaying a trust indicator like "Caller Verified” on the called party’s phone. Read More: Understanding STIR/SHAKEN
- Caller ID Name (CNAM): Register your business name as your Caller ID (CNAM) to your phone numbers so call recipients can identify who is calling. Read more: Understanding CNAM Caller ID
- Voice Integrity: Register your phone numbers with the Analytics Engines responsible for running spam labeling algorithms on Telecom operators like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Read more: Understanding Voice Integrity (Beta)
Best Practices When Making a Call
- Use the same outbound number for each call to a call recipient. Changing your Caller ID or calling from a different number to evade a block erodes consumer trust in your business and will likely result in the individual reporting your additional numbers too.
- Allow at least 30 seconds (5 ring cycles) for the called party to answer. When the line is answered, the agent should immediately greet the called party.
- A high percentage of short calls that don't connect can be identified by the carriers as unwanted or spam calls.
- Waiting in silence for a "hello" could result in the called party flagging the call as spam. This mimics the behavior of robocalls that only begin when they hear audio.
- Have agents announce their name, the business name, and the purpose for the call at the beginning of the message. The name must be clear and unambiguous regarding its affiliation to the caller.
- Inbound leads collected from a web form should be called as quickly as possible. Leverage Hot Leads to facilitate a quick follow-up call. If you are calling several days or weeks after consent was obtained, you should remind the recipient how consent was originally obtained.
- Example: "Hi this is Adam with Acme Inc, Salt Lake City, Utah. John Doe came to the Acme.com website last week and requested that we call with a quote. Is John available?
- Be consistent with your outbound call volume
- If your use case allows it, attempt to maintain a regular traffic volume, without unusual spiking.
- Gradually ramp-up new campaign call volume incrementally over time, and avoid going from zero to full volume in a short period of time.
- Calls for legitimate business purposes should not be too frequent, or outside of common working hours.
Telemarketing and Advertising Requirements & Best Practices
If you are using Revenue.io to place telemarketing or advertising calls, the following industry best practices and rules governing telemarketing calls should be followed to reduce the risk of disciplinary action by the carriers and/or third party analytics providers.
Compliance with TSR, TCPA, Truth-In-Caller ID (US calls)
a. Unless an exception applies, calls covered by the TCPA must have consent from the call recipient. The level of consent that the caller must obtain prior to placing a call depends on whether the call is classified as “informational” or “telemarketing”.
b. Time Restrictions (TSR requirement). Callers cannot place calls outside the hours of 8AM to 9PM, local time for the called party. Some states impose stricter requirements, including no calls on Sunday or on legal holidays and different hour restrictions.
c. Repeated Calls. Telemarketers cannot engage in fraudulent or abusive behavior, including causing any telephone to ring, or engaging any person in telephone conversation, repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number. What is deemed too frequent varies by use case. For example, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act notes that 8 calls to a recipient phone number within seven consecutive days is considered to be harassment and the caller can be fined. Our Carrier Partner recommends limiting calls to a given number to 2 in a single day and no more than 5 in a month.
d. Call Content. Additional disclosures may apply where a caller will accept a sales order or charitable contribution over the phone, or is marketing certain types of regulated products or services.
e. Reassigned Numbers Database. Called numbers should be checked against the Reassigned Numbers Database on a regular scheduled cadence (using date of consent or last verified Established Business Relationship (EBR))
Managing customer concerns when calls are answered
a. Address any questions or concerns raised about the nature of the call before continuing. Be prepared to offer a web URL and telephone number where the called party can turn for more information.
b. If the called party indicates that they did not consent, or that they are no longer interested and wish to revoke consent, indicate that you will not call again and remove them from your call list.
c. If the call is answered by voicemail, do not hang up. Leave a message with the elements in (1b) above, plus a call-back number. The call back number should include an opt-out mechanism.