Last time we talked about the importance of returning missed calls from the same phone number the caller had dialed. The under lying message is that “we customers” answer business calls from phone numbers we recognize, and trust. Today we explore the opposite of that and a threat to all businesses: calling customers from one of your numbers that is labeled as SPAM.
The only thing our average client knows about SPAM is that they themselves do not answer SPAM calls appearing on their personal phones. With that, our clients are very concerned about calls they and their team make to their customers. 87% of people do not answer calls from unknown numbers. Your customers will not answer your calls if it comes up “SPAM Likely” so get your numbers tested for free today and mitigate any problems.
Best Practices to Avoid Being on SPAM Lists
Each of the three major wireless carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile (Sprint) and Verizon all have their own SPAM monitoring solutions as do land line carriers, VoIP suppliers as well as 3rd party apps like NomoRobo. Each has their own “black box” for determining if a number is “SPAM Likely”. Most of the variables in their algorithms are out of our customers’ control and visibility. Things like FCC / FTC complaints, inconsistent behavior, honey pots, and more. Here is what is in our customers’ control:
- Keep outbound dials to under 150 attempts per outbound phone number. This equates to about 20 calls per hour for an 8-hour day… few outbound callers dial this much in a day. But if you are sharing outbound phone numbers, it can trip the monitoring service.
- Call times and attempts should be limited to one AM and one PM call per customer and done between 8:00am and 7:00pm local to the customer.
- Watch and limit calls under 4 seconds. This indicates customers are ignoring your calls which feeds into the algorithm.
- Have your prospects and customers add your phone number as a contact by texting them your contact card with 2-3 numbers you may be calling from in the future.
The number one thing you can do is SPAM check your numbers. If you want a one-time check, contact me, we will do it for you at no cost. For the average client, once a week is sufficient to stay on top of your SPAM score. For aggressive call centers, hour SPAM score checks is the best practice.
Should some of your phone numbers be listed as SPAM Likely, discontinue use of those numbers but do not release them. It is best to remediate those numbers at Free Caller Registry . It is fast and free. Then continue to monitor all of your numbers on a weekly basis. Once Clean, start reusing the remediated numbers in accordance with legitimate outbound calling best practices.
