Even in a world transformed by instant messaging and video calling, the phone is still one of our primary modes of communication. Up to 38% of Brits say calling a company is still the best way to get answers to their questions, and access support. A further 69% say they’d use the phone first before trying any other method of contacting a company.
It’s not just consumers that rely on phones to connect with companies; the relationship goes the other way too. 27% of sales teams consider phone calls the best way to book meetings, and endless companies worldwide rely on calls to elevate brand awareness, share offers and promotions with customers, and increase sales. Unfortunately, the world of telephony-based sales and marketing has major challenges.
Fraud and spam are harming the relationships companies have with their consumers, and are dissuading crucial contacts from picking up the phone. Caller ID mislabeling means consumers don’t know whether they’re answering the phone to a legitimate caller, or a scammer.
Though these issues aren’t new, they are getting worse. More than 6.55 billion suspected spam calls were flagged worldwide in 2023. In the US alone, spam accounted for over 25% of all calls, and customers dealt with more than 5.26 million fraudulent, and 281 million “nuisance” calls throughout the year.
The Problem: Current Solutions Aren’t Enough
Bad actors are everywhere in the telephony landscape, targeting everyone from major businesses to individual consumers. They consist of criminals who deliberately misrepresent themselves, impersonate real entities, or use misleading introductions to fool consumers into revealing crucial information.
Fake political parties, debt collection companies, and charitable organizations are making consumers ever more suspicious of calls. Up to 90% of people say they avoid answering the phone completely.
Though solutions like STIR/SHAKEN provide some respite via authentication, they don’t ensure Caller ID accuracy. As Head of Product at TekVizion, Jonathan Sieg notes, “Caller ID mislabeling is an industry-wide problem. It undermines business-to-consumer communication, and wastes billions of dollars for companies every year.”
To make matters worse, the lack of insight into caller ID accuracy makes it harder for TN providers to maintain accurate databases of authentic, and potentially fraudulent numbers. This exacerbates the challenge of identifying bad actors, so measures can be taken to protect companies and consumers.
BPOs are consistently running telephone-based service and marketing strategies, using TN pools plagued by misattribution. To overcome this problem, businesses need a tailored solution.
Addressing the Growing Verification Issue
The issue with problematic and unreliable verification of telephone numbers and their users is growing. The impact on consumers and communities is prompting countless regulatory bodies and agencies to take drastic action, leading to more complex challenges for businesses.
In 2023, for instance, the FCC asked Service Providers to share insights into exactly what they’re doing to address the fraud and spam situation, and how they’re helping to keep the shared database of TN’s and reported owners accurate. However, the current process for number verification is packed with errors, complexity, and inconsistencies. Existing solutions can’t fully address the number mislabeling issue.
The result of the issues in the current landscape is fewer trusting consumers, and more missed opportunities. Authentic companies are spending more money to simply reach customers, and consumers are spending more time avoiding the phone.
When BCI and STIR/SHAKEN continue to be misused, everyone loses. Customers don’t answer the phone, and if they do, they risk speaking to a bad actor, adding to the evolving threat of telephone fraud that already steals more than $9 billion from innocent US consumers.
For accountability to work again, the world needs a new strategy: Telephone number Ownership Verification services, or TNOV. That’s where TekVizion Steps in.
TNOV: Embracing the Future of Verification
As leaders in the technology testing landscape, TekVizion has developed an innovative solution, specifically designed to address the current number mislabeling problem. The one-of-a-kind “Telephone Number Ownership Verification” system from TekVizion, named “NumberGuard”, helps businesses safeguard brand integrity, preserve customer trust, and fight back against fraudulent and spam calls.
Attuned to the needs of companies looking to comply with the “know your customer” directives of the FCC, TekVizion’s AI-powered technology introduces a reliable, efficient, and powerful path for trusted number verification. Using artificial intelligence and sophisticated language modelling, the system can scrutinize and validate millions of telephone numbers in a service provider’s database.
The automated solution ensures numbers are being used in a manner consistent with the identities claimed by their users, making it easier to pinpoint bad actors. Highly scalable, NumberGuard can handle millions of verifications per month, eliminating the friction of unmanageable manual processes.
When NumberGuard detects an issue, the AI-driven system starts a comprehensive investigation, examining the relationship between the number and the entity. This means TekVizion can give providers insights into the source of the issue. For instance, if a TNOV detects that a telephone number for the apparent owner “Pilsbury” is being announced as “Betty Crocker”, the system would identify the relationship between the two companies (both are owned by the same parent company).
Once the relationship is examined, the system appends the TN company’s database as needed, and provides reporting for necessary follow-up actions. Service providers can then use this information to eliminate unnecessary mismatches in future, update their databases, and improve their system accuracy.
TekVizion can also identify numbers no longer in use, as well as numbers that genuinely are being used by bad actors, for spam and fraudulent purposes.
The Next Generation of Number Verification
Phones in the business landscape aren’t going anywhere. They continue to be crucial for various stages of the customer journey, from marking and sales, through to customer service. However, if number verification methods are consistently misused, the trust consumers have in these systems will wane, leading even fewer people to actually answer the phone.
TekVizion has already tested the NumberGuard system with two leading US service providers, leading to outstanding results. Of the millions of numbers analyzed, 30% had inaccurate reported numbers, leading to mislabeling. Another 20% of these numbers were outdated or no longer in service.
According to one of the providers: “TekVizion’s approach to number verification has been a real game changer for us. This is the first solution we’ve seen that ensures we can maintain an accurate and verified database of numbers. Already, we’re seeing a significant reduction in fraudulent and spam calls and mislabeled contact details.”
Learn more about the benefits of TekVizion’s innovative TNOV solution, and how it can benefit your clients, by contacting the customer service team today for a free trial.
