Travel and Hospitality: Don’t Let Spoofed, Blocked or Spam Calls Tarnish Your Brand

In an age when savvy and relentless fraudsters have infiltrated phone communication, people are wary of answering the phone and often avoid it unless they know who’s calling — and with good reason.

Scam calls, robocalls, spoofing and more have devastated trust, and consumers have stopped picking up the phone — unless they know exactly who’s calling.  

For travel and hospitality (T&H) companies, there’s a disconnect: 40% of T&H companies that participated in the TransUnion 2023 Travel and Hospitality Enterprise Call Experience said the phone is tied with web as the number one channel for communicating with consumers. However, nearly 90% reported 10% of their outbound calls were blocked or unanswered in the past six months, and 65% said more than 11%–40% of their calls were being mislabeled as SPAM.

More consumers are ignoring calls

Ultimately, even if the call doesn’t appear as blocked or isn’t mislabeled as SPAM, the consumer you’re calling about their travel plans, hotel confirmation or restaurant reservation may ignore the call if they don’t recognize the number.

With calls being blocked and consumers not answering the phone, outbound call volumes are rising as businesses must try multiple times to reach consumers. Nearly 60% of travel and hospitality leaders reported call volumes increased in the past six months, while a mere 8% said outbound call volumes were significantly lower.

Low answer rates and higher call volumes could impact costs, revenue and consumer satisfaction.

Are your outbound calls resulting in high satisfaction — or disgruntled consumers?

As technology advances, travel and hospitality companies must keep evolving, especially in terms of providing more consumer-centric services.

In the social media age, people share experiences. If a consumer’s experience isn’t up to par, one bad review can easily spread to thousands of people, and ultimately tarnish your reputation.

According the survey, a full 98% of travel and hospitality leaders said the call experience is very or extremely important to their overall brand perception. Yet, nearly half said they weren’t satisfied with their capabilities to prevent outbound calls from being blocked or flagged as spam.

As many travel and hospitality leaders are struggling to keep up with rising consumer expectations, getting spoofing and robocalls in check is critical.

Rebuilding consumer trust in travel and hospitality

Our report found that 72% of travel and hospitality leaders said blocked or mistagged calls undermined customer satisfaction in a big way.

When asked the impact on revenue, such as call blocking and mistagging, 51% of respondents estimated they lost 11%–20% of revenue in the last six months due to negative customer call experiences.  

Clearly, solving the issues of blocked and mislabeled calls is critical to meeting the business needs of hospitality and travel companies. Some businesses are taking action – 53% plan to increase spend on the call experience – while others lag behind.

A key method for reaching the right consumers the first time is branded call display. When you call consumers, your full business name, location, logo, e-business card, social media links and more appear on the consumers’ mobile displays.  

With a quick glance, consumers can trust it’s your company calling, increasing the likelihood they’ll answer and enabling you to improve answer rates. There’s no confusion. You maintain complete control over how your brand is presented.

You can match the look and feel of your website, online portals, emails, social media and more to provide a sophisticated, consistent digital experience that draws consumers in and creates instant brand recognition.

Ultimately, with branded call display, you can cut costs and protect your brand reputation, and most importantly, dramatically increase answer rates and engagement with consumers — which can have a profound impact on revenue and quality of care. 

Getting started with Branded Call Display

TransUnion TruContact™ Branded Call Display makes the process easy and fast. Just verify you’re a legitimate business and certify you have the right to use all the phone numbers you intend to use. Then, you simply add all the rich call data (e.g., name logo, reasons for calling, phone numbers and more) in the centralized caller identity management portal.

Restore trust and improve engagement by displaying added context, blocking fraudulent calls and assuring customers’ calls have been authenticated.

Learn more about how TruContact Branded Call Display works.

You can also see full results of our study to better understand the challenges of communicating with consumers over the phone — and learn what you can do to overcome them.