Why is branded calling important?

For many enterprises, the phone remains an important tool for connecting with customers — when they actually answer. Eighty-seven percent of respondents in a Forrester Consulting study said the voice/digital experience is critical or important to meeting one of their top business goals of “improving the customer experience.” That said, close to 90% of calls to customers still don’t get answered. It’s time for businesses to consider “why is branding a call important?”

Why aren’t customers answering the phone? Here are some reasons consumers cited when we surveyed them:

• Unknown caller
• Robocalls
• Scams and fraud
• Call spoofing
• High call volumes

You can get the survey findings in our eBook: Reaching Customers by Phone Feel Like a Fairy Tale?

The good news is branded calling for businesses – that is, adding context to the mobile display — like name, logo and reason for the call — and authenticating calls with STIR/SHAKEN helps reassure customers who’s calling — so they pick up. In fact, they’re up to 105% more likely to answer the call with branded calling.

Branded calling solutions can help businesses safeguard their brand reputation and ensure calls reach customers. The enhanced customer experience can assist in bringing in new customers and enhancing engagement, leading to higher upsell potential and increased revenue.

What’s the importance of brand in the customer experience?

An enterprise’s brand is one of its most valuable assets. It’s their identity, unique offering and  why customers do business with them. Marketing and advertising help promote brands.

When it comes to the customer experience (CX), every interaction with a brand — including phone calls — is an opportunity to elicit an emotional response. Will customers be left feeling satisfied and valued or bothered and frustrated?

Enterprises see the importance of branding in marketing but may not consider outbound calling a marketing activity. Yet, research indicates the importance of branding for consumers in these situations.

We asked consumers how branded calling would impact their loyalty to brands that added more context to calls like full name and logo, and found:

• 56% would view a brand more favorably if they added this information to the mobile display
• 76% of consumers would be likely to answer calls from businesses with which they engage if they displayed their company names and logos

It’s not just about good feelings, a pleasant CX positively impacts revenues too. Improving a company’s average CX Index Score by just one point can lead to anywhere from $0.50 to $120 in incremental revenue per customer, depending on the industry.

What is the enhanced Caller ID?

Unfortunately, bad actors can impersonate a brand and use it to steal from customers and businesses. That results in fraud loss and reputational damage. Enterprises can protect their brand reputation and improve customer engagement by adding context to calls — which are also authenticated with STIR/SHAKEN using TransUnion Branded Call Display. This helps ensure customers receive a consistent brand experience across all channels — and aids in reducing call spoofing.

The FCC explains further:
“STIR/SHAKEN is a framework of interconnected standards. STIR/SHAKEN are acronyms for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards. This means calls traveling through interconnected phone networks can have their caller ID "signed" as legitimate by originating carriers and validated by other carriers before reaching consumers. STIR/SHAKEN digitally validates the handoff of phone calls passing through the complex web of networks, allowing the phone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is, in fact from the number displayed on Caller ID.”

Recently, Rich Call Data (RCD) has become available for use with branded calling. (Read our eBook on Branded Calling). RCD is the standard that is part of the STIR/SHAKEN framework as an additional claim in the identity token that supports information such as: name, logo, telephone number and reason for call. 

Why is branding on a call important?

Businesses may wonder, “Why is branding on a call important in business?” In a recent Omdia survey, 99% of respondents said the customer call experience is important to their overall brand perception. In spite of robocalls, call spoofing and fraud, consumers still prefer the phone, especially for personal matters. Every phone call is an opportunity for a brand touchpoint with consumers, helping improve the customer experience, further the relationship and enhance engagement.

Brand identity helps differentiate companies and become a marketing outreach. Branded calls verified with STIR/SHAKEN can’t be hijacked and used byfraudsters to tarnish your hard-earned reputation. What’s more, secure branded calls help companies provide a more consistent, multichannel experience across the digital experience.

Why shouldn’t phone calls match your other digital channels? Businesses make continual adjustments to offer more positive, engaging and streamlined digital interactions. Now, with Branded Call Display (BCD), there’s a solution to address a component of the customer experience that has been largely neglected — the phone call. What’s more, BCD leverages STIR/SHAKEN call authentication – ensuring the call hasn’t been spoofed.

When customer interactions and conversations are consistent across the multichannel experience, brand loyalty is built. And when consumers pick up, business picks up.