Branded calling, also known as branded calling for businesses, enables enterprises to add more context to phone calls, so customers trust who's calling. Robocalls, call spoofing, spam mistagging, “unknown number” tagging and fraud are causing consumers to hesitate almost every time they get a call. As a result, they’re missing critical, legitimate calls from schools, healthcare organizations, government agencies and more — calls they really want and need.
This massive problem — and the response of US regulators, service providers and enterprises to control them — is impacting not just US consumers but also enterprises that make legitimate automated calls. When enterprises can’t reach individuals, or their customers have negative call experiences, they end up losing current and future customers and revenue.
While legislators and regulators are understandably focused first and foremost on ensuring service providers implement call management systems to protect consumers from bad actors, the side effects of blocking legitimate calls or mislabeling them as spam is having a major, negative impact on enterprises and resulting in revenue loss.
At this point in time, consumers must rely on businesses and communications service providers (CSPs) to provide solutions like branded calling for businesses to address this issue. Although they can download apps or try using call blocking tools, without call authentication and enhanced caller information, consumers can’t be certain the call hasn’t been spoofed.
Because consumers aren’t able to implement branded calls completely on their own, branded calling is the equivalent of branded calling for businesses. Branded calls are one option for improving the customer call experience by helping ensure calls are not mistagged as spam, and providing more context around the call, along with verification it’s legitimate and hasn’t been spoofed. All this helps restore trust in the phone channel.
The massive impact of scams and fraud on US consumers is widely covered in the media and with good reason given an estimated tens of millions of US consumers lose billions of dollars every year to these scams. However, according to a study by OMDIA research, what’s less known is the level of financial impact negative call experiences have on US enterprises.
Spam mistagging and blocking alone cause big problems. When asked about revenue loss due to negative call experiences, such as call blocking or tagging:
43% of survey respondents stated these led to a 11%–20% loss in revenue in the last six months
29% cited a 0%–10% loss in revenue in the same timeframe
21% said they had a 21%–30% loss in revenue
TransUnion Branded Call Display (BCD), part of our Trusted Call Solutions suite, helps businesses reduce spam mistagging and blocking while adding context to the mobile display, including logo, name, number and reason for the call. In addition, calls are authenticated with STIR/SHAKEN call authentication to ensure they’ve not been spoofed.
Branded Caller ID is a technology that allows companies to display their names and logos on their customers’ phones when making outbound calls. The solution helps companies increase brand recognition and answer rates because customers recognize the caller name and pick up the phone.
Branded Caller ID differs from branded calls in that the call may or may not include Rich Call Content and may not be authenticated by STIR/SHAKEN call authentication. That means the call may still be purposefully spoofed by a fraudster who knows you’ll recognize the calling name and might more readily pick up.
Standard that is part of the STIR/SHAKEN framework that defines an additional claim in the identity token that supports additional information: name, logo, telephone number, reason for call
Note: STIR/SHAKEN was designed to enable the secure signing and verification of calling party numbers to reduce robocalls and call spoofing.
The flow for a call call with rich call content includes an ‘out-of-band’ component that bypasses the PSTN and allows the terminating service provider to verify the call and retrieve the Rich Call Data that will appear on the mobile phone display.
Every business has the opportunity to determine what name and other rich call content appears on their Caller IDs. With basic Caller ID, the steps are fairly easy and shown below. However, to have calls branded with rich call content, certain requirements must be met to deliver those calls, as shown below:
1. A trusted entity must conduct a rigorous onboarding process that ensures it and the phone numbers it uses are legitimate.
2. Ecosystem requires an accessible trusted data management source for enterprise data
3. Rich data retrieval and call authentication must be done by terminating service provider (TSP) to ensure data is verified
4. Consumer must have compliant mobile device and operating system to render data on the screen
Businesses should consider working with their service providers and a trusted entity like TransUnion to help implement solutions like Branded Call Display (BCD).
Branding a call, which includes adding context to the mobile display like name, logo and reason for the call, and authenticating the call, helps reassure customers who’s calling — so they pick up.
The introduction of capabilities like branding a call, along with stepped-up enforcement, is helping transform experiences and restore trust to the telecom ecosystem.
Branded calling also helps enterprises that are struggling to reach customers. TransUnion Branded Call Display (BCD) is part of the Trusted Call Solutions suite, which includes products like Caller Name Optimization (CNO) that helps reduce call mistagging and blocking.
In a recent OMDIA survey, over 80% of respondents ranked the impact on the following five outcomes of spam mistagging as extreme, high or moderate.
Reduced answer rates
Reduced customer satisfaction
Increased costs
Increased call volumes
Loss of sales/revenues
Read the full study: Rebuilding Trust in Calls, 2023
But the most important impact noted by respondents was the loss of revenue. We asked what percent of revenue loss their organizations experienced in the last 12 months (and more recently in the last 6 months) as a result of call blocking or tagging.
Respondents in the OMDIA survey of enterprises, and our survey of consumers backs up the popularity of branded calls with Rich Call Data (RCD).
Based on our surveys both enterprises and consumers are excited about branded calling.
believed branded calling will increase answer rates
are likely to answer calls from businesses if they display their names and logos
reported it will improve the call experience
were interested in caller name service on their mobile phones
said STIR/SHAKEN call authentication outweighed the costs
indicated ‘verification the call has not been spoofed’ is a top feature
In addition to helping protect consumers, increase right-party contact rates and enhance the customer experience, branded calling for businesses can deepen brand loyalty and create an opportunity for new revenue streams for CSPs. We asked consumers how branded calling would impact their loyalty to brands that added more context to calls like full name and logo, and if they’d be willing to pay for such a service.
According to our survey, the number of calls consumers missed that were legitimate is astounding. Here’s what they said:
Another benefit of branded calling is the potential for new sources of revenue for carriers.
To successfully implement business caller ID — or branded calling for businesses — requires a trusted call journey culminating in trusted, authenticated calls. Leveraging a proven provider can help you navigate that journey. What’s more, If you really want to make an impact, you won’t find a free branded caller id solution that can handle all the considerations your business needs.
At TransUnion, we help consumers and businesses transact with confidence. We manage caller ID across over 850 carriers and are trusted by more than 8,000 leading brands and enterprises in financial services, government, healthcare, insurance and more. Because we have such deep relationships, we do the heavy lifting with service providers for you.
Learn more about our Trusted Call Solutions suite. In addition to Branded Call Display (BCD), we offer Caller Name Optimization (CNO) which helps reduce spam mistagging and blocking, and Spoofed Call Protection (SCP) which helps stop fraudsters from posing as your brand.
NOTE: TruContact™ Communications and Contact Center Solutions are powered by Neustar™, a TransUnion company.
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