Everyone has a cell phone, yet it’s no longer the ideal way for businesses to connect with consumers. There’s too much spam, too many scammers pretending to be your “bank,” a “hospital,” the “IRS,” or just about anyone else – often with the illegally spoofed caller ID to match.
The increasing distrust and heightened vulnerability of the voice channel is felt daily by consumers who are rightly suspicious of every phone call. Their distrust leads them to decline or ignore most unrecognized calls, even from legitimate brands.
Our latest Consumer Research Study, 76% of polled Americans said they are unlikely to answer an unrecognized number, and 74% have received calls from entities they didn’t trust, regardless of the caller ID information. This is a major issue for businesses reaching out to customers and potential buyers over the phone, especially when telecom fraud has risen 12% since 2021.1
“Nobody answers phone calls. If it’s not my kids or my wife, I’m not picking up. We can bring phone calls back to life, but not without restoring trust and identity.”
– Brett Nemeroff, Vice President of Engineering; Numeracle
To restore trust, Numeracle has been working with the CTIA, a leading communications industry group, to pioneer the next generation of trusted and secure Branded Calling ID™ (BCID™). This new technology follows stringent industry standards while combining identity verification with Rich Call Data (RCD), to display a brand’s name, logo and reason for the call, taking branded calling to the next level by delivering a cryptographically verifiable call with a verification symbol that consumer can trust to answer.
It’s a brand-new look for phone calls with a whole new level of trust.
When a business devotes a budget to making calls, they need consumers to answer and must protect their good name from scammers impersonating them.
While displaying a caller ID name can encourage call pickups, these calls are still at risk of being improperly blocked, labeled, and illegally spoofed. “Scammers often utilize new technologies before legitimate companies even do,” says Nemeroff. Between January 2019 and September 2023, over 2 million complaints were filed in the National Do Not Call Registry about unwanted calls from impersonators.
Nemeroff recalls receiving a call from a number belonging to “Darth Vader.” He knew a Sith Lord wasn’t calling but couldn’t resist picking up. He found out the caller, another engineer, had simply typed a new name into his carrier’s website and just like that he was now “Darth Vader.” Too easy.
As the future of identity delivery of the phone, BCID prevents this kind of spoofing. It uses a secure, industry-governed system by the CTIA, a neutral, third-party trade organization, for identity verification by issuing and validating the certificates that allow for end-to-end call verification.
In short, it’s not something a scammer can do.
Numeracle is among the first BCID Authorized Partners™ offering to secure end-to-end caller identity management through our Secure Verified Identity Presentation (sVIP) solution
Built on a Zero Trust framework, it delivers a verified business call indicator with the dynamic presentation of the caller’s name, logo and call reason displayed on the recipient’s smartphone. Voice service providers can now deliver verified, trustworthy identities to consumers every time without the possibility of those identities being spoofed.
“We’re trying to offer a new and novel way of presenting calls that breeds legitimacy,” Nemeroff said.
Delivering branded calls with added layers of trust and security can have a positive influence on brand affinity. Instead of just a name, brands can display logos and, on Android phones, a reason for calling. This novel display is achieved using the native technology on the device, without the consumer needing to download an application to render any visuals or caller information.
With scammers being unable to fake, mimic, or illegally spoof the dynamic presentation accomplished via BCID, when consumers see this new branded presentation on their screens, they’ll know it’s the real deal.
Numeracle asked respondents how the receipt of comprehensive, trusted caller information would impact their behavior—for 21% of consumers, enhanced caller ID information, or a logo on an incoming call, would increase their trust in a legitimate brand. Nearly half (45%) said it would increase their likelihood of engaging with a brand.
“What you see is what you get,” Nemeroff explained. “We’ve developed technology to overhaul caller ID, but it must breathe legitimacy in its look and feel. That’s what we’ve achieved with logos.”
Restoring trust in caller ID isn’t easy and will take time. For the millions of hospitals, banks, and other businesses in need of communicating critical or requested information, repairing one of the most direct lines between businesses and consumers is certainly worth the effort.
Creating a spoof-proof identity display framework won’t just save people from the frustration of answering a call only to find a scam artist or brand impersonator. It’ll create avenues for trusted brands and customers to reconnect and rediscover the power of the humble phone call.
“We’ve been working on this for a long time,” said Nemeroff. “I think the biggest brands out there are going to want this technology.”
Ready to start delivering spoof-resistant, secure end-to-end calls with brand identity? Numeracle’s sVIP is now available to originating service providers as a trusted onramp to the BCID ecosystem. Contact us today to learn how a partnership with Numeracle will enable you to provide direct access to the next generation of identity display to your enterprise customers.
