I started my career as a cable television technician and proceeded up through that industry eventually moving into Sales Management. As a sales leader, I saw major impacts to my outbound channel from blocking and labeling and Numeracle helped me understand, navigate, and overcome those challenges and made me a convert. I was excited to see them drive positive outcomes and I wanted to be part of that mission.
There's a lot of noise in the telecom space from the technologies, regulations, or knowing what STIR/SHAKEN is… Right now there’s a lot of confusion for people to navigate on their own but at the end of the day, they really just want their calls delivered successfully. So in my work, I try to keep things very simple to understand and make that delivery that's my main focus.
Consumers are getting inundated with communications from a variety of sources like voice calls, SMS, and many apps and they want more control. Knowing who is calling them and why helps provide more reliable call delivery and number reputation management does that.
Having your calls labeled can give a brand a black eye. If you're a major retailer or a service provider you don't want your number showing up as ‘Spam.’ Number reputation and brand management are directly aligned.
I think it's our people and our experiences. We have a wealth of industry, regulatory, and technology experience in the contact center space so we really understand what our clients need and partner with them to deliver the right solution.
Mainly, calls don't get delivered, but then a whole host of fallout can come from that. Sales don't get made, prescriptions don't get picked up, appointments aren’t kept, and opportunities get missed.
A couple of tips that I often share are:
Customer complaints are a major factor in the scoring or the labeling of your numbers. So when you think about the customer's experience, be better than TCPA compliance when you're contacting customers.
Load balance your outbound dialing. Spiky call volume can resemble robocalling and that can trip spam tags on your numbers.
Number swapping or rotation can be part of a good dialing strategy. Swapping numbers too frequently can lead to labeling because they may resemble robocalling, but periodic number swapping before too many complaints grow can be prudent with part of an overall dialing strategy focusing on best practices. Typically, a 60-90 day rotation and registration window on numbers seem to work well for a lot of our clients, but managing reputation is still the #1 need.
One of the challenges is that algorithms are proprietary so people that are dialing don't “have the answers to the quiz” on how to remain compliant and that’s a big challenge for them.
Secondly, having transparency and visibility to what their numbers ratings (labeling) are and how they got at them is a major hurdle for a lot of folks, especially when you add on how to remediate the labeling events. These pieces working together is invaluable to our clients.
Lastly is advocacy, so, what should the customer do to improve reputation if they have negative labels on their numbers? It’s not easy and not many offer this as part of a solution the way we do.
The value is you want to keep the good guys in, and the bad guys out.
If you are a legal entity with consent and compliant dialing practices, you want to be protected and number reputation is a big step forward towards reaching that protection.
In terms of predictions, a couple of things come to mind. One of the biggest questions is around how and whether STIR/SHAKEN attestation will affect number ratings. I think that’s the biggest question on everyone's mind. But the answer is, we just don't know right now. That's definitely one that we will be keeping an eye on.
Another prediction is around the use of artificial intelligence in algorithms. Some of the major providers have introduced AI to their systems to try to refine their algorithms. I think it's going to be interesting to see how that shakes out and what the learning curve is going to be for some of that AI.
As a seasoned call center executive with experience working in senior positions at S&P Data and Comcast Cable and a successful career spanning over 30 years, Joe works closely with clients to understand their unique challenges in the current communications ecosystem and provide his expertise to drive business development, client services, and success management to increase the effectiveness of their call center operations.
