How to Pick the Best Branded Calling Solution for Your Business

If you’re on the hunt for a branded calling solution, unsure of where to start, or feel overwhelmed by your options, we’re here to help you make well-informed decisions and help guide you. Our close industry ties and relationships with the branded calling solution providers allow us to offer branded calling across all major wireless carriers while being able to consult you as you select the right solution for you.  

These are our top recommended best practices and questions to help navigate conversations across the various suppliers (including us) and vendors you may be considering. Branded calling isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, so it’s essential to evaluate your options with a strategic and customizable approach.  

Our Starting Top 5

Here are our Top 5 considerations we recommend you start with:  

1. Level-set your expectations to establish the proper measurements of success depending on the problem you’re experiencing. There is more than one reason to brand your calls or to not brand your calls.

2. Do your industry research or find a vendor that is a reliable industry expert so they can help consult you on the successes or possible pitfalls of branding and help educate you on the reach and capabilities of solutions on the market.  

3. Set your unique goals and requirements to ensure the branding provider can accurately help solve them without tanking your ROI.  

4. To ensure that branding is applied to protected phone numbers, find a provider able to address any call-blocking or labeling issues and provide ongoing visibility, control, and support. Just because a call is branded doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t be mislabeled as a Spam or Scam call. Why overpay to avoid these labels if they aren’t a guarantee?

5. Work with a solution provider that acts as an aggregator so you can streamline the solution to your specific needs, manage branded assets, and review branded metrics in one place.  

Get Specific  

With the above considerations in mind, this is our top list of questions to ask yourself, your business, and your branding provider to ensure you’re getting the most out of your branded calling solution with the highest ROI. Branding is not a one size fits all solution. Make sure whoever you’re partnering with is adaptable to suit your needs and the scope of the problem. We’ve had many types of businesses looking to achieve different goals, but we can help because we’ve taken the time to understand what you’re looking for in a solution and how to ensure this solution works to achieve your bottom line without breaking your budget.

KPIs and Measuring Success

It’s vital to start your evaluation by level-setting your goals and expectations instead of getting too caught up in the details. When shopping for a branded calling solution, ensure the solution provider shows you their software, flexibility, and how easy it is to load information once, all in one aggregated solution platform, so that you can remain on cruise control and trust their efforts instead of dizzyingly managing assets in multiple places through multiple providers. After defining how much you know and having a clear goal you’re trying to accomplish, you can establish how you will measure your success to ensure that the solution providers you're evaluating will meet your branding requests.

• What is the concern or issue that is leading you to implement a branded calling solution?
• Are you trying to improve contact or callback rates?
• Are you trying to increase brand exposure or influence brand perception?
• Are you trying to increase sales opportunities?
• Do you want to increase revenue or have a positive financial impact?  ‍
• What’s the expected lifecycle of your branded calling campaigns?  
• What does success look like for you?  
• How will you measure your KPIs?
• Will your definition of success differ depending on the sub-campaign (will you interpret branded customer service calls differently from a branded sales call)
• Branded calling doesn’t guarantee higher live answer rates or any of the desired KPIs you may be looking to achieve. How will you address any potential undesirable outcomes?  
• Will you A/B test campaigns branded campaigns against non-branded campaigns? What about branded campaigns of one kind with branded campaigns of another?
• Will the vendor allow you to brand only certain call attempts instead of having to brand them all?
• Will you be able to pivot strategies with the control to manage the branding elements directly?
• Will the vendor consult you on best practices to set you up for success and work with you to monitor and strategize your campaigns (like your A/B tests)?

Reasons for Calling (and Branding)

Once you and a potential vendor agree on the level of expectations and how to measure success, the next step is to ensure you’re on the same page regarding how you plan on implementing and conducting your branded phone calling campaigns.  

• Are you trying to improve sales call success? Fulfill customer service requests faster?
• What will your branded calling campaigns look like?  
• Do you want to brand all your outbound phone numbers/calls?  
• Will you be using branded calling to contact current customers? Cold leads?  ‍
• If you want to start, pause, resume, or stop any branded calling campaigns or sub-campaigns, will their platform allow you to actively manage that?  
• How many call attempts will you brand?  
• Can you display different brand names/logos across phone numbers that we manage or do business under other company names?  
• Is there an approval process for managing branding for more than one company identity?

Because branded calling is a dynamic and customizable technology, there are several approaches you may want to consider, depending on who you’re calling and why. For example, our recent Branded Calling Case Study explores the most common misconceptions of branded calling in the market to decipher the best approach to branding calls for maximum return on investment and positive customer impact.  

Solution Reach and Capabilities

The tricky thing to navigate here is how new this technology is and what impact the reach has across devices and networks. It’s critical to ask for evidence of the following items:

• Which carrier networks does the solution provider have direct relationships with?
• Which branded calling capabilities can they push to which consumer devices? For example, iOS devices only support a Caller Name, so anyone promising otherwise is overselling you.
• Are there any limitations, restrictions, or incompatibilities that would cause branding to only be conditionally displayed across carriers, apps, platforms, or devices?
• Is branding automatically displayed for all phone numbers across all carriers, apps, or devices?
• How long does it take them to implement/onboard you?  
• Does their branding solution use CNAM technology?
• Can you test how a call with branding will be displayed across various devices, carriers, and platforms before or after campaigns go live?
• Are there any external contracts needed for branding specific to carriers, apps, or devices?
• Once branding is live, can the display name, logo, or call reason originally submitted be changed?
• Is there a standard length of branded call campaign duration or any minimum/maximum usage requirements?
• Is there a defined process for submitting support or help requests?

The Right Solution & Provider for You

We know it can be difficult and time-consuming to search for the right solution provider to partner with and know which questions to ask right away. We’re always happy to help answer any questions and provide as much clarity into this ecosystem as possible so you can feel confident in choosing the right solution.  

“Our motto at Numeracle is transparency throughout the entire process and ecosystem. We let you know all your options and suggest alternatives, should you need them. The right solution for you is out there, so don't be shy about shopping for it. You don't need to sit here and suffer under poor contact rates and confusion; it's all about trust.”
— Alexander Carter, VP of Business Development

If you would like more resources on how to vet potential vendors to partner with in general, download our Vendor Evaluation Checklist to get you started. Wondering how Numeracle would answer the checklist above? We’re happy to reveal our answers! Contact us today for a branding solutions walk-through.