September 28, 2022
How Analytics Engines Determine Caller ID Scoring
Attestation ratings have the potential to make people feel more comfortable answering incoming phone calls. Preventing robocalls, scams, and call spoofing require participation from all carriers. Until that happens, companies will keep relying on caller ID scoring analytics engines to score calls before passing them on to their customers.
What Is an Analytics Engine (AE)?
Intermediate service providers use analytics engines to evaluate the intent and quality of calls. Caller ID scoring analytics engines rely on algorithms that can consider many factors, including call behavior, call intent, and attestation ratings.
Analytics engines don’t establish STIR/SHAKEN attestation ratings, but they can use them in their evaluations.
The information from caller ID scoring analytics engines gets passed to terminating service providers, which can use the data to decide whether to block, redirect, or add a label to the call.
How Analytics Engines Score Calls
Analytics engines typically use event-based or content-based analytics to evaluate calls. Each analytic engine can use a unique scoring system to help terminating service providers decide how they should handle calls. Regardless of the scoring system, calls usually get flagged, labeled, or blocked when they exceed a specific score.
Event-Based Analytics
Event-based analytics focus on call-related data, such as the caller’s behavior and information contained in a call’s Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) message. For example, algorithms might flag your calls because you use the same number too many times. It stands out when the same number places 100 calls within an hour, so analytics engines might assume you’re breaking regulations.
Unfortunately, event-based analytics aren’t always correct. Robocalls can easily place 100 calls within an hour. That doesn’t mean everyone dialing that quickly breaks regulations, though. You could simply use dialing software that connects you to consumers very efficiently.
Because event-based analytics can produce false negatives, you might need to adjust your dialing behavior to avoid negative labels, flags, and number blocks.
Content-Based Analytics
Content-based analytics produce more reliable results because the algorithms used by analytics engines’ review the content of calls. For example, an algorithm could review what your agent says during a call to determine whether the person has unlawful or unethical intent. If your agent inaccurately says they represent a bank, the analytics engine could look at the number’s owner, see that it does not belong to a bank, and flag the call.
While content-based analytics are usually more reliable than event-based analytics, there is still room for misinterpretation and misjudgment.
Redressing Blocked Calls
When a service provider or third-party app blocks your call, you should get a blocking notification that uses SIP Codes 603, 607, or 608. Each code has a different meaning:
- SIP 603 is a general code that tells you the call did not connect and who blocked the call.
- SIP 607 shows that a party chose not to accept your call and the reason they rejected the call.
- SIP 608 means that an upstream intermediary rejected your call, provided a reason why, and gave you contact information to remediate any issues.
Ideally, your rejected calls generate SIP 608 codes that tell you how to contact the responsible party and correct any mistakes. You can still redress blocked calls that give you SIP 603 and SIP 607 codes, but you need to do a little more work.
Don’t assume that you need to contact a service provider to redress blocked numbers and calls. Companies often outsource this task to other businesses. For example, AT&T uses HIYA as its redress organization. T-Mobile uses FirstOrion to manage redress concerns.
You can find a list of service providers, their redress organizations, and the best ways to contact the redress organizations on this page.
Phone Number Reputation Monitoring
Caller ID scoring analytics engines help service providers improve customer experiences. However, some calls from legitimate businesses get blocked. Even content-based analytics, which works very well, can make mistakes.
You can always redress blocked calls, but that takes time and effort. While the company reviews your appeal, you cannot use the number to reach customers and leads. Even worse, you might not notice that a number has received a negative score and been blocked. If you continue using the number, you don’t have any chance to reach your customers.
Phone number reputation monitoring makes it easier for you to avoid blocks, flags, and labels. Following ethical dialing practices will help protect your numbers. Still, your numbers could get blocked from a simple error in your dialing software.
Proactively monitoring your numbers allows you to adjust your dialing behaviors to avoid negative responses. If a number starts to “get hot” from frequent dialing, you can take it out of rotation until it cools off. In the meantime, you rely on your other numbers to connect with consumers.
Real-Time Data Monitoring
Caller ID Reputation uses real-time data so you can see your phone number reputations at any time. You even get screenshots from real mobile devices. You don’t need to wonder what your customers see when you call. You get to see what appears on their screens. If a label, flag, or block concerns you, you can pull the number from rotation and work toward improving its reputation.
Start a 5-day trial to experience how Caller ID Reputation works. Your account will give you more insight into how analytics engines evaluate your numbers and improve the results of your outreach campaigns.
