Additional training for your employees helps, but your contact ratio surprisingly relies heavily on your phone number. Many consumers don’t answer calls from phone numbers they don’t know. That is especially true if those calls come from out of the area.
Too bad you can't change the displayed phone number on the caller ID. Can you? Thanks to a significant advancement in caller ID technology, you can. This tech is called “neighbor spoofing” or local area code match. Here’s how this form of legal caller ID spoofing helps increase your contact ratio.
What’s Local Area Match?
Local area match is a fairly new tactic that businesses use for outbound calls. It's when your campaign targets a specific geo region, so your caller ID matches that area as well. To get a similar phone number to most people in that area, you'll at least need the same area code. People answer local numbers, with area codes they recognize, before out-of-state or toll-free numbers.
After all, when you see a local number calling, you might assume it’s a local business that you already use. It could be your doctor, dentist, landscaper, pharmacy or other business you know.
Contrast this with your thoughts when a toll-free number calls you. You likely assume, it’s a company robo-dialing and isn't worth your time. That’s why companies making outbound calls use "local match spoofing" to boost their contact ratios and conversion rates.
Local Area Match Statistics
The data shows that local numbers make a huge difference in a campaigns contact ratio. In fact, one study found that people are almost four times more likely to answer calls from local area codes than toll-free numbers. Also, they’re about twice as likely to answer local calls than calls from out of state.
More specifically, the same study found that 80 percent of those surveyed don't answer calls from toll-free area codes. Meanwhile, about 75 percent don't answer calls from out-of-state numbers.
That percentage drops to 53 percent for calls from numbers with local area codes. Additionally, 28 percent said they’re either somewhat or extremely likely to answer calls from local area codes. Compare that to the 7 percent who claim to answer toll-free numbers and 13 percent likely answer out-of-state numbers.
Getting Started Using Local Match
Caller ID spoofing using local match is effective for telemarketing. So now, you might consider trying it out and improving your contact ratio.
How can you get started? First, you're going to need a powerful dialer. Next, you need to buy at least one phone number for each area code you're targeting. The more markets you wish to reach, the more numbers you’ll need. Choose a dialer with the ability to manage this quantity of phone numbers.
No matter the dialer, you need to monitor the health of all these phone numbers. That means regularly checking for blocked or flagged numbers. Otherwise, you waste time and money calling from numbers no one wants to answer.
Start Monitoring Your Caller ID Reputation
To avoid wasting resources on blocked and flagged numbers, you need a service like Caller ID Reputation. This service lets you check the reputation of your numbers against all call blocking apps and blacklists. After all, even if you start with all clean numbers, any of them can become compromised over time.
Without Caller ID Reputation it is challenging to separate the well-performing numbers from the bad. How do you determine blocked numbers, or worse, numbers reported to the FCC? Continuing to call from those "bad" numbers wastes your time and efforts.
Blocked numbers mean that you're losing the ability to local match entire geographical areas. Plus, you could end up facing fines and other legal woes for continued use of flagged phone numbers.
Give local area code match a shot. You’ll be in good company since many businesses already utilize this method of boosting call performance.
Don’t try it until you have all the tools in place. Tools like Caller ID Reputation help make sure all the phone numbers you use are clean and legitimate. Caller ID Rep also integrates with carriers like Twilio and Nexmo allowing you to purchase and manage many phone numbers. You can contact us today to find out more about how this service works.
