Mitigate Illegal Spoofing & Securely Deliver Identity with SignatureCalling™
You have a good customer meeting, and you agree to follow up by phone. You give him a call…and he won’t pick up! Is he avoiding you? Or is he simply avoiding potential spam?
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.
Combatting Identity Fraud for Restored Trust in Phone Calls
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. Per the Communications Fraud Control Association, telecommunications fraud increased 12% in 2023 alone, equating to an estimated $38.95 billion lost to fraud.
To restore trust, Commio and Numeracle have 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 consumers can trust to answer.
It’s a brand-new look for phone calls with a whole new level of trust.
The Need for Enhanced Caller ID
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. Fraudsters are quick to adopt new technologies, often outpacing legitimate businesses. This has led to a surge in unwanted calls from impersonators, with over 2 million complaints filed with the National Do Not Call Registry between January 2019 and September 2023.
BCID 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.
The Secure Future of Branded Calling is Here
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.
Identity Protection for Brand Affinity
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,” Brett Nemeroff, VP of Voice Engineering at Numeracle 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.”
Secure Connections for Businesses and Consumers
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.
Ready to deliver spoof-resistant, secure end-to-end calls with brand identity? Contact Commio today to find out how to get started with SignatureCalling™.
