What Can You Do If Your Calls Are Being Labeled As Spam?

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May 12, 2022

Debt Collection, Effective Communication,

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It’s a roadblock we hear from our clients often. Sometimes, it affects our own team here at Arbeit.

“My legitimate calls are being labeled as spam. What do I do now?”

The crackdown on illegal robocalls from the highest levels of government has been swift, beginning with the TRACED Act in 2020 and continuing in iterations of enforcement as recently as April 2022.

The problem with swift enforcement is that the kinks are not always ironed out, and as a result, many legitimate callers are experiencing the aftermath of actions taken by the government, carriers and third party “call labelers.”

We’ve covered how call blocking and labeling works extensively in other content, so today, we wanted to talk about what it all boils down to – what you can do if your calls are being labeled as spam.

If you are experiencing mislabeled calls, and your calls are legitimate, you are probably operating in a cycle of frustration. All you want to do is reach consumers to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. How do you do it?

We’ll walk you through four things you can do if your calls are being labeled as spam:

Expand your pool of numbers to meet your call volume needs
Scrub your lists for Right Party Contacts before you start enrolling consumers in regular campaigns
Diversity your contact points across channels
Test and improve the content of your messages

We’ll also cover how you can find out whether your calls are being mislabeled and hopefully offer some hope for the future of the calling landscape. Let’s get started!

Play Video about calls are being labeled as spam

Why Are Legitimate Calls Sometimes Mislabeled As Spam? (1:00)

There are two main factors that can contribute to a call being labeled as spam.

Consumer Actions

Consumers now have the ability to contribute to the way calls are labeled. This has positive and negative implications.

Of course, it’s a good thing that you can now take action when an illegal robocaller is harassing you.

On the flip side, there is nothing stopping a consumer from marking your number as spam just because they don’t want to hear from you. And unfortunately, just about nobody wants to hear from a debt collector.

It doesn’t mean that one consumer’s action against your phone number will immediately result in a giant, ugly SPAM label when you call.

Instead, the data from consumers is crowdsourced and used by third party organizations who take all the consumer’s actions into account.

Call Volume

Call patterns and call volume are also taken into consideration by third party organizations.

We’ve found that the magic number is around 250 calls per day before a number might be flagged.

Third party organizations use all of this data to formulate a label for your phone number.

What Can You Do About Legitimate Calls That Are Labeled As Spam?

We recommend five steps you can take to mitigate mislabeled, legitimate calls at your organization.

1. Expand your pool of numbers to meet call volume needs

Kaitlyn explains that after extensive research and testing, it seems that the “magic number” that keeps your labels in the clear is 250 calls per number, per day.

Take the number of calls you typically make in a day and work backwards to determine the amount of numbers you should have to make sure a single number doesn’t exceed that 250 benchmark.

One single number getting the brunt of your traffic might cause red flags to wave.

2. Pay for a service that can brand your calls for you

A paid solution to the call labeling problem is signing up for a service that can verify and label your calls for you.

You can even arrange your logo to appear in addition to your business name.

It’s an upfront investment, but it’s arguably costing you more in the long run not to invest in solving this problem.

3. Scrub your contact lists for right party contacts

One of the quickest ways to get a call mislabeled as spam is to repeatedly call the wrong person.

Another method (that will cost you nothing but time) is to scrub your lists for right party contacts before you enroll them in a high volume campaign.

You can also use the Reassigned Number Database to confirm right party contacts before you start calling them.

4. Diversify your contact points across channels

Before your mind wanders too far into the weeds of calling, it’s important to zoom out and remember that you have other channels at your disposal to reach consumers.

Across generations, consumers have reported that they are not only open to receiving communication on digital channels – they prefer to.

If all you are doing today is calling, we recommend you simply start with one other channel and closely monitor your results.

5. Test and Improve the Content Of Your Messages

Speaking of monitoring results closely, keep in mind that it might not just be your calling patterns that makes consumers wary of your number – it might be the actual content of your calls.

If you are leaving voicemails or running a Press 1 Campaign, and have experience calls being labeled as spam, try switching up the content of your message and seeing if one particular script performs better or lifts your connection rates.

How Do You Know If Your Calls Are Being Labeled As Spam?

The quickest and most accurate way to find out if your calls are being labeled as spam is to pay for a service that will tell you right away.

If you want to start investigating internally, however, you can monitor your connection rates, or simply call a cellphone from the number in question, and find out.

A Mislabeled Call Is Not A Death Sentence - There's Lots Of Hope

Your gut reaction to a spam label might be to throw up your hands, shut down your computer and give up on finding a permanent solution to this very real problem.

It will take time and potentially money, but there are a lot of things you can do to start working towards clean and effective calling outcomes.

We’ve spent a lot of time investigating why and how call labeling happens, and we’re happy to share any additional information you are looking for when it comes to call blocking and labeling.

You can book time with us below to learn more.

This information does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; and may not be used as legal advice. Instead, all information is for general informational purposes only.

About The Author

Alex Villafranca

Alex is the CEO, co-founder and Head of Revenue at Arbeit, a better outbound communication software that makes businesses more profitable.