Entrepreneurs receive many calls a month. Of that number, more than half come from numbers which are not saved in the contact list. They could be anything from legitimate business calls to robocalls and spammers. Have you ever had to put up with robocalls or spam calls? In all likelihood, you have. You answer the phone only to come across silence or a pre-recorded message. It is time to free yourself from such things. If you want to put an end to those annoying, unknown callers, keep on reading.
What are robocalls and spam calls?
Robocalls are simply pre-recorded messages that are delivered through a computerized autodialer. To put it simply, robocalls are automated phone calls made by computer systems. In the last year, the number of calls has dramatically increased. Technology has made it simpler to make calls, no matter the location, and hide a person’s identity by displaying a fake caller ID. Generally speaking, robocalls have reached epidemic levels. They have managed to make their way around the world, growing by 325%. According to business technology news website ZDNet, robocall scams have surged around the globe to 85 billion.
Spam calls, on the other hand, are unsolicited calls and messages that are meant to entice the person to buy. In other words, they are calls for the advertisement of products. Mobile phone spam is less pervasive as compared to email spam, yet it is no less annoying. It is disturbing to constantly receive unsolicited text messages on your phone. As a rule, individuals receive at least one spam call a day. Needless to say, nobody wants robots to call their Android or iPhone. Unfortunately, spam calls seem to keep coming in. The fight against phone spam is so great that there is an industry combatting it.
How robocalls and spam calls affect your business
Unwanted calls and messages fill up your history and, most importantly, waste your time. Businesses can be negatively affected by robocalls and spam calls. In what follows, we will try to explain the negative effects. Since you depend on the mobile phone as the main means of communication with the audience, you should do something about it.
- Data breaches. Business records can be exposed or compromised through data breaches. Criminals can get access to information over the phone. They use fraudulent phone calls to trick people into revealing sensitive information. Thus, the robocalls or spams calls may come from a criminal who is attempting to scam private information. If you get a call from someone claiming to be from a company like Apple and requiring account info, hang up immediately. Chances are you are not talking to a company representative.
- Not answering the phone. It is not to say that all automated phone calls are bad. Some remind you of important things, such as setting up an appointment for a health checkup. The issue is that you become so accustomed to ignoring phone calls that you do not recognize, thinking that everything is part of a marketing campaign. Therefore, you risk missing an important call just because it came from an unknown number. If someone calls you and you miss the call, do not call back. Do a reverse phone lookup and find out to whom the number belongs. The reverse phone lookup is just as intuitive as it sounds.
What to do about robocalls and spam calls at your business
If you have decided to battle annoying, unknown phone calls, congratulations. The battle is a winning one. These are the steps you need to take to prevent robocallers from spamming your phone:
1. Get in touch with your phone carrier
Unwanted, unsolicited calls are a growing problem in the corporate world. If you do not want to be disturbed when you are at work, reach out to your phone carrier. At present, phone carriers have the power to put an end to robocalls and spam calls. How so? Well, they are allowed to block phone calls so as to protect consumers. This means that you do not have to worry about deceptive caller, IDs or spoofing. Your ability to make outbound or emergency calls should not be affected. However, you might get false positives.
2. Do a reverse phone lookup
What do you do if you receive calls from an unknown source on a regular basis? As mentioned earlier, you cannot afford to ignore all phone calls. If someone gets your voice email, they will most surely move on and do business with the other person on the list. This is the reason why you have to carry out a reverse phone lookup and see who has been trying so much to reach you. Use a reverse phone lookup service and discover the person’s name and address. If you google “reverse lookup”, you will most certainly come across many services of this kind. Do not waste time and find out who initiated the call.
3. Use your phone to your advantage
You could ask cold callers to stop harassing you. You could, but there is no guarantee that this strategy will work. Instead of asking cold callers to leave you alone, adjust your phone’s settings. iOS, as well as Android devices, have the power to block calls. You can leverage your mobile phone’s built-in features to prevent audio/video calls and text messages. Special attention needs to be paid to the fact that this method is not a very good one. To be more precise, issues could continue to arise. You may only enjoy temporary results. The calls will not go away if they are not eliminated from the source.
Final considerations
It is hard to survive in the corporate world when you are bothered by a lot of phone calls. Constant phoning is a real nuisance. If your company is not currently protected from robocalls and spam calls, take action. None of the options listed in this article are perfect solutions. Maybe so, but they are worth putting into practice. Make sure your business fights back against unwanted, unsolicited calls. You should not put up with the situation or miss important calls from clients.
