Written by
Mary Gonzalez, Director of Brand & Content
Published on
July 13, 2023
Updated on
July 3, 2025
Let’s say one of your customers buys something online, and it’s time for you to contact them to let them know their purchase is ready for pick-up. Or, let’s say you’re making a regularly scheduled service call or returning a customer support call. You need to know that any of those calls aren’t labeled as spam, or they won’t answer, and you’ll have to continue calling them in hopes that they may one day pick up.
As consumers, we’ve seen calls land on our phones that warn us not to pick up a call because the Caller ID field says “Spam Likely,” or “Potential Spam.” But many businesses are completely unaware that their calls could get mislabeled as spam when they try contacting their customers or vendors. Getting people on the phone is hard enough, but a spam label that shouldn’t be there makes it virtually impossible.
For retail companies, reducing friction while improving the customer experience is a balancing act that can quickly fall apart if your calls are considered and therefore delivered as spam calls. As we move to an increasingly online marketplace for goods and services, many customer interactions must happen over devices instead of in person. The various points of contact throughout the purchasing lifecycle, from initial marketing contact to sales support interactions, should all enable your customers to connect successfully with you to make their purchasing process easy and efficient.
It also means that retail businesses should focus some of their efforts and attention on improving the reputation of their phone numbers to protect themselves from being mislabeled as spam. If they don’t, calls with continue to go unanswered, and business opportunities will keep getting missed, all while tarnishing the experience customers will start associating with your brand.
In the fast-paced world of retail, effective communication is paramount for optimizing operations, ensuring customer satisfaction, and driving sales. Creating seamless "phygital" connections, combining the best elements of digital experiences with the physical world, requires immediacy, convenience, personalization, immersion, and interaction. Phone calls to customers play a vital role in achieving this connection. Our analysis shows that an average of 25% of a company’s phone numbers are typically at risk of being mislabeled as spam or scam, harming many aspects of business operations and targets. This means it’s probably happening to you, and you just don’t know about it yet.
Retail personnel often keep detailed call logs for reaching out to customers about various aspects of their purchases, like stock availability, shipment updates, answering product inquiries, informing customers about warranties, service requests, and delivery notifications. But when calls are mislabeled or blocked, it leads to a loss of efficiency when they have to catch up on calls and orders while creating customer dissatisfaction when they aren’t served promptly, hindering the smooth customer process that retailers strive for.
A spam label can impact more than your customers but your vendors and even your own staff. This is especially true when anticipating high-volume periods like major sales and popular shopping holidays when you need to recruit and hire in time to handle the influx of business. Worrying about hiring enough employees in time isn’t a concern you want to have overlap with the busy days ahead. Instead, you can set yourself and your business up for success by addressing your spam or scam labels so you can ensure you’re able to hire new staff members and know that you’re set up to deliver any necessary phone calls to close sales and have a successful season.
Pesky spam labels can also lead to the dreaded game of phone tag when you have to keep trying to call and reach your customers. Not only is this operationally a mess to keep up with, but at a certain point, you may find yourself having to give up, missing out on a portion of sales that may go to competitors, and hindering your chances of a customer returning to shop with you. As one of the last touchpoints needed in the sales process, why ruin your chances when you’ve come this far?
Quick fixes won’t cut it. The best way to approach your call blocking and labeling issues is by starting with your identity. This is where Numeracle comes in. We pioneered a solution that prioritizes what we call your calling identity so that when you register your phone numbers with us, the carriers and analytics know that the calls you’re making are coming from a trusted source. Customers are more likely to pick up, and your brand won’t be associated with negative keywords like spam or scam anymore.
We do this by vetting and validating your identity with your phone numbers to vastly improve the reputation of your numbers and keep calls protected by up to 97%. On the remaining 3% of numbers that could still become mislabeled, the only way to fix spam labels is through a validated remediation process, like the one we offer, that disputes the label at the carrier level to get it removed from your phone numbers. Once spam, scam, or fraud labels are identified and remediated, most businesses see improvements in their contact rates averaging from 1-5%, with outliers seeing upwards of 20-30% increases post-remediation, significantly impacting positive ROI.
By actively managing and improving your calling reputation, it protects your brand identity and perception while enhancing communication with your customers so you can return to the business that matters. Now you can keep calling your customers with confidence, knowing that your numbers are protected now that the spam labels are gone.
Once you’ve removed any spam labels from harming your phone numbers, you can take your calls one step further by attaching branded elements, like caller ID names, company logos, and custom call reasons. Adding and presenting a branded call to your customer further reinforces trust in your brand while creating a memorable customer experience and leaving a positive impression when you call.
Branded calling reinforces brand recognition and helps to create a stronger brand image. The more frequently a customer sees a brand's name and logo, the more likely they are to remember it and associate it with positive experiences. It can also help differentiate your business from competitors. Having a clear and distinct identity and brand personality can make it easier for potential buyers to understand what sets your business apart from others in the market.
By taking proactive measures to overcome call labeling challenges, retail businesses can create seamless customer experiences, drive sales, and foster long-term success in the dynamic world of retail. Don’t wait and miss out on sales opportunities. Reach out to us today for a free demo and consultation to find out if your calls are ringing through as spam. Your brand identity must be protected in every channel, so don’t overlook your phone calls. It could be a pitfall for your business if you don’t take the time to prioritize the strategy behind your phone calls.
Number Reputation Management is the proactive process of monitoring, protecting, and improving the trustworthiness of your outbound phone numbers. It involves understanding how your numbers are perceived by carriers, analytics providers, and ultimately, call recipients. The goal is to ensure your legitimate calls are delivered and answered by preventing them from being mislabeled as spam or blocked, thereby maximizing the effectiveness of your phone outreach efforts.
Your outbound phone numbers may have a bad reputation for several interconnected reasons that affect how carriers, call-blocking apps, and recipients perceive your calls. One common cause is high call volume or frequent outbound calls, especially if those calls resemble telemarketing or robocall patterns.
Automated systems and spam detection algorithms are designed to flag numbers that make many calls in a short period without receiving many answers, as this behavior often matches that of spam callers. Additionally, if consumers frequently report your number as spam because they find the calls intrusive or unfamiliar, this can quickly damage your number’s reputation and lead to it being labeled with warnings like "Potential Spam" or "Scam Likely."
Your number might also be flagged if your calling practices do not comply with regulations such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), for example by calling numbers on Do Not Call lists or using automated calls without proper consent. Using numbers that appear random, toll-free, or from suspicious area codes can contribute to negative perceptions as well, since these are often associated with robocalls.
Furthermore, if your CRM data is outdated or you lack insights into the best times to call, you might be contacting people who are less likely to answer or more likely to report your calls as spam, which further harms your reputation.
There are a range of tools available to monitor phone number reputation, each offering different levels of insight and control. Some services focus on monitoring only, providing alerts when a number is flagged as spam or scam across carrier networks and third-party call analytics apps. These tools can help businesses identify when problems occur but often require separate action to resolve issues.
Other solutions include remediation support, where the platform assists in submitting complaints or appeals to carriers and analytics providers. However, this process can still be fragmented, requiring businesses to manage multiple relationships and workflows.
More advanced platforms, such as aggregated reputation management systems, combine monitoring with proactive protection and remediation. These tools often include identity verification, number registration, and established relationships with major carriers and analytics engines. By managing reputation across the entire voice ecosystem in one place, these platforms provide more consistent protection and faster resolution of spam labels.
Choosing the right tool depends on your organization’s size, call volume, and ability to manage phone number reputation internally. Businesses seeking full visibility and faster resolution may benefit from solutions that go beyond monitoring to offer centralized, end-to-end number management.
The best way to avoid spam labeling isn’t to attempt avoiding it or simply monitoring it—it’s to actively protect your phone numbers through identity-based remediation and number reputation management. Unlike passive monitoring tools that only alert you after a label appears, Numeracle delivers proactive, continuous protection that prevents labels before they appear and remediates them when they do.
Spam and scam labels are often applied to legitimate business calls due to lack of trust signals, inconsistent call behavior, or shared carrier analytics. Numeracle solves this at the source through our Verified Identity KYC process, which authenticates your brand’s authority to use specific numbers, and communicates that legitimacy across the call delivery ecosystem. This identity-based approach enables ongoing remediation with carrier partners, analytics engines, and call blocking apps—ensuring your reputation stays protected, not just watched.
