Only 25% of people will even answer a number they don’t recognize and that doesn’t even count the calls that scream their identity as spam. Needless to say, if you are a dealer trying to reach a customer or a lead, you DO NOT want to be marked as a spam call.

How to Stop Inbound and Outbound Spam Calls to Your Dealership

Your phone lights up and you look down to see an unrecognizable number and a dreaded caller ID marks the caller as SPAM. Do you answer? Probably not. Only 25% of people will even answer a number they don’t recognize and that doesn’t even count the calls that scream their identity as spam. Needless to say, if you are a dealer trying to reach a customer or a lead, you DO NOT want to be marked as a spam call.

On the receiving end, dealers also struggle with getting their phone lines jammed up with inbound spam calls and also know the struggle of answering the phone and getting a robo-voice in their ear. But not to worry, there are some easy ways you can combat spam calls.

The Problem with Outbound Spam Calls

Not all calls that are flagged as spam actually fall into that category. Many dealers have learned that lesson the hard way. Reps try to follow up on a voicemail or reach a lead, only to hear a repeating dial with no connection. On the receiving end, recipients are seeing SPAM. If you leave a voicemail, customers are likely to wonder why you’re being flagged. Have you done something that might not be good practice? That’s not something you want a prospect or customer to be wondering about your dealership.

If your dealer gets flagged as spam, that can have negative repercussions for your brand and it also affects your ability to connect with customers and prospects, which could lead to a loss of revenue. According to Hubspot, $1.6 trillion is lost each year due to poor customer service. You certainly don’t want to be on the receiving end of those lost profits.

How to Fix Outbound Spam Calls

Carriers are constantly trying to prevent their customers from having to deal with spam. To help combat that and protect their customers, they began to mark certain numbers as spam a few years ago. However, they do offer businesses a way to authenticate their identity. Dealers can prevent their calls from being flagged as spam with Carrier Registration.

When you register with a carrier, you are validating that you are a legitimate caller and the providers will remove the spam designation once they have determined your identity. This also helps to prevent against number spoofing, another way spammers try to come across as legitimate callers.

The Problem with Inbound Spam Calls

The other type of spam that dealers find themselves facing is inbound spam calls. This puts the dealer in the position of most customers, where they are also trying to keep from jamming up their lines with spam. Spam jumped from 43 billion in 2019 to 56 billion in 2020, a number that still continues to rise. There is certainly no shortage of spam calls to businesses or individuals.

Inbound spam calls are not only is a waste of time and effort for your phone reps, but they can also cause you to unintentionally neglect your real callers. If calls are held in queue for the next phone rep, and three of those four calls are spam, your customer will experience longer wait times and possibly even dropped calls.

How to Fix Inbound Spam Calls

Getting rid of inbound spam calls can be a little tricky. Make sure you are using a phone bridge which requires action to be routed to a department. For example, press 1 for service, press 2 for showroom, press 3 to talk to a representative. Then you implement an automatic end call if no action is taken. Real callers will be routed to the right place and spam calls will be automatically filtered out.

This is where a call management provider is essential. Rather than manage these calls on your own, a good provider will filter out these calls using technology and follow up to report persistent spam to limit future problems. They will also perform regular phone health checks to make sure calls aren’t getting dropped due to spam blockage and route calls to the right department.