Recommendations and Best Practices for Maintaining a Positive Caller Reputation

Maintaining consumer trust in the voice communication channel is critical. Consumers expect to receive wanted and personalized communications while being protected from spam and unwanted calls.

This guide provides recommendations and best practices for maintaining a positive caller reputation and links to additional HighLevel resources for caller authentication, identification, and reputation management.

Why Does Caller Reputation Matter?

Throughout the industry, there are continued efforts to reduce unwanted calls to consumers. These efforts can sometimes lead to legitimate business calls being screened, blocked, or marked as spam.

Following good calling practices and using HighLevel’s caller trust and reputation tools can help reduce the likelihood of your calls being flagged and improve caller recognition.

If your calls are already being marked as spam, see Why are my Calls marked as Spam, and How can I avoid it?.

For an overview of the tools HighLevel provides for caller authentication, caller identification, and reputation management, see Branded Calling: Improve Your Phone Number Reputation.

Trust Center

LC Phone provides the Trust Center to help businesses establish trust within the telephony ecosystem.

HighLevel provides several tools that support different aspects of caller trust and phone number reputation:

• SHAKEN/STIR authenticates caller ID information and helps carriers verify that you are authorized to use the phone number displayed on an outbound call.
  
  
• CNAM associates a U.S. phone number with a registered business or personal name. The receiving carrier and device ultimately determine whether the registered name is displayed.
  
  
• Voice Integrity submits eligible U.S. phone numbers to caller-ID analytics providers for reputation review when legitimate numbers are incorrectly receiving spam or nuisance labels.
  
  

For a broader explanation of how these tools work together, see Branded Calling: Improve Your Phone Number Reputation.

Telemarketing and Advertising Requirements & Best Practices

If LC Phone Voice Services are used to place telemarketing or advertising voice calls, applicable industry best practices and rules governing telemarketing calls must be followed to reduce the risk of disciplinary action by CPaaS providers, carriers, or third-party analytics providers.

If special circumstances justify deviation from these guidelines, such as a recruiting website with multiple positions or debt collection, document your practices appropriately.

1. Compliance with TSR, TCPA, and Truth-in-Caller ID Requirements for U.S. Calls

a. Consent

Unless an exception applies, calls covered by the TCPA must have consent from the call recipient. The level of consent required depends on whether the call is classified as informational or telemarketing.

• For telemarketing calls, prior express written consent may be required.
• For informational calls, prior express consent may be required.

Businesses are responsible for understanding and complying with the laws and regulations applicable to their use case.

b. Time Restrictions

Callers should comply with applicable calling-hour restrictions based on the recipient’s local time. Some states or jurisdictions may impose additional restrictions.

Keep in mind that a phone number’s area code may not accurately indicate the recipient’s current location.

c. Repeated Calls

Do not repeatedly or continuously call a person with the intent to annoy, abuse, or harass them.

Calling frequency should be appropriate for the use case and should respect the recipient’s preferences and applicable requirements.

d. Call Content

Additional disclosures may apply when accepting sales orders, charitable contributions, or marketing certain regulated products or services.

e. Reassigned Numbers

Where applicable, calling lists should be reviewed for reassigned numbers to reduce the likelihood of contacting someone who did not provide consent.

2. Best Practices When Placing a Call

• When calling the same number repeatedly, use the same caller ID whenever appropriate.
  
  
• Associate a descriptive Caller ID Name with your outbound number. See What is CNAM? for requirements and setup instructions.
  
  
• Clearly announce the caller or business name at the beginning of the call.
  
  
• Be prepared to explain how the recipient’s consent to receive the call was obtained.
  
  Example:
  “Hi, this is Gloria with AAA Insurance. You requested that we contact you regarding an auto insurance quote. Is Conrad available?”
  
  
• Allow sufficient time for the recipient to answer the call and avoid silent calls.
  
  

3. Managing Customer Concerns When Calls Are Answered

• Address questions or concerns about the nature of the call before continuing.
  
  
• Be prepared to provide a website URL or phone number where the recipient can find more information about your business.
  
  
• If the recipient states that they did not consent, are no longer interested, or wish to revoke consent, honor the request and update your calling list accordingly.
  
  
• When leaving voicemail, clearly identify your business and provide appropriate callback information.

Positive Caller Reputation Basic Do’s and Don’ts

• Comply with applicable Do Not Call requirements and other calling regulations relevant to your business.
  
  
• Keep your calling lists up to date and remove phone numbers that no longer connect.
  
  
• Avoid repeatedly calling unassigned or disconnected numbers.
  
  
• Provide contact information recipients can use to reach your business or report concerns.
  
  
• Avoid suspicious calling patterns such as inappropriate neighbor calling, where the caller ID closely matches the recipient’s area code and prefix. These patterns are commonly associated with unwanted calls and may affect caller reputation.
  
  
• Use accurate caller identification and maintain consistent calling behavior.
  
  

For additional guidance on factors that may contribute to spam labeling, see Why are my Calls marked as Spam, and How can I avoid it?.

Be Consistent in Your Phone Number Usage

Avoid using the same phone number for unrelated purposes, such as marketing campaigns, surveys, and support callbacks.

Aligning the context and purpose of calls made from a specific phone number can help establish consistent calling patterns.

For more information about maintaining caller reputation, see Branded Calling: Improve Your Phone Number Reputation.

Be Consistent in Your Outbound Call Volume

• If your use case allows it, maintain relatively consistent calling volume and avoid unusual spikes.
  
  
• Gradually ramp up new campaign call volume instead of immediately moving from little or no activity to high volume.
  
  
• Avoid calling recipients excessively or outside appropriate calling hours.
  
  
• Respect recipient preferences regarding how often and through which channels they want to be contacted.
  
  

Consistent and permission-based calling behavior can help distinguish legitimate business communication from patterns associated with unwanted calls.

What to Do If Your Number Is Marked as Spam

If you follow recommended calling practices but your legitimate U.S. phone number is still being marked as Spam Likely, review the available reputation-remediation options.

Voice Integrity

If your business meets the applicable requirements, Voice Integrity allows eligible U.S. phone numbers to be submitted to supported caller-ID analytics providers for reputation review.

Free Caller Registry

If you cannot use the documented Voice Integrity process, review Remediate 'Spam Likely' on your Caller ID using Free Caller Registry.

For a complete explanation of spam labeling and the available remediation options, see Why are my Calls marked as Spam, and How can I avoid it?.

Related Articles

• Why are my Calls marked as Spam, and How can I avoid it?
• Branded Calling: Improve Your Phone Number Reputation
• What is SHAKEN/STIR?
• What is CNAM?
• Improve your Phone Number's Reputation with Voice Integrity
• Remediate 'Spam Likely' on your Caller ID using Free Caller Registry