What Else Is Hurting Your Connect Rate?
An entire ecosystem of analytics, carriers, apps, fraud, and AI is working against you
Analytics Companies
Hiya, TNS, and FirstOrion analyze call data to detect fraud, flag numbers, and assign risk scores that determine if a call is labeled as spam or blocked. Though often blamed for low answer rates, many calls never reach them.
Intermediary Carriers
These middlemen connect calls between networks but can modify caller ID, apply filters, or even drop calls before they reach the recipient. Some calls never go through, and worse—some falsely appear answered, raising fraud concerns.
Wireless Carriers
Major mobile carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile use internal fraud detection to protect subscribers from spam and scams. Understanding if—and why—your calls get flagged is key.
Device Manufacturers
Phone makers like Apple and Samsung include built-in call filtering that can silence calls, label them as unknown, or send them straight to voicemail—without the user ever seeing them. Another hurdle between you and your prospect.
Spam-Blocking Apps
Apps like Robokiller and Truecaller let users report numbers and block “suspicious” calls. Once flagged, getting off their blacklist is no easy task.
Honeypot Services
These services use real, unregistered numbers—ones that should never get legitimate calls—to catch spammers. But if your business dials one by mistake, you could be flagged, leading to false positives, lower answer rates, and potential blocking.
Caller Name Providers
CNAM providers manage the display name for phone numbers using the Line Information Database (LIDB), but inconsistent updates, carrier caching, and third-party apps can cause delays or mismatches—making legitimate calls look suspicious.
STIR/SHAKEN
A call authentication system designed to stop spoofed calls by verifying caller identity, but inconsistencies in attestation levels— which indicate how confidently a carrier can verify a caller’s identity—along with carrier filtering and call routing, can still cause legitimate business calls to be flagged, downgraded, or blocked.
AI Voice Assistants
Designed to screen calls for users, but they can misjudge legitimate business calls as spam or low-priority, keeping them from ever reaching the recipient.
Number Rotation Traps
Some businesses rotate numbers to avoid spam flags, but many entities track these patterns and consider them deceptive. Frequent number changes can lead to calls being flagged or blocked—even if they are legitimate. Worse, these organizations share data, making it even more challenging to avoid detection.
Dialer Platforms
Cloud-based dialers and CRMs help businesses connect faster, but their internal spam controls, compliance rules, and call pacing limits can restrict outbound calls. Auto and multi-line dialers face even greater risks, as high call volumes and rapid dialing can trigger filters—leading to throttled, delayed, or blocked calls without notice.
Blocklists
There’s no single national blocklist, but carriers, analytics firms, and regulators maintain private, overlapping databases of flagged numbers. These industry and government databases can be nearly impossible to get off once listed—and you may never even know you're on them.
