Chris Handy

High Velocity outbound sales teams have made a habit lately of using apps that sit on top of their CRM like Salesforce to smile and dial all day.

Here’s how it works.

They often have an in-app VOIP dialer that you can have appear as any number you like. To set it up, you usually just have it ring your phone to authenticate, then enter a few digits, and now you can have many reps appear as if you are calling from that number all day, at scale.

This is great for companies who want to have all their people appear as if they are calling from the same line. In this case, people call their main line back instead of an extension.

However, there is the reverse possibility too. Where thousands of numbers across the country are deployed and used to appear as if the company is calling from a local number every time. No matter where the person may happen to be.

And we know this is a problem. Not just from legitimate salespeople but also from robocallers. Literally ALL OF US get robocalls.

But its these bad actors like robocallers that give good sales reps a bad name, and spoil the whole thing for everyone.

Now here’s the news: AT&T and Comcast announce system to combat robocalls

The protocol lets consumers know when a call they’re receiving is actually being placed by the displayed number listed on caller ID. AT&T and Comcast said they hope to have the system up and running for customers later this year.

That could be a problem for the dialer apps posing as local numbers, huh?

The system has some limitations for the time being. It can only be used to identify legitimate calls — not to detect spam ones. Robocalls will still come through; they’ll just show up as unverified. For now, since only two companies are involved, phone calls originating with any other provider won’t be validated. Until every other carrier deploys SHAKEN/STIR and links their systems together, it will be impossible to identify every legitimate call.

If this gets adopted by every carrier, the everyday person will have an even better way to file away unknown callers as spam, and well-meaning people will be even harder time reaching their prospects.

Best be adjusting now, cold-callers!