Why Branded Calling Is Critical for Outbound Outreach

Despite efforts by government regulators, communications and contact center solutions providers, phone carriers, security experts, and others, illegal robocalls and scam calls are far from under control. U.S. consumers receive an estimated 3 billion scam calls every month. Most people in the United States receive more than a dozen robocalls each month, and many of them come from spoofed or familiar-looking numbers designed to trick recipients into answering. Roughly 71 percent of those calls actually come from fraudsters in India, according to TrueCaller.

TrueCaller’s own internal metrics showed that Americans wasted an estimated 196 million hours answering spam calls in 2025.

It’s no surprise, then, that answering the phone has become an increasingly negative experience for the average American. In fact, around 72 percent of American adults ignore calls from numbers they don’t recognize, according to Transaction Network Services (TNS).

“The rising issue of spoofing, where scammers manipulate phone numbers to deceive people into picking up, has led to a growing distrust of unfamiliar calls,” acknowledges Kiran Lachwani, marketing and operations manager at PowerYourCurls.com, a hair care products company for people with curly hair. “Since traditional caller ID often appears vague or generic, many recipients choose to ignore or block these calls as a safety measure.”

Businesses today that rely on outgoing calls face a harsh reality: Trust in the voice channel for many Americans is fundamentally broken. Fortunately, there’s a resource that can help restore consumer confidence: branded calling for outbound outreach (BCOO).

To protect their brand reputation and engage their customers, plenty of companies have started leveraging branded calling. In the past year alone, TNS, one of the leading providers of the technology, delivered 221 percent more branded calls through its Enterprise Branded Calling solution than in the previous year. Other leading branded calling providers include First Orion, Hiya, Vonage, TransUnion, Twilio, and several others.

Branded calling addresses the scamming problem head-on by allowing businesses to display rich call data, including their verified names, logos, and sometimes even reasons for calls, right on phone screens when they make outbound calls. These calls require STIR/SHAKEN authentication: a digital caller ID verification system that works to ensure the number displayed on the screen is actually the number from which the call originates, making it easier to distinguish genuine business calls from scams. Branding is delivered only when the caller has passed this authentication, reputation checks, and carrier analytics. If those conditions are not met, branding is suppressed or the call is labeled as spam or blocked entirely.

“Instead of just seeing an unknown number or a generic caller ID, recipients get to see a familiar brand identity, which can help them decide whether to pick up the phone,” Lachwani adds.

Branded call technology typically works at the network level. For BCOO to operate properly, businesses need to register and authenticate their information with carriers.

“When a business registers for a BCOO service through TNS, we vet the business to ensure they’re trustworthy and following best calling practices,” says Mike Schinnerer, vice president of enterprise product management at TNS. “Once vetted via direct integrations with mobile operators, we can authenticate the business’ phone calls and deliver a branded experience to consumers.”

Outbound calls are authenticated against registered business numbers, and only verified calls are eligible to display branded identity information on supported networks and devices. This protects consumers from fraud and ensures that when a recognized brand appears on the screen, recipients can trust it’s really the business calling. By cryptographically authenticating the caller ID and displaying a vetted brand plus a clear call reason, companies address customers’ first question—who is this and why are they calling—before they answer, explains Claire Ransom, founder of Aloha Life Digital, an e-commerce, marketing strategy, and SEO consultancy.

“This reduces confusion with fraudsters using look-alike numbers and makes it harder for bad actors to pass themselves off as your organization,” Ransom continues.

Indeed, branded calling is a vital piece of a larger high-tech shield to stop scammers by making outgoing calls significantly more secure. It performs best when paired with identity verification and anti-spoofing tools that filter out fakes, ensuring only honest, stamped calls reach the user while instantly shutting down fraudulent attempts.

Whether it’s a sales or account engagement call, customer support follow-up, appointment or service reminder, delivery/order update, or other type of outreach, each branded call can transform a once-anonymous number into a trusted brand interaction, increasing connection rates and improving customer experience, experts contend.

Pros and Cons

Branded calling can deliver a number of benefits to companies, including these:

• Higher answer rates. Seventy-eight percent of Americans are more likely to answer calls that display recognizable brand names and logos, per TNS.
• Immediate brand recognition. It provides a polished, legitimate appearance that reinforces brand identity.
• Increased potential for conversion. Consumers who feel safe answering calls are more receptive to support or sales pitches.
• Decreased scam labeling. Using STIR/SHAKEN authentication prevents calls from being mistakenly flagged as spam or likely spam.
• Increased call intent clarity.The call can include a call reason (such as a delivery update) so recipients know exactly why companies are reaching out.
• Better data analytics. BCOO helps businesses track which branded campaigns are performing best compared to standard dialing.
• Decreased consumer anxiety.
• Alignment with government regulators and carrier expectations.

“Branded calling is the evolution of voice engagement, transforming an ordinary, unidentified phone call into a powerful brand impression,” says Jonah-Kai Hancock, vice president of demand generation at Hiya, a provider of caller identity, branded calling, and voice security solutions. “Just as a well-placed, contextually relevant Google search ad reaches a consumer at the exact moment of intent, a branded call delivers immediate recognition and trust in the palm of the customer’s hand. It ensures that businesses connect with their audiences in the most contextual and compelling way possible, right at the moment they are ready to engage. When paired with responsible outreach, it becomes a powerful way for businesses to stand out, earn trust, and turn every call into a meaningful customer connection.”

“It works most effectively as part of a comprehensive approach to fighting scam and spoof threats to the voice channel,” Schinnerer adds. “BCOO costs to implement are relatively low, and outcomes are easily validated to determine a positive or negative return on investment. And most providers offer the opportunity to [run trials] and obtain access to measure success via key performance indicators.”

However, there are a few BCOO drawbacks to consider, including the following:

Costs. Branded calling involves a one-time setup fee that can be upward of $500, and most services require monthly subscriptions starting at around $30 or per-call rates of roughly seven cents to 13 cents, based on company size and call volume.

Vetting delays. Initial setup involves a rigorous “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process that can take longer than expected to validate business legitimacy.

Inconsistent display. Colors, logos, and other visuals can appear differently or not appear at all, depending on the recipient’s device, carrier, or operating system. Also, if a recipient has an older device or a carrier that hasn’t fully integrated with specific BCOO providers, the call might still show as a standard number.

STIR/SHAKEN overreliance. Branding could be suppressed if there are technical glitches in the authentication handshake between carriers, which means the call can look like a suspicious, unverified number.

Increased regulatory and reputational visibility. Every nuisance call you make (for example, a cancel dial, a silent call, or an abandoned call) harms your brand.

Brand fatigue risk. Calls that are branded too frequently can result in consumers blocking the entire brand if they perceive the outreach as too aggressive.

Concerns over data privacy. Sharing call intent data and brand assets with third-party verification hubs inserts an extra layer of data management and potential security risk.

Good Candidates

Virtually any organization that uses outbound phone calls to connect with customers, including financial institutions and advisers, healthcare providers, retailers, utilities, contact centers, sales teams, real estate brokerages, insurance agencies, and B2B service organizations, is a worthy prospect for branded calling. Examples include a bank calling about suspected fraud showing a verified brand name and fraud alert; a physician’s office displaying its clinic name and appointment reminder; and an electric company identifying itself during an outage notification.

“We were scammed by spoofers twice who used our business phone number in 2024, which tanked our outbound sales outreach. But when we switched to branded calling, our pickup rate increased 32 percent overnight,” says Loris Petro, marketing manager for Kratom Earth. “We used to get a 15 percent answer rate on our warranty reminder calls. After branding, 48 percent of those calls were answered.”

Businesses with robust KYC policies in place are also good candidates because these policies are critical to increasing customer engagement via the voice channel, Schinnerer maintains.

Kevin Heimlich, CEO of digital marketing agency the Ad Firm, cautions, however, that certain companies and calling entities should steer clear.

“Organizations that are primarily engaged in cold calling practices by dialing multiple prospects in hopes that one will respond to the call will likely find branded calling to be of no value until the organization identifies the correct target audience. And groups with poor reputations in regard to customer service issues may also find that branded calling is counterproductive to their business model,” he cautions.

How to Get Started

Eager to implement branded calling? The good news is that ramping up is relatively simple under the right circumstances.

To get started, businesses can enroll with branded calling providers to verify their identities, which instantly helps prevent calls from being flagged as scams or spam. After choosing the custom display, such as company logo and name, the branding goes live, showing up on customers’ screens across various mobile networks. Companies can then monitor their data to track answer and engagement rates.

“With minimal setup and no changes to existing systems, branded calling makes it easy to ensure legitimate calls are seen, trusted, and answered,” Hancock says.

The key is finding a compliant platform and correctly registering with carrier portals.

“You’ll also want to build an API hook for dynamically displaying the brand and perform compliance audits,” Petro advises. “I recommend rolling out small-scale and measuring the block rates. Be careful of cheap offshore dialers and over-personalizing the displays, as both can be red flags. We saw an 18 percent increase in customer loyalty after rollout, so prioritize the metrics.”

Be careful not to bombard audiences with branded messages that aren’t relevant, “and make sure your branding stays current and follows privacy laws,” Lachwani suggests.

Also, “monitor complaint and reputation data continuously. Only then should you enable branding through carriers and analytics partners,” adds Jamie Stewart, chief marketing officer of Sytel, a contact center and communications software and services provider.

Hancock points out that consistency across CRM, contact center, and outbound systems is equally critical to delivering a clear and trusted branded calling experience.

“Focus on treating branding as a trust signal, not a marketing banner or a loophole to get your answer rates up,” Stewart says. “Keep in mind that complaint data will impact whether your calls are even delivered, so don’t ignore it. And remember that if consumers don’t want your calls, technology won’t fix that for you, and the network will eventually block them.”

Rich Stivala, head of marketing at worldwideRICHES Web Design & SEO, urges carefully auditing outbound call use cases prior to adopting BCOO.

“Monitor answer rates and customer feedback carefully as well. Don’t treat branded calling as a shortcut. If calls are poorly timed or irrelevant, branding won’t save them,” he says. “Also, avoid overcalling, which can damage reputation scores. Remember that branded calling isn’t about selling harder. It’s about earning the right to be answered. In today’s environment, trust has to be established before the first ‘hello.’”

Lastly, before making the branded calling jump, work on cleaning up how you actually make calls, Stewart recommends.

“That means ensuring you have permission to call, not overwhelming people with too many rings, and using a smart AI-assisted system to eliminate awkward silences or hung-up calls,” he says. “Additionally, never fake your caller ID; ensure every call is digitally stamped with a high-quality verification so carriers know you are the real deal.” 

Erik J. Martin is a Chicago area-based freelance writer and public relations expert whose articles have been featured in AARP The Magazine, Reader’s Digest, The Costco Connection, and other publications. He often writes on topics related to real estate, business, technology, healthcare, insurance, and entertainment. He also publishes several blogs, including martinspiration.com and cineversegroup.com.