WASHINGTON, D.C. – December 11, 2017 – Telemarketing fraud costs incurred by the use of personal phone lines are estimated at $350 million per year, generating 150,000 complaints about robocalls. The frustration is compounded when small business startups rely on staff using personal phones for business purposes, causing reduced accessibility to consumers.
Three out of every 10 phone calls placed in the U.S. are prerecorded marketing messages (commonly referred to as “robocalls”). More than 2 billion robocalls were placed to U.S. consumers in October, marking a 4.1% increase over September and resulting in $350 million in telemarketing fraud.(1) Aside from being annoying, there’s a risk to businesses—and particularly to small business start-ups, which often rely on employees using their own personal cell phones for business calls.(2) ULTATEL, a leader in providing cloud-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business phone systems, reinforces the importance of utilizing affordable and efficient technology for business phone systems right from the start, avoiding the pitfalls of personal phone use.
Some of the more elaborate robocall scams use a tactic known as “spoofing”—calling “from” numbers that appear to be authentic—and once a person answers one of these calls, their phone number is marked and will be exploited at some point, regardless of whether the number has been registered on the “do not call” list. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued new call blocking rules in an effort to curb such calls to cell phones, but efforts to cut down on robocalls made by law-abiding groups still don’t deter criminals and the resulting traffic continues to interfere when the phone is used for business. (3) The phone user can’t differentiate a legitimate call from a robocall and wastes valuable time on the phone.
For these reasons, it’s decidedly preferable—and safer—for companies to use business lines for business purposes, thus avoiding the pitfalls of personal phone use. Having a stable, unchanging telephone number is a major factor in customer perception of a company’s reliability—and therefore, most business owners would prefer to avoid changing their phone numbers.
Yet once a company’s phone number has been widely distributed by way of marketing and other activities in the regular course of business, changing a phone number acts to nullify previous marketing efforts, and furthermore results in already-printed materials having to be discarded and reprinted at great cost—not to mention the extra costs involved in broadcasting a new number. Furthermore, once a client calls a disconnected/out-of-service number, the likelihood of that client continuing to do business with the company decreases.
A telephone system that enables a business to manage its telecommunications without the high cost and complexity of traditional hardware is optimal. To this end, a cloud-based phone system using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology lets businesses set up a virtual business phone number which remains the same as the business grows, even if the company changes telephone service providers or moves, giving the business great flexibility.
“The role of technology is to enhance business efficiency and quality. Cloud-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone systems offer advanced phone system features and a unified workplace phone system that works where the team works,” Amr Ibrahim, chief executive officer of ULTATEL, points out.
Small businesses and start-ups account for 99.7% of all businesses in the U.S. (4) Telecommunications is a critical building block of business ventures, and compared to the higher costs associated with traditional phone systems, new technology can potentially save a business 40-80% on its bill. Per Ibrahim, “We developed a platform that enables small and medium-sized businesses to manage their telecommunications without the need for costly hardware and IT oversight, generating significant savings.”
With all of a business’s communications centralized and stored in the cloud, companies can maximize responsiveness, productivity and customer satisfaction while minimizing or eliminating vulnerabilities to telemarketing fraud and reducing high capital expenditures, operating and IT expenses.
About ULTATEL
ULTATEL is a leading provider of cloud-based phone system solutions. Through its unified communications platform, companies can have all of their voice, video, fax, SMS and audio conferencing services on one affordable system. ULTATEL Business Clarity, with more than 40 enterprise grade features, helps companies operate from a single location or multiple locations seamlessly using desktop phones, soft phones or mobile apps. ULTATEL’s Contact Center solution satisfies the need for call center features such as advanced interactive voice response (IVR), call queuing, skilled/time-based routing and advanced call analytics. ULTATEL’s vision is to completely change how companies conduct business by delivering the most comprehensive suite of unified cloud-based telephony services that dramatically improve responsiveness, increase productivity, enhance globalization efficiencies, and reduce operating costs so that businesses can most effectively compete both today and in the future. Visit https://www.ULTATEL.com/.
- Newman, Lily Hay. “The Robocall Nightmare is only Getting Worse—But Help is Here.” Wired. 20 November 2017. Web.
- Robbins, James. “Six Reasons to Stop Using Your Personal Mobile Line for Business and Opt for a Virtual Phone Number.” MightyCall.com. 1 November 2017. Web.
- Staff writer. “FCC Targets Fraudulent Robocalls with New Call Blocking Rules.” National Law Review. 4 December 2017. Web.
- Schmid, Gretchen. “17 Statistics Every Business Owner Needs to Be Well Aware Of.” Fundera Ledger. 19 July 2017.
