Wireless Authentication expert Hal Granoff of Early Warning talks about the history of Mobile Number Verification solutions for business. Why it's a good idea for companies to check for "recycled" numbers before permission calls - and what the FCC's recent demand to "use a third-party reassigned number database to check before calling" means to permission-based marketers.
What is a Reassigned Number Mobile Verification Program?
A Mobile Verification program tells you if a number has changed hands based on the last party contact date. For example, if a company provides us with a portfolio and says, “Everybody on this list was last verified on January 1’st, 2015,” we'll ping that information to the wireless carrier directly. The returned file tells us what numbers have changed hands after that date.
Other features go beyond the number identification realm. For example, we have products like Mobile Status and Mobile Identity that take a deeper dive into carrier CRM data. This includes more personally identifiable information like name and address, whether the account is active or suspended, and if that suspension is temporary or permanent - All the core information carriers would have on a particular subscriber.
Mobile Number Verification and the TCPA.
Our Mobile Number Verification product strictly focuses on TCPA as a regulatory initiative whereas our other offerings branch out into more of an organization/enterprise level on different use cases.
Why is Direct-to-Carrier-Access better than Data Aggregation?
Traditionally, reassigned number data has been provided to the TCPA Compliance Industry by a single major data aggregator. So they'll go out to a couple hundred or so data points and pull information. They’ll run those files through their own algorithms to determine whether records are accurate and then pass that on to the client. But when you draw in that type of data, you’re not 100% sure if the information is up to date.
We come from the banking industry, where direct-to-carrier access provides a much higher degree of data integrity. As we supply phone numbers to these carriers, we get back essentially “yes” or “no” answers. So we end up with great data that no other providers to the reassigned solution can get.
From a wireless mobile phone perspective, Direct-to-Carrier Access yields about 95% coverage. Whereas Data Aggregation would have no more than 60% to 65% cell coverage.
History of Identity Authentication - And how it can help Reassigns.
In 2013, the top banking institutions came to us and said, “We need to be able to authenticate mobile users as they are interacting with our applications whether it’s online or mobile.”
So historically we’ve provided risk management solutions to these financial institutions and government entities verifying millions of records per day. Once we seriously branched out into the mobile aspect of things, the market has opened up to additional entities that can take advantage of the solutions we have - like the TCPA reassigned numbers verification issue.
Another problem the banks had from a call center perspective: Knowing they're calling the right person. This is where the idea of Mobile Number Verification came from. It’s important for these monetary institutions to know they are talking to the right person ongoingly. Not necessarily from a TCPA perspective, but from an operational viewpoint. So if you have a call center of say 500 people, and a certain percentage of calls that are going to the wrong person, that costs the company money.
Right Place. Right Time.
So in a sense, we're experts in the field of Mobile Number Identity at the right time. That is, as the FCC suggests a professional phone marketer scrub for numbers that have changed hands. And as we continue to help with TCPA compliance, we also get calls from phone marketers having no idea a company like ours even existed!
So I'm happy to field any questions on the TCPA Reassigned Numbers issue, which is rapidly becoming a bigger part of our business. Please feel free to contact me directly at 855-589-7541 with your specific questions - and if I can't help out, we'll find someone that can.
Click here for Part 2 of Hal's Reassigned Numbers blog.
Related Articles:
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Reassigned Numbers must be Right Party Verified on Permission-based Calls: TCPA.
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How do I know I'm calling the right person? Check for Reassigned Numbers.
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37 Million Phone Numbers were Reassigned Last year - So Verify before Calling!
