Why Businesses Need to Block Spam Calls

Spam is everywhere today. Chances are good that your email inbox piles up with spam messages daily. You probably also get plenty of spam calls to your business line and cell phone. And while our technology has gotten a lot better at identifying potential spam calls, some can still slip through. 

It’s a bad situation for consumers, but businesses also face serious risks from these calls. The only way forward is to block spam calls entirely. But why are they so risky for your business? Let’s take a closer look.

The state of spam today

In 2023, almost 25% of all the phone calls made globally were spam or fraud. We’re talking almost 75 million calls per day. Most of us are familiar with some of the most widespread spam campaigns, like those auto warranty scams, but there are many others, including IRS scams, Medicare fraud, spam involving mortgage products, and so much more. 

Most of these scams are directed at consumers. However, businesses face an increasing number of spam and fraud calls, and some of those calls can be incredibly dangerous attacks. In fact, Hiya’s 2024 State of the Call report points out that 85% of businesses have experienced an inbound call attack similar to the one that took down MGM Resorts in late 2023. The report points out that 31% of businesses see between two and five attacks per year, while 21% can see between six and 10 attacks per year. 

The costs of failing to block spam calls

If you’re unable to block spam calls, your business will face a wide range of negative outcomes. Here are some of the most common:

• Wasted time: The most common outcome of a spam call is wasted time. Even if you let the call go to voicemail rather than answering it, you still have to spend time listening to the message and then deleting it. Not only does that waste time during the process itself, but it also affects productivity, because it can take a surprising amount of time to get back on task after an interruption.
• Wasted opportunities: Every spam call to your business has the potential to harm your relationship with a lead or existing customer. If your people are tied up dealing with spam or attack calls, they can’t answer calls from legitimate leads. And you can bet that if a customer gets a busy signal or has to leave yet another message that may or may not be returned promptly, they’re increasingly likely to jump ship to a competitor.
• Dealing with potential security breaches: Phishing calls and attack calls using employee information are on the rise across all industries. The outcomes can be immensely damaging, including lost capital, loss of control over business IT systems, and damaged trust with your customers.

How to block spam calls to your business

Now is the time to act and block spam calls. But how? What can a business owner do against robocalls, sales calls, and hackers? Here are some of the options that help you block spam calls:

• Educate your people: Perhaps the single most important thing to do is to educate your people about spam and fraud calls. Teach them the signs to look for that indicate a call might be fraudulent or a disguised attack. Your employees are the first line of defense, so make sure they’re up to date.
• Use an app: Depending on the size of your business, you may run a lot of it through your smartphone. You can use spam call-blocking apps to help reduce the number of calls you receive. Note that no app can block spam calls 100% of the time, so you must still exercise caution.
• Get on the do not call registry: The FCC created the do not call list and adding your business to it can stop many of the spam calls you receive. Note that this will only work with telemarketers who genuinely care about doing the right thing and won’t stop attacks or fraudulent calls. 
• Manually block calls: Most phone carriers give you the ability to manually block individual calls or calls from specific area codes. Note that while this does work, it’s time-consuming and each carrier has its own method.
• Invest in an IVR: Interactive voice response (IVR) systems present callers with a list of options and require that they choose a prompt to move forward. Robocallers cannot respond at the correct time, so an IVR can block some of the spam calls you receive. However, IVRs aren’t great when it comes to customer satisfaction, because they’re impersonal and often difficult to navigate.
• Let Smith.ai block spam calls for you: At Smith.ai, we automatically block over 20 million known spammers and stop robocalls in their tracks. If a new spammer does make it through, our virtual receptionists stop the call from making it to your team and we automatically add the spammer to the list, so they’ll never make it through again. Best of all? We block spam calls for free. It’s all part of our 24/7 answering service.

Regain the confidence you’ve lost

Spam, fraud, and attack calls can be demoralizing. We help return the confidence you’ve lost while ensuring that you’re more connected to your customers than ever before. In addition to the ability to block spam calls and ensure that every call your business receives is answered by a human being, we can also screen leads, book appointments, handle payment collection, and offer warm phone transfers.

To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai.