The Volie Session: Rebekah Johnson

So let's go ahead and get started here folks. Excited to, you know, to, to, to talk through this topic with you all today. We're going to go ahead and run through our questions and then we'll take some time at the end and answer any questions that any of you have. Feel free to type them in the chat here on Zoom or send them to me directly jakeolly.com and we will try to get to those questions at the end here. Again, this will be posted on YouTube on Monday. For any of you who either missed it or you know, want to go back in and reference today we have Rebecca Johnson with us. She is the founder and CEO of Numerical. Rebecca Johnson is the industry's leading expert in establishing trusted enterprise identity to protect wanted and critical communication through Numerical's entity identity management platform. With over 10 years of regulatory, government and compliance experience, auto dealers, contact centers, B2C business centers across a number of industries have leaned on Rebecca's expertise to guide them through the evolving complexities of maintaining trusted identity in a changing ecosystem. Navigating call blocking and labeling, stir shaken innovations in branded calling and more. Rebecca is an active member of the FCC Hospital Robocall Protection Group, Chair of the Enterprise Communications Advocacy Coalition, and also represents the voice of the enterprise through her leadership at the ATIS IP NNI Task Force. Prior to founding Numerical, Rebecca served on the FCC's robocall strike force on behalf of the Empowering Consumer Choice Working Group. Rebecca, thanks for taking the time with us today. Excited to have you on.

Thank you. I'm really excited to be here and this is for me to learn too, so I'm looking forward to that.

Well, it's, it's certainly, you know, what we're going to be talking about today is everything going on with why are dealers calls showing up as spam when they call their customers and this is a problem that is really just getting worse for folks and I, I'm excited to have you be able to walk through why this is happening and you know, what, what, what it kind of looks like for folks struggling with this. Yeah, so definitely excited to have you on here and, and, and, and talk about this. So just to kind of dive right in. A lot of folks I talk to about this in automotive they say oh it's, it's just happening or it's just getting worse or I noticed it a little bit ago but now I'm seeing it all the time. Why did this start? When did this start? What is going on?

Well, what the dealerships are experiencing which is What a lot of different industries are experiencing. It's not unique to the automotive industry, it is in healthcare, it is in education, it's with government entities. Really any organization that has to deliver communication on the voice channel is experiencing this problem. And what that problem is is actually an uninthe intended consequence of a completely different initiative. So where this started goes many years back and it's focused with the consumer. The consumers were receiving fraudulent unwanted calls on their devices. Those complaints and those concerns made their way to the fcc. And the FCC is a Federal Communications Commission and it is their responsibility to protect communication channels. So the FCC started to investigate and gather information around what kind of fraud is being committed across this communication channel. It became very evident that there was a problem. So the FCC looked to the carriers that your AT&T mobile, Verizon, Comcast, those who were the deliverer of those communications to consumers to say, you need to monitor your traffic. This started, this conversation started back, I mean it's far back to 2014 carriers to implement this standard that we had all been talking about for so long called Sir Shaken. We're not going to go into details of Stir Shaken, but it's basically a standard that says, hey, you got to put some identifiers within the communication framework. And this is really applies to the service providers and the carriers. So they've really been laser focused on their deadlines. I have to implement these tools and in doing so didn't really think about the enterprise side and what the impact is. So if you're new to this concept and you haven't done any action on your part to address it, then you are receiving calls or having calls delivered labeled spam or fraud. And you probably have no idea how many of your numbers look that way and what carriers are delivering that kind of message.

But what I find really striking is that you say they're okay, that you know, they want to be flagging legitimate businesses as potential spam.

Yes.

And I don't know about you, but I don't answer a call that says potential spam. And you know, the other thing that I want to just point out here is a lot of dealers who say, oh, well, I've not, I don't, I don't think I'm coming. I've never heard it. Well, I mean, shoot, I've never picked up a potential spam call and said, hey, just so you know, you're coming up as spam. You know, I just don't answer it. And chances are that's happening to all of you. What Would you say are the best ways to actually know if you're coming up as spam?

Well, one of the first places actually that you would look at is your agent. So if you do have agents who are fielding calls from customers, chances are a customer has answered the call maybe because they were expecting a phone call back. I did purchase a car not even a year ago and it was all done on the phone like it was a lot of conversations back and forth. And so maybe I was a little more opt to answer the call because I was trying to make the process go along faster so, so their agents might hear, hey, I'm glad you called and they answer the call. But just to let you know you showed up as spam. Consumers will tell the agents that information. So if you're not, you know, fielding that data, do it today. Like you should start asking your agents, do you ever hear of anyone say our calls are labeled spam or they were labeled improperly like telemarketer or something? That's a good first place. And that's just to see do we have the symptoms? I can tell you if you have any kind of large volume of traffic, you have a problem. It's just that prevalence. So the next thing would be to work with a provider who does the reputation gives you visibility into what the carriers are doing. Which kind of leads me to something that we all need to be aware of is that the enterprises can do something about that. The dealerships can, can do something about that. And due to the work that I was working on with the FCC and others as well, there is a process. Now granted it's in the fine print. You'd have to understand these rules and be monitoring what the FCC publishes. But there is some fine print there that does allow for dealerships to correct this problem.

What would you say are things that you see in here that people are trying to that that is working and what, what is just a waste of time and not working and solving the problem for.

I'm going to start with a waste of time. There's a lot of those. One of the strategies that businesses might leverage is rotating the tn. So you're trying to dodge getting labeled as a fraud or a spam that is so short lived. And if you're trying that strategy in 2022, there is about five years of other industries and businesses trying that. So numbers now are just dirty if they're just rotating out. So when you inherit a new phone number that you're going to use to pulse out, chances are it's already Got a really bad history. So that doesn't become a good strategy. Maybe it worked five years ago, it doesn't work now.

Well, just to, just to add to that, something that's interesting about that strategy is because it's algorithms that are analyzing calls to make sure they're not coming up as spam and they're looking at your call habits. If you, let's just say for, you know, like Rebecca said, chances are a new number that you get is, you know, already dirty. But let's just say you do get a clean number that you switched from an old number because it came up as spam. Well, if you keep making the same types of calls, that new number is just going to come up as spam. So it is. Even if it does work, which it doesn't in a lot of cases that, you know, would you say that would be a really short term solution anyway?

It is a short term. And you're actually touching on something. I forgot. I used to say this a lot back in 2017 when I was kind of bringing awareness that there is a problem, but there actually wasn't a way to measure it yet. I was kind of the only source for that. I would say, you know what, it's time to pick up our heads from the consumers. I'm so used to, like, what's my contact rate? Did it go to voicemail? Did they pick up and hang up? I'm used to those metrics of what did the consumer do? And I used to say, you got to pick your hat up and now look at the carrier and see how the carrier views you. Because we've learned over the last five years there's some really valuable information. If your call is labeled spam, it could be shining a light on a problem with your dialer. It could be a problem with the data that you're leveraging. Just to give you an example, we had a customer where they had one number that they would deliver these outbound calls and they'd get a data file every day. Sometimes the numbers would change of the consumers they were calling, who they were calling were consumers that they had a relationship, established, established business relationship with. With the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, all of them getting called across one number. Well, the people who they'd had a relationship with in the first 30 days actually were still active. Right? They wanted to receive the calls, but the people that they hadn't Talked to in 90 days were the ones labeling their call spam. And then it just flooded down to all of them. So they Learned, oh well, we should break out the 30, the 60 and the 90 day, you know, delayed with different numbers. So you, you, it's an emotional experience to have your call labeled spam. It's definitely an emotional experience to have a label fraud. But we've got to be really mature about this and level headed and realize that maybe at least on the spam rating, there might be something that you need to do better within your dialer platform and without the awareness, you have no idea what you need to fix.

So the carriers do take customer feedback into account. So if, if, in addition to algorithms, if a customer does, you know, report, whether on their phone or however they're doing it, hey, this was a spam call or an unwanted call, they, they listen to that?

Absolutely, absolutely. The consumer's voice is heard on that and there are ways to report it back. Each carrier has a different way that they support the consumer to report back.

But as a business owner, do, you know, let's just say, let's just call out, you know, let's say I use Spectrum voice to power my, you know, spectrum, you know, I, for my dealership. If I'm making calls out, doesn't my phone provider have an obligation to get my calls to the customer? I mean, I'm a legitimate business, right?

Right. No, it's, they are not. And you use that word obligation and I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull on that thread just a little bit, step back and say, look at who's obligated to do what. Your. With all the rules and regulations that have come out over the last five years or so, the obligations are number one, to comply with the fcc. There's no option in that. If you're a service provider that's originating the traffic and you're a service provider that is terminating the traffic, your first number one focus is actually going to be on making sure that you're in full compliance with the fcc. What that means is that stir shaken, which is that standard, it is a pathway for verified information to deliver across from point to point and have traceability. It's all within the carrier to carrier framework. Their obligation from an originating service provider is to make sure that they sign calls and they have a robocall mitigation plan. They've filed that with the FCC and they'll sit back and say, hey, I've done my part on the terminating service provider side. They're going to say, hey, I can collect those calls, I can collect them and verify them based on the standard that we were supposed to do. And I've done my part right. That's about it. Other than the terminating service provider's next obligation is to protect the consumer from fraudulent and spam calls. And so they're going to lean heavier on that side. If you're an enterprise or a dealership that's delivering calls, the terminating carrier, sorry, they just don't care about your problem of getting your call to your consumer. That's not their concern.

So when you talk about Stir shaken and obligations to be in compliance, are you saying that, you know, let's, let's pretend that this is getting the call, this is getting the call to Verizon's network. Your phone provider's obligation is just to get it to Verizon's network. They're not guaranteeing it reaches their customer. Being in surshaic and compliant and doing everything that your phone provider needs to do does not mean that Verizon is going to connect it or connect it without labeling it as spam. That, that is not really that related here.

They are not. And that is one of the confusing points that are out in the market. I even see companies who unfortunately talk about things they don't know and they will correlate signing of calls to removing of spam labels is absolutely not connected. If anything, the signing of calls is a single data point that actually gets fed into the engine that makes the decision on what to display. It does not determine what it will do which. And this is a, this is a topic and conversation I've had for years with the carriers. And they have a valid point. I can't argue with them where, hey, they're receiving these calls signed from a network outside of them. They don't have direct relationships with all of these carriers. It may come through different hops. So they can't guarantee that that call that is compliant with the FCC's requirements is actually a good call that the consumer wants. So that's why those two worlds will stay completely separate. The FCC still are the, the terminating carriers still have to meet what the FCC has told them to do, and that's implement reasonable analytics to protect consumers.

From fraud and spam.

And just to clarify, when you say terminating carrier, you're talking about The Verizon's, the AT&T, the table. Okay, so, so just to, just to clarify then, if, if, if a vendor, if a phone provider says, hey, your calls, I'm ensuring they're Stir Shaken compliant, that is not taking care of the spam problem.

Absolutely not. They're just telling you we're doing what we're told to do.

So can you talk a little bit more about some of the things that, that you see folks trying to solve this and you know, some of the misconceptions about what is working and you know, I guess more so like you said, you want to talk about what isn't working.

Yeah. So you have to be really leery. So I'm just going to refer to like a lot of the marketing that I see out there. I don't know what gets exposed to the dealership industry, but we kind of keep tabs on who's saying what so that we can kind of counter the misinformation. Just as a sidebar, Numerical, I've established this company via source of truth and myth busting because I think business owners need to have facts, not marketing where. So when it comes to what you can do about your calls, the only solution to everything else that you hear, you're going to pressure test it against this statement. The only way that an enterprise can ensure that their calls are not labeled fraud is to do a registration of their numbers. And that registration has various places that it can occur. But the concept of identifying their business to their set of numbers is a step one. The next step would be what's the data flow coming back to me that tells me if my numbers were to be labeled spam, which it can still occur even if you're a legal entity, am I being informed about that happening? So that I as the business can either remediate, meaning remove this ban labeling, bring the rating back down, or look internally to our systems and see am I the cause of this? Is it something that we're doing?

When you talk about that remediation, how would a regular business who isn't working with, you know, someone like Numerical, how would they remediate that?

So first a lot of what people will do is they'll just call the carrier or find an email address on the carrier like the AT&T mobile Verizon website and they will be redirected to a. There's usually like a ticket system, a little form that you can fill out. It is a one way push. There is no guarantees that the carrier, the terminating carrier, will do anything with your data. It's just a form that makes you feel like someone heard me. But it's a black hole. We haven't seen that be effective. There's also this website called freecallerregistry.com and you'll see that it is. Hi@tns and first run those are the three companies who are actually running the analytics for each of the three major carriers, you can register on that site. Again, it's free, which means no guarantees that they'll do anything with your data. It's just they'll take it into consideration. So we have seen businesses go down that pathway. They find their way back to us because, well, it was just a black hole and they don't really see any changes in their contact rate, so they question what really happened. So that's what. Some people will spend a cycle going through that process, trying the free stuff and it doesn't work.

So just to clarify the big things that you see as a difference with anything that you can try on your own is, well, first off, it's a lot of work because you need to devote the time and resources to find the right person to call, call them, look at every single one of your phone numbers. And that's actually on top of already having to do the work to identify which numbers are coming up as spam, which is really hard to see. And then, but the major difference is just the lack of visibility.

Correct visibility, and even their obligations to the enterprise that's delivering the information. I, I think as well, that's really important for any, any of the dealerships that are listening is, you know, your set of numbers is they may change, you may add, you may rotate, you may shift, you may port. There's, there's other activity that happens with your numbers. None of those solutions that I just mentioned have any concepts of that world. So really what you're getting down to is you need a solution that's a little bit more closer, closely tied with your dialer platform, or at least a platform that allows you to manage your numbers and then does the distribution on the back end. That's, I mean, that's really why, why I started numerical was at the time my clients were Walmart, Walgreens, CVS makeup. I mean, it was on lists of these big players and I knew how important their communications were and it was going to be so overwhelming for them to keep up with thousands of numbers and the identities that they would associate with them. It was just going to be impossible. So that, that's kind of the birthplace of how I even got started on this.

Well, it's important for dealerships too, because if you don't connect with your customers. Oh, it's important on sales and service, you know, you need to set service appointments so that you have returning business and folks coming back into to the dealership and you need to reach your customers on the sales side. So you set appointments and make a sale. Right. You know, we all know how that translates down to dollars for, for a dealership. And you know, I just, in full disclosure here, you know, most of you probably know this, but we are partners with, you know, here at Valley, we are partners with Rebecca, you know, to, to bring this to automotive through, through the dealer identity service. It is, you know, I bring that up just because the results that we hear from folks who've gotten started is, you know, does. It does trickle down into service appointments and sales appointments. You know, an increase in contact rate has an exponential increase in appointments and it's, you know, it's, it's a big deal. And you know, not being able to do that yourself is, you know, it's, it's. It's pretty hard. And, and frankly, I get it. You know, Rebecca, one of the things that, that people come to me and, and you know, they're offended, you know, that their calls aren't connected. And, and I feel for it, you know, I, I totally do. You know, they're a legitimate business. You know, but like you said, the sec, they're not looking at this from the business perspective at all, are they?

No, no. They're focused on consumers, which we want them to be. I mean, seriously, it's a good thing they do.

Why do you say that?

Well, because there is the fraud that is happening. In fact, my company is currently undergoing a phishing scheme attack where all of my employees are very educated on this and they can see it, but it just fires me up again, because consumers, they have absolutely no protections whatsoever. I mean, they can implement some call blocking labeling solutions, which we've seen, but the fraud's still happening. Until someone can tell me that we've stopped it and blocked it on the voice channel, it's still an issue. We haven't solved it, period. So I do appreciate the efforts that the FCC and the FTC and Congress have put with trying to put those protections in. The nasty reality is that money's getting pumped out of the US to fund nefarious activity. So we kind of have to. We really have, have to do this. Where I came into play was when I was sitting on that strike force and I. My background is communications for businesses. Didn't necessarily focus on the consumer, but I knew how the communication infrastructure helped businesses connect with consumers. And in fact, I even focused on patients. I started in health care communications. So I got, I mean, talk about emotions. I was very passionate and very angry over the fact that good calls, legal Calls, consented calls, or be. We're being labeled as fraud or spam. So it's, it's okay to have that reaction and we have to have someone that represents that voice. And that's what I stood up and dedicated my life to at that point. And. But we still have to have the consumer side, and I do work with the consumer advocacy groups as well. We have to, I got to collaborate. At the end of the day, the consumer, you know, they're not obligated to answer. We're talking about all for sure, for sure. Your call cleaned. The consumer is not obligated to answer your call. But I think it's a, it's, it's fair to be able to give as much valid information to the consumer so they can make the right choice. That's what we're fighting for.

So you would liken getting verified with a service like Dealer Identity Numerical, you would liken that to getting a verification that is sent to the carrier so they know that this number belongs to a verified, trusted business, and then they want to connect that call to the customers. Is that how you would put it?

Yes, yes. Based on the relationships that I had built. And then subsequently, look, I started as a consultant when this whole thing was going, and then I was like, whoa, I need to create a technology that allows it to be adopted in different areas to be able to push this trusted, validated information down to the care area so it feeds directly into the algorithms. But like I said, it doesn't mean that they won't label you spam. You could be a really bad dialer. You know, if you got bad dialing practices, it's going to happen. But at least it puts you in the driver's seat. That's the difference. Once you have that verified identity associated with your numbers, puts you in the driver's seat. Now, kind of the next iteration of what we at Numerical are looking to do, and Dealer Identity just becomes a beneficiary of it, is to get adoption of that verified identity at the originating service provider side. So we're heavy in the standards group. That's where this is going to come through. There's got to be a lot of approvals. Sidebar. If Twitter didn't teach us anything about the process to get verified identities, then we've learned nothing. But that wasn't new to me when I saw the bar was dropped down to a credit card and a phone number. That's, that's where fraud is going to really, really run rampant. And that is the result. So in the telecommunications space and is we're just mimicking what. What was done in the financial space. I mean, we deal with money laundering, identification by. If you want to get access to a bank account, you have to fill out a lot of paperwork and then you're going to be monitored on how you're transferring money. That whole concept is now over here in telecom. Expect it to go into messaging, expect it to go to email, and definitely expect it to make its way into social media since Twitter has kind of put that on the forefront of. Whoa. How do we trust the information that's being displayed to us? And how do we trust that that company is who they say they are? Because impersonation is a direct hit to the company that's being impersonated.

I want to talk a little more about the future and what you see coming. Before we get to that, though, I want to let Liza come in here. She's going to take about two minutes and talk about something new we have going on with Vali. And while I'm bringing her in here, everyone, don't forget that we'll be doing questions at the end here. So get any questions you have for Rebecca into the chat here on the Zoom and you can also email them to myself at jake@valley.com and we will go ahead and. And you know, and get to those at the end. So it looks like Liza should be coming in here momentarily and she'll take just a couple and. Yep, there she is.

Hey.

Hi.

Thank you. Rebecca. I know you're probably taking a second, but awesome first half. This has been a really, really great call. I'm kind of already excited to watch it again. This is really good stuff. So thank you for coming on.

Liza, I got good news. I remembered to give you access to share this time.

Thank you.

Good deal. Yeah. So I wanted to take a second talk about a new feature that we have in Volley, some new functionality. If you remember back to when your account first launched, we probably spent some time talking with you about all the various ways that you can load data into Volley. Most of our accounts load data via, you know, multiple ways, whether it's your DMS integration, ADF leads, or CRM integration for your new sales leads or service leads. If you're one of our kind of higher tech accounts, you might be utilizing the API. Almost every one of our accounts utilizes this data imports page. So hopefully this looks familiar to you. After talking with a lot of our accounts and hearing some struggles, we've implemented a new type of import. It's the VIN Match import. So this is really going to be great for those lists that you have. Maybe they're coming from the oem. You know, any list that you have that has VIN information, it's got a list of VINs. Maybe it doesn't have any contact information at all. Or maybe the contact information on that list, you know, for example, from the OEM is really old and outdated. It's not reliable. But you want to load that list into Volley. You want to make phone calls from that list. So in that instance, great news, we have a new import that matches up your database with the VIN that you're loading. So when you're loading in a new data import, you'd select this new import, type VIN Match. The rest of this is exactly the same as any other import you've done. So select your org or multiple orgs, give it a name, attach your file. From there you'd go into the Map fields process. The only requirement with the VIN Match import is that you do map the vin. I think that's pretty straightforward, so we can do this quick. You still have the ability to map custom fields, so I'll do mine quick. If I also wanted to map the reason, I'll create that one really quick map Reason Preview. This is hopefully familiar to everybody. Confirm mapping and process your file. I did already load this file in here so that I could easily show it to you guys, you know, but. So this is that VIN match. So great news. You know, my file had nine rows in it, all nine of those customers. You know, the VIN in my file matched with someone in my database. Volley said, hey, I know that VIN that belongs to Liza Martinson. Here's her vehicle. Here's that recall information so your team can get in here and start contacting those customers. So it's very simple to use, I would say, you know, get with. If you've not seen this already, get with your rep. I know next week is a short week, but maybe the week after Thanksgiving. It's really simple to use. And I would bet you know just about every single one of our accounts has had those frustrating lists that you don't have good contact info. So this is a really good time saver for you there. But that's my spiel. Have a great Thanksgiving.

Thanks, Liza. I was just alerted by the way that the Zoom chat is apparently disabled and I have no idea why that is. So get your questions in to jakeal.com or if you're a Volley customer and you talk with your replacement regularly, feel free to send them over to them and they'll, you know, consolidate and send to me as well. So sorry about that. I. I don't know why the chat isn't working, but let's go ahead and, and get going here. Again, Rebecca, and, and talk about the future. You know, you were, you were talking a little bit about the Twitter and, and how it's made you think about what's coming up. But what do you see regulatorily and technologically? Do you think it's going to get easier to, you know, to operate a business and call your customers without being verified, or is it going to get harder?

I. Absolutely. Well, I don't know if I want to call it harder. That would be my job to make that part easier. What I do think is that there will be a requirement on verification steps to be able to leverage communication channels as a business. Whether that's harder, I don't know that I would hope it wouldn't be. If we do it right, it shouldn't be, but I think it will be a requirement. So what we're trying to do is get away from. If you just have a credit card and a VoIP provider, you can blast millions and millions of calls. I mean, it's so easy to get access to the voice network. And this kind of goes to. If we're talking about that verified identity kind of concept. You know, the voice infrastructure allows for anonymity to exist. There really wasn't a need to identify who was calling or what. It was just all about the switches, really. We're just automating the people who were moving the wires. Right. To connect one house to another house. We didn't care who the people were that were talking. We just know we had to make the right connection. And that's the infrastructure that we built, connecting the one who is delivering the call to the one that they want to speak to. Done. We got it. Great. Now that we've opened up that infrastructure to an IP network, it those calls can come in from anywhere, so there's really no identification. We create this anonymous environment, and where there's an infrastructure to an IP network, it those calls can come in from anywhere, so there's really no identification. We create this anonymous environment, and where there's anonymity, there is fraud, there are nefarious actors because they can hide. Right. It's really, really difficult to capture the bad guys. So the best way to fight anonymity is with identity. You. That is your only way to overcome it. What will be hard, difficult, we expect and hope is that it's very difficult and hard for fraudulent actors, those who are not who they really say they are, to get access to a verified identity or get access to the network. That's where the difficulty should exist, not with legal callers. And to kind of bring it down to what we understand as consumers. You have a verified identity. That's your driver's license, right? You go into the dmv, you have pieces of paper birth certificate that's been authorized stamped by an organization that we all accept as as authorized to provide that information. Your Social Security card will be in there too. Another entity that authorized that identity, your bills for your power or gas. So you have all these various different information that you bring in that shows your name. This really isn't a photo on that first identity. It's just a bunch of pieces of paper. Then you get an ID and what that ID is then accepted. If I go to the grocery store when I purchase certain things, they accept my id. I'm not bringing in my birth certificate and my gas bill and my power bill. I'm not having to re verify myself every single time I need to have an ID to access something. Airplanes, tsa. Right. It's the concept of identity and access to things already exist for consumers. So we're going to see that same trend apply to businesses that you're going to need a verified identity if you want access to certain communication channels.

A couple things to follow up on there. Firstly, you know, when you talk about digging in and verifying a business, can you speak to what's involved? And obviously, you know, the dealer identity program is similar to numerical in this sense. What is involved with verification and is it difficult to get verified for your legal business?

I think it's easier to officially establish your business. So you have to file paperwork in either the state that you're incorporated in. If you're going to have multiple names underneath your business, they're going to have to have an ein number. So you're already filling out a lot of this paperwork to establish your identity just to be able to conduct business. What the verified identity from numerical, which is experienced through the dealer identity. It's collecting a lot of that information. It's kind of a liken to I need your power bill, I need your gas bill, right? I need your birth certificate. That would be your, you know, where are you incorporated. We need to know what that number is to verify it. So it's collecting that type of information that's associated with the business so that when that dealership is registered and verified that we Know, when we put that name next to those numbers, that it traces all the way back to that particular business. This is also to protect against impersonation. So when businesses kind of get upset, like, I don't want to do this. So I say, Twitter has been great for me on the conversation. I'm like, well, you know what? Lockheed Martin would have really appreciated if there was a verification process that prevented someone from using their logo and their name and then posting comments that are not comments that they would have posted. All of a sudden we care now. And we're seeing at the C level they care.

Yeah. And just to. Just to add, you know, like she said, of course you have to go through the steps to have a legitimate business and file with the state and stuff. But in regards to getting us that information for the verification, we work with you to help you gather that, to make it an extremely, you know, quick and easy process there. The actual verification is just getting us the information that you already have. So, no, I. Verification is. Is not too difficult. You know, in regards to what you were saying about you don't think it's. You think that it's going to be required in the future. Can you speak to why you. Do you. Is that just a feeling or do you actually hear discussions since you're on the FCC boards, that they want to require a verified identity with the carriers in order to contact customers via the phone?

Yeah. There actually already exists a global identifier for businesses. This was. This came about from the G20 summit when we have financial crisis. So other sectors, and it always seems finance, because that's money, it hits you in your heart, are the birthplace for these concepts. So it's already there. Adoption of this identifier is working its way through our federal government. There is an identifier required for imports and exports that actually is already happening today. There are identifiers that are being required for financial transactions. So it's just a matter of each sector adopting. And I'll be honest with you, I'm the one that's leading the charge to bring in all of that work that's already been done over into telecommunications. Now, wouldn't it be great if you got verified one time and that verification applied for opening a bank account and also applied to getting access to communication channels and also applied to whatever else it may be. That's where the world is moving to. The US Is a little bit behind, but it is catching up. And those conversations are very, very, very active and present in D.C. and so.

You are working to ensure that, you know, numericals a part of that verification process.

Yes. And I'm by saying numerical, it's because I'm working on behalf of the enterprises. I really don't like it when laws get passed and rules get put out and zero consideration to the one who has to follow it is, is provided. So that's why I also have my coalition. It's basically a lobbying coalition. I'm the chair of it and it is very specific to meeting with Congress members who might be, you know, discussing those types of laws and representing enterprises as a whole. And anyone on this call could even join that coalition. It's a place for you to be able to stay in the know and then put you in the driver's seat. Because I strongly believe enterprises need to have some voice here in D.C. on.

That topic, we're getting a lot of questions coming in and I want to make sure that we have time for that. There is one last topic that I had that I want to make sure we cover because it comes up with dealers. So I just want to take a couple minutes on this and then we'll get to all of your questions. But can you speak briefly to branded calling? How you know what exactly is branded calling and how does this not, you know, how is this kind of unrelated to spam protection?

Yeah. Okay, so that's going to have to be a part two. So I'll just give you the high level Branded calling is still in its little infancy stages. At a high level it just means the enterprise can, can have control over what information is displayed to the consumer, when it relates to its name, maybe a logo or a call intent and wrap those up. I call it branded assets. That's what branded calling is about. It's not fully adopted everywhere. It gets displayed differently whether it's an Android or an Apple device. Some of the data how you know.

What exactly is branded calling and how does this not, you know, how is this kind of unrelated to spam protection?

Yeah. Okay, so that's going to have to be a part. Two dogs give you. The high level branded calling is still in its little infancy stages. At a high level it might fall off and not make it all the way to the consumer's device. Consumers are getting some controls too. So it exists and there is a huge push to get a lot of adoption on branding and I think it's great, but it's not anything you want to rush into. It is a usage based type of service. So every call you deliver, if you want to have at least at a minimum the name guaranteed to display, which is a good thing. There's a cost associated with that. So it is the latest that's coming out. There are some security issues with that. It does not protect someone from spoofing your number and having your name displayed AKA you're going to be just means the enterprise can can have control over what information is displayed to the consumer when it relates to its name, maybe a logo or a call intent and wrap those up. I call it branded assets. That's what branded calling is about. It's not fully adopted everywhere invoice for that spoofed call. Those are some challenges that the industry, the carriers, standards, regulators, we still have to solve for that. That's just the current state of where it's at. But we could absolutely do a full session just on talking about Apple and Android carriers and the various different ways that that information can be delivered.

So I guess just to kind of put a bow on that and we definitely should revisit that. But if someone wants to ensure it.

Gets displayed differently, whether it's an Android or an Apple device, some of the.

Data, they're not coming up as spam. If they sign up to have only branded calling and they're paying to have their name, does that prevent them from being labeled as spam?

We are being told that is the case. I think that is a topic for discussion amongst the entire industry if that should be okay. But as it stands today, that's what we've seen. Okay, fix your problem.

Okay, so let's get to some questions here. Okay, what sort of contact rate increase should I look for if I utilize dealer identity? Well, I guess this kind of just depends on the types of calls you're making and you know, the campaigns you're running. You know, and like Rebecca said, ensuring you're not coming up as spam does not mean that you are not might.

Fall off and not make it all the way to the consumer's device. Consumers are getting some controls too. So it exists and there is a huge push to get a lot of adoption on branding and I think it's great, but it's not anything you want to rush into. It is a usage based type of service. So every call you deliver if you want to have at least at a minimum the name guaranteed to display, which is a good thing, there's a cost associated with that. So it is the latest that's come.

You know, does not ensure that a customer is going to pick up what we have seen based off of the Voli customers who we've gotten started. Is that coming out?

There are some security issues with that. It does not protect some.

The average dealership sees about 4 to 5% increase in contact rate when they remove spam from their lines and that translates to you know, a lot more appointments set. The actual figure I have from a dealer who gave me these numbers is their contact rate increased by 7% and.

That translated to 41 from spoofing your number and having your name displayed aka.

You'Re going to be 5% more appointments being set though obviously you know it'll vary a little bit per dealership. You know, you know there's some, you know but that is the general that we see and, and then on top of that when my contact rate continue to increase, I mean or does it settle after the initial increase? What we're doing is removing the spam. So you know, if you, if you're verified in July invoice for that spoofed.

Call, those are some challenges that the industry, the carrier, you know, your August.

Will be, you know, will be looking.

Better than June standards regulators, we still have to solve for that. So that's just the current state of where it's at. But we could absolutely do a full session just on talking about and then.

You know, your August performance is you know, is probably what you're expecting because we've removed the labels in July. Right. It's not a continual improvement because the improvement is hey, you know, the labels are gone. So. Okay.

And Jake, I'll just add to that. If a dealership cannot answer their KPIs right now, then you're going in blind on the value. So start looking at what your contact about Apple and Android carriers and the various different ways that that information can be detect rates, complete rates, connect rates. However it is that you evaluate, start gathering that data now so that you can really see the results after registration. And we've, we've done lots of case studies on this so I've never, we've done a lot of pilots people don't stop after the pilot delivered.

So I, I guess just to kind.

Of put a bow on because it's, it's very real.

Well that is, that is a good point Rebecca. A lot of that and we definitely should revisit that. But if someone wants to ensure they're not coming up as spam, if they sign up to have only branded calling and there a lot of dealers it seems if they're, you know, they don't have good metrics for tracking this stuff though. I know that depending on the vendor you use to make calls. You know, I know Volley has good metrics on that and I know a lot of other vendors have good reporting that they can give you for. For that. So let's see. Is it the number that gets labeled for spam, or is it my business name? What do the carriers track? It's the number paying to have their name. Does that prevent them from being labeled as spam?

We are being told that is the. It's the number. And that's the problem. The carriers don't know which number belongs to who. So case, I think that is a topic for discussion amongst the entire industry. If you think about it, when you use dealer identity, you're associating your identity now to your bucket of numbers. So your protect should be okay. But as it stands today, that's what we've seen acting that group. They otherwise wouldn't know.

So.

Fix your problem.

Okay, so let's get to some. Or you get labeled. Do the carriers know who owns a phone number?

Nope, not at all. I'll guess it's algorithms.

So that, I mean, that's really the key then, because they don't know who owns the phone number and they don't.

Know when it switches hands. That's. The whole thing is like their algorithm could have been watching that number and they're like, oh, they deliver, you know, 10,000 calls a day and then it transfers to somebody.

Questions here. Okay.

Yells and then that entity is delivering 15,000. They'll go, oh, they went off their usual. That must be nefarious. And so then they'll label it spam. It's like, no, it's just another a new business.

What sort of contact rate increase should I look for if I utilize dealer identity? Well, I guess this kind of just depends on the types of calls you're making.

And no concept of when the numbers are changing hands either.

Do the carriers work together or are they all working separately to label calls?

They have their own proprietary solutions and partners. They do not do this collectively together.

And you know, the campaigns you're running, you know, and like Rebecca said, ensuring. So just because T Mobile labels you as spam does not mean that Verizon labels you as spam.

That is correct.

So then to go back to our earlier discussion about how dealers are trying to identify and solve this on your own. If you want to properly verify yourself that your numbers are not coming up as spam, you're not coming up as spam does not mean that you are not. You need to test every single number against every single carrier.

Yeah, you would have.

You know it does not ensure that a customer is going to pick up what we have seen based off of the VOLI customers who we've gotten started. Is that to do that?

Just to find out.

Do you have any guess what percentage of calls are flagged from a business to a customer?

But I mean we actually do have stats on that I think at least as far as the numbers, not necessarily the calls.

The average dealership sees about 4 to 5% increase in contact rate.

But how many numbers in a set of numbers but it is industry specific. So Jake, I know we have some of those stats somewhere in a report.

Certain when they remove spam from their lines and that translates industries are affected.

More so than others if that's helpful. I don't know that we have that for dealership space but that's perhaps a report we could work on for sure.

I think it's great information. Will dealer identity ever be off to you know a lot more appointments set? The actual figure I have from a dealer who gave it in Canada or Mexico. Can, can you speak to actually let me back up a little me these numbers is their contact rate increased by 7% and that translated to 40 bit because I think that's a good topic. Can you, can you speak a little bit to you know 5% more appointments being set though obviously, you know it'll vary a little. Obviously we're talking about the US here but how do other countries fit in?

So it's a progressional adoption. On the analytics side, Canada has within the past year or so allowed, allowed.

They have to get permission per dealership. You know, you know there's some, you know but that is the general that we see and, and then on top of that when my contact rate can.

To their carriers to implement some analytics. We've seen some of the carriers in Canada adopt some of the same providers that we work with and we are currently. This is numerical's job to do for the benefit of dealer identity working to make sure that we can integrate with those analytics providers so that we get.

The continue to increase. I mean or does it settle after the initial increase? What we're doing is removing reach in.

Canada but it tends to be the same experts, the same algorithm.

I think the spam. So you know if, if you, if you're verified in July experts who do.

This for carriers that are getting adopted in other countries and I, I kind of like that because they, they're the most, you know they don't get it right all the Time, but they are the best when it comes to what's on the market. Mexico, I, I have not followed.

You know, your August will be, you know, will be looking better than June.

Any regulatory changes there, if they are allowed. But that's one that we can absolutely research.

Mm. When you spoke about branded calling not being widely and then, you know, your August performance is, you know, is probably what you're expecting because we've removed the labels in July. Right. It's not a continual improvement because the improvement is. Hey, adopted. What did, what did you mean by that? Widely, you know, the labels are gone. So. Okay.

And JC is adopted as in available on consumer devices. How this information gets delivered is what's a challenge so to that if a dealership cannot answer their KPIs. Right. So Apple does not allow for manipulation and control of a call whenever it lands on an Apple device. The best you can get on an Apple experience is a name. And with the iOS 16 update, they actually made the telephone number bigger and then made the name really tiny. So it was like we went backwards Apple. Right now, then you're going in blind on the value. So start looking at what your contact rates, complete rates, connect rates, however it is that you evaluate, start gathering that data now. So that's a limitation. There's no talk of logos just yet for that. When it comes to the Android devices, it does require the consumer to have something downloaded. Now @&T T Mobile and Verizon all have these call protection apps that the consumer can download so that you can really see the results after registration. And we've, we've done lots of cases and then it requires the app to be able to display the information. So there's still this relationship between the consumer and the options that they have on their device. Studies on this. So I've never. We've done a lot of pilots. People don't stop after the pilot that determines whether or not branding will show all of that to say is just because you turn branding on with a particular phone number, it might not display as branded with every individual that you call.

So there's a lot of variability then. Do you think, you think that the industry is heading that direction, though?

Oh, because it's, it's very real.

Well, that is, that is a good point, Rebecca. A lot of.

Yeah, I mean there's, there's conversations around what's the most secure way to deliver this.

A lot of dealers, it seems if they're, you know, they don't have good.

Metrics, whether it's in band or out of band.

Google has their own way for tracking this stuff though. I know that depending on the vendor you use to make calls, you know.

I know if you have a Pixel phone, we actually integrate with Google's verified call, so we'd have to deliver information to the Google side. It's just really broken up. Every end device has their view of the world on what branding should look like to its consumer because that's the one who purchased the phone or purchased the plan. So it's kind of broken up, which makes it a little bit challenging to get a full view of what happened with branding on my call. Now, numerical does have what we call it a smart branding and it is kind of that dashboard of how many numbers do I have turned on for branding and based on that, how many of calls were treated for branding.

Volley has good metrics on that and I know a lot of other vendors have good reporting that they can down.

The various different branding providers. There's still a lot of metrics data that I don't think is. I think it's really important to receive, but the carriers will not release that data and they're citing cpi, which is a consumer protection rule. So even just getting metrics data on.

How give you for. For that. So let's see. Is it the number that gets labeled for spam or is it my business name? What do the carriers track?

It's the number as well as my branding. Working is really difficult for a dealership to be able to assess, which is different from reputation, which you can assess a lot better.

And so reputation meaning in this case, am I labeled as spam?

Yes.

Okay.

And that is, you know, I didn't say it. Start with a reputation, get your fraud and spam under control. Don't jump to branding because you really don't know how big of a problem you have on. It's the number and that's the problem. The carriers don't know which number belongs to who. So the fraud and spam labeling before you move to branding. So if you think about it, when you use dealer identity, you're associating your identity now to your bucket of numbers. So you're protecting that group they otherwise wouldn't know.

Mm. So before you get labeled, do the carriers know who own.

All of the value that you would get is thrown over into branding. And you'll think, oh, all of the successes off of just branding, there's actually some success that you will get off of reputation and that's at a much lower cost that I recommend. Step 1.

A lot of questions about branding. Maybe we should do.

Wait, I think we're gonna have the phone number. Not at all. I'll guess it's algorithm have to.

Maybe we should.

There are so many areas to go.

So the last question I have non branding is related to the verification. Is this a one time process or is it an ongoing thing? What do you get each month? So that I mean is that's really the key then? Because they don't know who owns the.

Phone number and they don't know when it switches hands. That's the whole thing is like their algorithm could have been watching that number and they're like, oh, they deliver, you know, 10,000 calls a day and then.

It transfers to somebody for, for you know, the services that numerical and dealer.

Identity offer yells and then that entity is delivering 15,000, they'll go oh, they went off their usual. That must be nefarious. And so then the label it spam is like no, it's just another a new business. And no concept of when the numbers are changing hands either.

Mm. Do the carriers work together or are they all working separately to label calls?

Yep. So any identity that's a one time is a really bad identity. So just like your driver's license, you got to go back in, take an updated photo. Right. Update your address where you change. So for verified identities it is a re up once a year. The re up process is very simple. You're going to be provided the same information that you provide on the last one. It just says what's changed? You know, tell us what's changed. If nothing has changed, that same data will go back through the processing to ensure that this entity is the legit, it's valid and you haven't been restricted by some state AG from delivering outbound calls that are one of the things that we look at so that. But it is one place to go to get access across the ecosystem.

So this isn't something where you get verified and then one month later you can say okay, my numbers are clean. Turn me off, I'm good.

Yeah. The moment you walk away from dealer identity, that association of your verified identity to those numbers completely breaks and you are back into the algorithms with you don't know what's going on.

And just to kind of add on that, it's not necessarily any.

It's not they have their own proprietary solutions and partners. They do not do this collectively together.

Something that we're doing. It's the fact that before verification, like Rebecca said. So just because T mobile labels you as spam. They don't know who owns each phone number.

Correct.

So it is correct. It is. You know it is. You know that that is what's happening. Does not mean that Verizon labels you as spam.

That is correct.

So then to go back to our earlier discussion about how dealers are trying to identify and solve this on your own, they're unassigning the number to you.

Yeah. And this is a chain of trust. I mean at the end of the day, I mean dealer identity sits on the outside. Numerical. Numerical is the one with those relationships. And we have an obligation, obligation to ensure that we have worked all the way back to who's the end entity behind that number so that the carrier can continue to trust us. And that's just part of the trust model. Not going to get away from that.

One final question and then we'll wrap up. How do we stay up to date on the legislation Own if you want to properly verify yourself that your numbers are not coming up as span.

Well, no.

And regulation. Yeah.

Numerical does have a specific blog news area for regulatory and we have a newsletter.

And you need to test every single number against every single carrier.

Yep. You would have to sign up on. Jake, I don't know if there's a way to, to share that with this group to do that. Just to find out.

Do you have any guess what percentage of calls are flagged from a business to a customer?

But we do have a newsletter for that. If you wanted to get involved and have a front row seat when things are actually happening, that is what the coalition is for, the Enterprise Communications Advocacy Coalition. And that puts you in the driver's seat. We're literally interacting and having conversations at that level.

Yeah, we will, you know, we can include some of that information in the.

Did we push that over? If not, we should just be supplying that information on our blog. But I mean we add logs in our write ups and our tracking over to your customers they should get access to that. Actually do have stats on that I think at least as far as the numbers. Not necessarily the calls, but how many numbers in a set of numbers. But it is industry specific.

Definitely, definitely. We'll, we'll, we'll ensure, ensure that you have that. Appreciate the tech.

So Jake, I know we have some of those stats somewhere in a report certain time.

Rebecca, this was a great, great session and even as I sit here and, and think, yeah, I can, I can speak really well to all of this, you know, I still, you know there's still a lot of things that you know, I've heard for the first time and, and greatly appreciated having you on here today.

My pleasure, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. Next month we're going to be having on Brad Pascal with Fixed Ops Digital and he's going to be talking about how to create a digital strategy to build your service business. Thank you all for joining us for today's volley session.

Hope you all industries are affected more so than others if that's helpful. I don't know.

I'll have a fantastic Thanksgiving. And this will be live on YouTube on Monday.

That we have that for dealership space. But that's perhaps a report we could work on for sure.

I think it's great information with. Oh, Rebecca, how can, how can people, how can people get in touch with you? If, will dealer identity ever be a. Yeah, if, if they, if they want to get in touch with you?

Yep. My email is Rebecca and it's spelled R E B E K a h@numerical.com. that simple.

Okay. And we'll, we'll provide that in the YouTube description as well. Thank you very much. Have a great day.

Thanks. Bye.

Offered in Canada or Mexico? Can, can you speak to. Actually let me back up a little bit because I think that's a good topic. Can you, can you speak a little bit to. You know, obviously we're talking about the US here, but how do other countries fit in?

So it's a progressional adoption. On the analytics side, Canada has within the year so allowed. Allowed they have to give permission to their carriers to implement some analytics. We've seen some of the carriers in Canada adopt some of the same providers that we work with and we are currently. This is Numerical's job to do for the benefit of dealer identity, working to make sure that we can integrate with those analytics providers so that we get the reach in Canada. But it tends to be the same experts, the same algorithm experts who do this for carriers that are getting adopted in other countries. And I, I kind of like that because they, they're the most, you know, they don't get it right all the time, but they are the best when it comes to what's on the market. Mexico, I, I have not followed any regulatory changes there if they are allowed, but that's one that we can absolutely.

When you spoke about branded calling not being widely adopted, what did, what did you mean by that?

Widely adopted as in available on consumer devices. How this information gets delivered is what's a challenge. So Apple does not allow for manipulation and control of a call whenever it lands on An Apple device price, the best you can get on an Apple experience is a name. And with the iOS 16 update, they actually made the telephone number bigger and then made the name really tiny. So it was like we went backwards Apple. So that's a limitation. There's no talk of logos just yet for that. When it comes to the Android devices, it does require the consumer to have something downloaded. Now, AT&T T Mobile and Verizon all have these calls, protection apps that the consumer can download and then it requires the app to be able to display the information. So there's still this relationship between the consumer and the options that they have on their device that determines whether or not branding will show all of that. To say is just because you turn branding on with a particular phone number, it might not display as branded with every individual that you call.

So there's a lot of variability then. Do you think, you think that the industry is heading that direction, though?

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's, there's conversations around what's the most secure way to deliver this? Whether it's in band or out of band. Google has their own way to deliver. If you have a Pixel phone, we actually integrate with Google's verified call, so we'd have to deliver information to the Google side. It's just really broken up. Every end device has their view of the world and what branding should look like to its consumer because that's the one who purchased the phone or purchased the plan. So it's kind of broken up, which makes it a little bit challenging to get a full view of what happened with branding on my call. Now, numerical does have what we call it a smart branding, and it is kind of that dashboard of how many numbers do I have turned on for branding and based on that, how many of calls were treated for branding down the various different branding providers, there's still a lot of metrics data that I don't think is. I think it's really important to receive, but the carriers will not release that data and they're citing cpni, which is a consumer protection rule. So even just getting metrics data on how well is my branding working is really difficult for a dealership to be able to assess, which is different from reputation, which you can assess a lot better.

And so reputation, meaning in this case, am I labeled as spam?

Yes.

Okay.

And that is, you know, I didn't say it. Start with a reputation, get your fraud and spam under control.