• by Joe Mandese , September 16, 2021

What’s the next new thing in mobile marketing? If consumer data giant Neustar has its way, it might just be phone calls.

Neustar, which coincidentally was just acquired by consumer credit reporting giant TransUnion, published some new research showing that while consumer and regulatory tolerance for telemarketing has eroded significantly over the past 20 years -- thanks in large part to digital technology like robocalls, etc. -- voice-based phone calls are still an integral part of the marketing mix for most marketers, and they need to find new ways of rebuilding trust.

“While many enterprises, government agencies, and consumers depend on legitimate, automated outbound calls for critical communications, a significant percentage of these calls are mistakenly being blocked or mislabeled as spam in the process,” Neustar’s new report -- “Rebuilding Trust In Calls” -- asserts, adding: “As a result, customers don’t answer the phone-leading to missed appointments, lost revenue, and critical information not getting through.”

While the report doesn’t actually provide material steps for rebuilding consumer trust in telemarketing, it does put some dimensions around the problem of losing it, including significant loss of revenues, increased costs of doing business -- and perhaps worst of all, the erosion of brand equity.

Asked how important their customers' call experiences were to their overall brand perception, more than a third (35%) of executives from 100 large enterprises said "extremely," while 42% said "very."

What does Neustar recommend to marketers seeking to rebuild trust in phone calls with their consumers? They should adopt "call protection applications and services," as well as "branded calling," which Neustar describes as going "beyond caller ID to include on the mobile display things like logos, name, and location, along with verification that the call has not been spoofed."