Spam and robocalls

A trade number that sits on Google, the truck doors and every invoice gets called by dialers all day: “your Google listing is about to be suspended”, merchant-services offers, SEO pitches, extended warranties. Without a screen, each one reaches whoever is covering the phone, and on a plan measured in minutes each one also uses talk time. This guide covers what DispatchLine spam screening does on your line, where the switch is, what a screened call costs, what it can get wrong, and what it does not replace.

What spam screening does

With Hang up on robocalls turned on, the agent listens to the first seconds after the greeting and ends the call when the caller is plainly not a customer. It judges the shape of the call, not the number it came from:

• a recording or an automated menu instead of a person, including “press 1” prompts
• five seconds of silence after the greeting
• a pitch aimed at the business: listing verification, SEO, merchant services, warranties, loans

When it recognizes one, it says “Thanks, we’re not interested” and hangs up. The call is tagged spam in your call log, is logged as one minute: during the free trial it counts toward the 150 trial minutes, and on a paid plan toward fair use, with no per-minute charge, and creates no lead and no alert. A caller who answers the greeting the way a customer does goes down the normal path: the triage questions, a safety instruction where one applies, then a booking or your emergency action.

Where the switch is

The setting is Agent → Booking → Hang up on robocalls. Check which way it is set on your account before you judge your call log, because the two settings produce different logs:

What a screened call costs

One minute each. As an illustration, not a forecast: if your number draws 10 robocalls a week, that is 10 minutes a week, or about 43 minutes a month (10 a week x 4.3 weeks). Over the 3-day free trial the same volume uses about 4 of the 150 trial minutes (10 a week, for 3 days). With screening off, those calls count at their full length instead, so if each ran two minutes the same 10 calls would use 20 minutes a week. Your real count is in the call log after the first week, and plans and minutes explains how usage is counted.

What gets past the screen

The screen only hears the first seconds, so anything that sounds like a customer is treated as one: a live telemarketer who opens with a question that sounds like a service request, or a dialer that connects straight to a person with no recording and no pause. Those calls use ordinary talk time and, if they do not book, land on your lead list. When you find one, change its outcome tag to spam so your weekly numbers stay honest.

When a real caller gets screened

The opposite mistake costs more, because it loses a customer. The likely causes:

• a caller who says nothing for the first few seconds, because they are on speaker, driving or talking to someone in the room
• a bad connection that sounds like silence
• an automated call you want, such as a supplier’s delivery notice. Google also places some automated calls, for example to update business hours on Maps, and Google’s help page on fraudulent calls says those calls tell you they are from Google and why.

Once a week, open the call log, look through the calls tagged spam, and read the transcript of any that lasted more than a few seconds or came from a number you recognize. When a real customer was screened:

1. Change the outcome tag on the call. That corrects your log and your reports.
2. Call the customer back on the number shown on the call.
3. If it keeps happening, turn Hang up on robocalls off and tell us what you saw, with the time of the call: open a ticket under Support in the portal or email support@getdispatchline.com. A person replies within one business day.

Changing the tag does not put the number on a trusted list, because there is no such list. The agent keeps no memory of a number between calls, so the same caller can be screened again. Blocking by number would not do the job either: the FTC’s page on blocking unwanted calls says scammers often use fake or spoofed numbers, including ones that show your own area code.

What screening does not replace

Screening only acts on calls that reach the agent. With conditional forwarding, a robocall you pick up yourself never gets there, so the calls you answer during the day are still yours to hang up on. Three owner-side steps help:

• Ask your carrier what call filtering your business plan includes. A call the carrier blocks never rings, never forwards and never uses a minute. Check now and then that the filter is not catching customers.
• Do not count on the Do Not Call Registry. The FTC’s registry FAQ says the registry is for personal numbers and business numbers are not covered, and that being on it will not stop scammers. It names DoNotCall.gov as the place to report an unwanted call.
• Brief whoever answers the phone. Google’s page says it will never ask for payment information over the phone or guarantee a special spot in its products, so a caller asking for a card number to protect your listing is not Google.

For keeping these calls off the line in the first place, see how to stop robocalls reaching your business line and what spam calls take out of a dispatch day. The robocall glossary entry defines the terms, and the call answering feature page shows where screening sits in a call.