Are your clients sick and tired of robocalls and call spam? If they complain about receiving unknown and spoofed numbers throughout the day, it’s because these calls disrupt meaningful work and can lead to both financial and reputational losses. In US and Canada, the STIR/SHAKEN frameworks are available especially for such cases.

This solution allows companies to filter out spam calls, making the workday less distracted while also protecting the organization. Learn more about STIR/SHAKEN, how it works, and why your clients will absolutely love it.

What is STIR/SHAKEN?

STIR/SHAKEN is a system to screen calls and catch spoofed numbers, scammers, and robocalls. Legitimate numbers will pass through and these tools won’t slow down the passage of calls in and within your clients’ organizations. Essentially, your clients or employees won’t notice the difference with STIR/SHAKEN. Except, of course, for the immediate drop in robocalls and unwanted calls.

If you want to learn more about this technology, we recommend you to read this in-depth article about all its intricacies.

4 reasons why your business customers need it

There is real financial and organizational impact caused by robocalls and spam callers that businesses may not be noticing just yet. If your customers don’t already know they need it, here are a few ways to convince them.

If you want to begin with an analogy, tell your clients that STIR/SHAKEN is like a virtual checkpoint for phone calls.

More than half of all phone calls are robocalls and spam

The average American receives 3-4 spam calls each day. In 2020 alone, there were more than 46 billion robocalls or spam calls identified in one year. Overall, experts estimate that 55 percent of all calls made in the United States are robocalls. That’s a staggering percentage—more than half of the calls!

This might seem shocking, but remember that scammers play a numbers game. One scam group was making more than 27,000 robocall attempts per hour in hopes that only a fraction of those recipients picked up.

Even if your clients know to never pick up these scam calls, they’re still annoying. Investing in STIR/SHAKEN can cut down thousands of robocalls and scammers who reach employees throughout the organization.

Telecommunications fraud costs companies billions each year

Spam calls aren’t just annoying, they’re also dangerous and expensive. Spoofing, call-back schemes, and phishing are some of the most common fraud in telecommunication industry across the globe.

According to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA), telecommunications fraud costs U.S. companies more than $40 billion each year. In fact, American companies say 41 percent of bad debt comes from fraud.

All it takes is just one employee to fall for a spoofing scam to cost the company thousands (if not millions) of dollars. Scammers continue to create new ways to look legitimate, which means they are more likely to outsmart workers.

STIR/SHAKEN prevents scammers from ever reaching employees, reducing the chances that they’ll fall for a phishing scam.

Scammers are investing in AI

Scammers are able to make thousands of calls each hour through robocalls. Now, they’re further digitizing these operations through the use of artificial intelligence. They use AI tools to write scripts that target specific groups, like employees in certain departments. With such tools, they are better prepared to respond to various questions, making them seem rather legitimate. Which obviously, they are not!

Scammers are even using voice clones to make calls that sound like people you know—even your boss. Once again, the best way to prevent people from falling for phishing scams is to make sure these fake calls never reach them. Therefore, it’s never too early (or too late) for your customers to start enjoying the benefits of STIR/SHAKEN.

Phone calls disrupt employee focus

While scammers are certainly a concern for organizations, there are other reasons to invest in STIR/SHAKEN to block irrelevant calls. Namely, interruptions.

One survey found that it takes 16 minutes to refocus after handling a new email. Overall, employees spend almost 2 hours each week recovering from interruptions. If your team members are pulled away by robocalls multiple times each day, they’re losing a similar amount of time getting back to work.

STIR/SHAKEN can enable better work and create space for highly-focused, deeply productive team members by preventing distracting calls in the first place. Employees don’t need to work longer, they need to work smarter.

Forget about robocalls

If your clients complain about spoof callers, robocalls, and other phone disruptions throughout the day, let them know you have a solution.

STIR/SHAKEN is easy to implement, affordable, and provides no disruption to legitimate calls. This could be an ideal solution for almost any workplace that is concerned about telephone fraud or simply finds spam callers annoying.

Our VoipNow & Hubgets platform provides full support for STIR/SHAKEN, both the authentication and the verification functionalities. Get in touch and we’ll tell you more about our implementation and how it can help your business thrive.