A growing need for communication and changes in technology have led to an effective way to interact with customers. The business collects information on its customers to personalize its marketing efforts. Despite this, the ease of online transactions and internet use has created a constant debate over customer privacy.
Businesses and their customers have become increasingly concerned about data privacy and security. For this reason, people are concerned about giving away their personal information, first and foremost their phone numbers.
An individual’s mobile phone number is an easy way for hackers to break into their bank account, email, social network account, and more. Because of this, many companies have started using call masking/phone number masking to ensure customer safety. By masking calls, users and businesses are protected against fraudulent and dangerous threats.
What is Phone Number Masking?
Phone number masking protects customer and business phone numbers in e-commerce businesses. In this arrangement, each party has a temporary phone number that can communicate privately during a specific time period.
Basically, call masking is intended to provide greater privacy and anonymity to consumers without compromising on security, allowing for better customer experiences.
Using it allows direct communication without the need for an external operator or the sharing of confidential information. It’s ideal for businesses that share customer information with third parties.
Phone number masking serves as a bridge, connecting parties while securing their private information. It, therefore, allows two-way communication between seller and buyer, customer and delivery staff, without disclosing personal information.
A sender, for example, calls a number called X. This call is then forwarded to the recipient at Y by masking software. However, the recipient sees a masked number instead of the sender’s number X. Let’s call it Z for now.
Why is Call Masking Important?
You may think that call masking is unnecessary, but it helps companies gain consumer trust and confidence. Consequently, increasing brand loyalty and customer choice for them. Let’s look at the numbers:
- Nearly 80% of people are uncomfortable sharing their phone numbers with business service providers.
- Around 65% of people believe that a company is more trustworthy if it employs phone number masking solutions.
- 100% of customers will only contact a company if their number is safe and secure.
How Does Call Masking Work?
An incoming call to a virtual phone number is routed through an API proxy server hosted in the cloud. Callers’ phone numbers are concealed by the proxy service when their calls are routed through the cloud.
Additionally, the call recipient’s contact data is also masked and not visible to the caller. To see phone number masking in action, consider the following scenario, where a customer is booking a ride through a ride-booking app:
- The customer requests a ride on the app, and the app assigns the call to the driver by displaying a false number.
- Using a cloud-based API proxy, the call from the customer is directed to the ride-booking app to get the rider’s number.
- This call is then directed to the driver’s private number.
- The API proxy services mask the rider’s real number as well, which is displayed to the customer instead of the rider’s.
- Neither party’s phone number is revealed even though both parties are connected, i.e., both are masked.
Use Cases of Call Masking
Masking numbers helps you deliver an excellent customer experience. Businesses that share customer information with third parties should take advantage of this solution.
In this way, businesses can directly communicate with their customers without utilizing an outside operator. Additionally, it eliminates the need for sharing personal contact information. Let’s explore a few possible uses of call masking:
1. For Transportation and Riding Apps
The Uber ride is a perfect example. Using these apps, passengers and drivers can communicate with one another to share rides. Most of the time, they will share phone numbers for communication purposes.
However, giving out your phone number to a complete stranger can sometimes be dangerous, so call masking is usually used. Call masking will prevent the driver from being able to see the real phone number of the passenger when the passenger calls the driver.
2. For Delivery Services
It is common for people and couriers to communicate during deliveries. However, it would be better if they could do so without providing their phone numbers.
By masking the calls, the consumer gets notified about updates. They can also use it to contact their customers when they need them.
3. For Remote Teams
Masking your employees’ phone numbers is helpful if they work remotely and need to contact customers using their own phones. They can prevent their personal information from being stolen by masking their phone number instead of calling from the business number. By doing so, they maintain credibility and appear professional when they contact clients.
4. For Health Care Professionals
Some professionals in the healthcare industry need to make themselves available to patients. In many cases, physicians and doctors allow patients to contact them directly.
While they need to reach you, they don’t always want to provide their mobile phone numbers. Using call masking allows physicians to protect themselves without compromising their privacy.
Business Benefits of Phone Number Masking
1. Secure Customer Base
Number masking ensures that only authorized personnel have access to your customer base by protecting the phone numbers of both parties. It is especially useful in situations where third parties, like cab drivers and delivery people, use customers’ contact numbers.
Furthermore, they give the customer’s number to marketing agencies to advertise and sell products to that customer.
2. Superior customer experience
Having your number safe and knowing that your users are comfortable and engaged gives you a sense of security and peace of mind.
The use of a phone number masking service makes sure all parties involved can communicate safely and quickly. This allows for a more secure connection and strengthens trust.
As a business, you can assist your customers in addition to maintain a seamless business communication. Customer support is improved by your ability to respond to concerns instantly, while employees are empowered by the ability to speak directly with customers.
Business users can enjoy a delightfully satisfying experience knowing their information is protected with disposable numbers.
3. User Privacy
Keeping users’ privacy is the most critical measure any business can take to ensure the security of customers’ information, and number masking does it extremely well. The majority of customers don’t prefer sharing their phone numbers because of prank calls, fraud, and spam.
But when a phone number is masked, the permanent phone number of your customer is never disclosed during any call or transaction, even to your agents. By doing so, you enable the customer to feel a sense of trust and reliability toward you. It also helps you keep your phone number spam-free.
4. Secure exchanges with in-platform transactions
The number masking ensures that only your business platform is used for communication between different stakeholders. Additionally, it prevents them from exchanging personal information, so there will fewer chances of involving in personal transactions.
It ultimately helps to enhance the security of your monetary exchanges as the business transactions will be fully protected. Since all payments occur within your platform, you are not concerned about revenue leakage.
5. Gain customer loyalty and grow
Customer loyalty tends to be strongest for businesses that provide comfort, assurance, and security. Consumers value privacy and anonymity in their personal lives, and they do not want their private phone numbers to be shared with unknown representatives.
When you use masking services, you convey to your clients that you are always available to meet their needs and provide an interactive environment where they feel at ease. The efforts you make to demonstrate that you put the needs of your customers first are not ignored.
A service company that goes above and beyond to protect its customers’ privacy and create a great experience will have a long-term customer base. Loyal customers that stick around become repeat customers, providing a significant boost to your business.
Final Words
The number masking method is a modern technique that doesn’t need much convincing. Anyone in the public sphere can easily understand the positive traits of the service, and its success stories are plentiful.
It’s no surprise that business ratings rise when they take steps to protect their customers’ privacy. Since virtual cloud phone systems readily come with call/phone number masking feature, you might as well consider using one for your business.
Adding number masking to your arsenal of management tools can help you have a fast-growing business that adapts to consumer and business demands while staying competitive.
Furthermore, call masking offers a variety of benefits and can be used in different fields, depending on what is required.
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