What Is Local Presence Dialing (& How Can It Help Your Sales Team)?

Summary:

• Local Presence Dialing increases the likelihood of prospects answering calls by presenting recognizable local numbers, thus improving call answer rates and building initial trust.
• According to the Truth in Caller ID Act, Local Presence Dialing must only display numbers reflecting true business locations, ensuring ethical communication practices and avoiding potential legal issues.
• Local Presence Dialing features like the one PhoneBurner offers enables sales teams to localize their phone numbers dynamically, making geographic-specific customer engagement more efficient without cumbersome manual segmentation or lead distribution.
• It is recommended that businesses own the numbers that they use instead of sharing them with others—this optimizes branding and customer response by promoting higher levels of engagement and avoiding reputational challenges.

In an era when unknown numbers and unknown callers are feared and ignored, the conventional approach of using a fixed caller ID often results in missed opportunities. Prospects are simply more inclined to answer calls from numbers they recognize. 

Some teams intelligently create location-specific call lists, so reps can tackle a local area with a number to match. But this process is time-consuming, inefficient, and unscalable.

Enter Local Presence: the antidote to this modern-day conundrum. By harnessing the power of local numbers, sales teams can amplify their outreach efforts, fostering trust and rapport with their prospects and customers across the country.

What is Local Presence Dialing?

Local Presence dialing is a phone number/Caller ID technology that dynamically adjusts the outgoing caller ID to match the area code of the recipient's location.

This adaptive approach can enhance the chances of connecting with prospects by presenting a recognizable local number, thus facilitating smoother communication and relationship-building.

Looking for a Local Presence dialer?
Try PhoneBurner.

How Local Presence Dialing Works

At its core, Local Presence Dialing operates by leveraging a pool of phone numbers that span the locations in which a company has a business presence. The advanced technology finds an available number to match to the contact record’s location.

Example:

• When a call is made to a customer in New York City, the dialer might use a 212, 917, or 646 area code.
• When calling Los Angeles, the Local Presence dialer could utilize a 310 818, or 213 number.

Shared vs. Owned Number Pools

Local presence dialers can differ significantly in their approach to providing local phone numbers for outbound calls. One key distinction lies in whether they use shared numbers or owned/exclusive numbers.

Shared Numbers

In this approach, the Local Presence dialer service provides a pool of phone numbers that multiple businesses or users share.

• While shared numbers may provide convenience and cost-savings, they often lack in branding and callback flexibility.
• Shared numbers also mean shared number reputation. Shared numbers carry an increased risk of spam flags and number blocks, potential impediments to call deliverability and answer rates.

Owned Numbers

The smarter and safer option is to leverage a dialer that uses numbers owned by each individual business.

• Each business can acquire and maintain a collection of local numbers that align with their business locations.
• This allows the business to register these numbers with the carriers and maintain full control over branding, consistency, and the handling of callbacks.
• This control over number reputation can lead to higher answer rates, increased trust, and more quality conversations.

Complying with the Truth in Caller ID Act:

The Truth in Caller ID Act prohibits the use of caller ID “spoofing,” which entails the practice of modifying caller ID information by making a call appear to come from a phone number or location different from the originating phone number with the intent to deceive.

While Local Presence Dialing aims to enhance sales outreach, it is essential to ensure compliance with this legislation. This means that the local numbers displayed must accurately reflect locations where your business has a legitimate presence.

Besides the legal implications, dialing from locations where you don’t actually do business is likely to alienate many of the contacts you’re hoping to build rapport with.

Bottom line? Only leverage Local Presence in areas where you have a legitimate business presence. PhoneBurner is committed to responsible communications, so when you use our platform, we can support you in these ethical practices.

Potential Benefits of Local Presence Dialing

There are several reasons to choose a Local Presence dialer. These include the potential for increased answer rates, enhanced trust, and improved efficiency. However, it’s important to be realistic about the benefits delivered, and to view them alongside other features available with certain software.

Increased Call Answer Rates 

Research has shown that people are more likely to answer calls from familiar or local numbers. Accordingly, by utilizing Local Presence Dialing, sales teams can increase their chances of connecting with prospects.

However, the size of the answer rate increase is often exaggerated, and the scammer/spammer practice of using numbers closely resembling the call recipients’ number (known as “neighbor spoofing”) has impacted the effectiveness of the strategy. 

Dialing from local numbers can absolutely increase connections, but call answer rates are impacted by a lot of factors. It’s vital to test the strategy to see how it performs for your business.

More Trust & Rapport

Displaying a local number helps to establish trust and credibility with potential clients. It can foster a sense of familiarity and rapport, assuring your contacts that you are a part of their local community, even if your call center is out of state.

Another way to build trust? Try branded calling, and replace that unknown number with a business name. This easy-to-implement solution can help lift answer rates and improve call outcomes even further.

Greater Efficiency

Whether your target market spans across multiple states or regions, Local Presence Dialing allows sales teams to efficiently “localize” their outreach efforts without burdensome planning, lead distribution or segmentation. That’s because the software dynamically updates the Caller ID to match the contact’s location without rep intervention. Win-win.

Local Presence is just one way PhoneBurner helps teams engage in ultra-targeted call campaigns at scale.

Implementing Local Presence Dialing

Integrating a Local Presence Dialer with existing systems is a relatively straightforward process, but it requires some careful planning and execution. Here are some steps to consider:

• Choose a Reliable Provider: Research and select a reputable Local Presence Dialing provider that offers the features and functionality that align with your sales objectives. Consider whether the provider uses Shared or Owned numbers, as explained above, and other features that are available alongside Local Presence that can improve your answer rates.
• Customize Your Caller ID Settings: Work with your provider to register and configure your Caller ID settings to display local numbers relevant to your business presence, and in compliance with the Truth in Caller ID act.
• Train Your Sales Team: Provide comprehensive training to your sales team on how to effectively leverage Local Presence Dialing in their outreach efforts. Emphasize the importance of compliance with the Truth in Caller ID Act and best practices for maximizing its benefits.

Enhancing Local Presence with PhoneBurner

PhoneBurner is pleased to provide Local Presence dialing, a valuable tool for outbound teams to expedite and enhance multi-state or multi-region outreach efforts. But as far as answer rates and call engagement is concerned, Local Presence is just one piece of the puzzle—and ultimately, its effectiveness depends on your larger number strategy.

In addition to offering Local Presence dialing, PhoneBurner provides some of the most flexible and convenient Caller ID functionality and comprehensive number health support that you will find in a dialer today. With our platform you can register for Local Presence and:

• Buy numbers wherever you have a business presence
• Dynamically match your numbers to your contact’s location
• Brand calls on over 200 million devices with Branded Caller ID
• Create pools of number to use for specific call campaigns or clients
• Group numbers together to simplify inbound call experiences
• Monitor numbers for spam flags, and pause as needed
• Track answer rates across your numbers and team
• Register numbers with the carriers to strengthen number reputation

Our team can support you in this effort from day 1, including registering your PhoneBurner numbers, remediating spam flags on your behalf, and offering cutting-edge guidance to help you optimize your answer rates.

If you understand the importance of number reputation, PhoneBurner is the ideal partner to help you implement a number solution that drives long term results. Start a free trial or get a demo to learn more.

FAQs for Local Presence Dialing

What is Local Presence dialing?

Local Presence dialing is a phone number/Caller ID technology utilized by sales teams, in which the outgoing caller ID adjusts dynamically to match the area code of the recipient's location.

Should I Use a Local Presence dialer?

If you make calls to locations where you have a legitimate business presence, and want your number to dynamically update to match these locations, then you should consider a Local Presence dialer. Using Local Presence to “spoof” your Caller ID and deceive contacts as to your real location is in violation of the Truth in Caller ID act.

What are the benefits of Local Presence dialing?

Local Presence dialing has the potential to increase answer rates, enhance trust, and improve efficiency when calling across multiple states and regions where you have a legitimate business presence. However, it’s only one component of a comprehensive phone number and call engagement strategy.

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