Google Introduces Verified Business Phone Calls

Need to Know

• Verified Calls displays an authenticated business’ name, logo, and reason for calling to customers, to help businesses avoid declined calls.
• Google is unveiling the feature to help businesses circumvent low answer rates brought on by customers declining unknown calls they suspect to be spam.
• Verified Calls is currently a feature on Google’s Phone app and will be available for download to Android users starting later this week.

Analysis

In an effort to help businesses reach their customers by phone, Google has introduced a new feature, Verified Calls, that displays a business’ name, logo, and reason for calling.

The feature, which Google announced today in a blog post, is available to Android customers and is an effort to provide customers with the trust that an incoming call is not coming from a spam caller, and to thereby increase answer rates for businesses. Spam calls are on the rise in the U.S.: according to a recent report from RoboKiller, U.S. consumers received 61.4 billion spam calls in 2019, an increase of 28% from the previous year. Allowing businesses to display authenticated information to

Businesses that wish to sign up for Verified Calls need to work with one of Google’s telecom partners, which include Neustar, JustCall, Telecall, Zenvia, and more. Once businesses are set up, they need to send Google’s Verified Calls server its number, a customer’s phone number and specify the reason for their call. Google then sends this information to the Google Phone app, which compares information from the incoming call with the information Google received from the business. If the information checks out, the call recipient’s phone displays the incoming call as verified.

The launch of Verified Calls comes a year after Google introduced Verified SMS, to combat similar issues pertaining to consumer trust. According to the blog post announcing Verified Calls, “a study in the U.S. and Brazil found that Verified SMS increased consumer trust in brands, which significantly improved performance on metrics like likelihood to purchase, brand satisfaction, and likelihood to recommend.”

Google has been working across its multiple platforms recently to improve returns for businesses that use its services. In July, the company rolled out a number of new features within Google Ads that tackle the “messy middle” of e-commerce, including improved location services and the option for retailers to highlight time-sensitive deals and sales within Ads. And late last month, Google announced a partnership with UPS subsidiary Ware2Go that allows Google Ads users to highlight free and fast shipping.

Verified Calls, which is currently a feature on the Google Phone app, will be available to Android users starting later this week.