Branded Calling Expands: Bringing Secure Calls with Logos to the Top Three U.S. Wireless Carriers

The Next Step in Branded Calling

Branded calling has already revolutionized customer-business interactions by allowing businesses to include their name and number on a customer’s phone display. The introduction of logos marks a significant evolution in this technology, allowing companies to add a visual element that reinforces brand recognition and trust.

With logos displayed during calls, customers quickly recognize familiar brands, minimizing doubts about the call’s legitimacy. Industries requiring high levels of trust, like financial services and healthcare, will significantly benefit from this advancement. A logo tells the customer that the call is verified and comes from a trusted source, reducing the likelihood of missed or ignored calls.

Expanding Network Coverage

Perhaps the most significant part of this announcement is the expansion of branded calling with logos to the top three U.S. wireless carriers, serving over 300 million devices together. This means businesses can reach a wider audience than ever with a unified branded calling experience.

Before this milestone, branded calling solutions were fragmented across different networks, limiting the reach and impact businesses could have with their branded communications. By covering the entire U.S. market, businesses can now have confidence that their calls will be seen in the same consistent, branded manner no matter which carrier the customer uses.

This expanded network coverage also provides greater consistency for multi-location businesses and national enterprises, which can now maintain brand integrity across all customer interactions, regardless of geography or carrier affiliation.

Securing Communication with Call Authentication

This development expands the branded calling solution and addresses a critical concern in phone-based communications security. STIR/SHAKEN, required for standard call authentication, helps prevent call spoofing by verifying the displayed number. However, advanced call authentication methods, such as those utilized in First Orion’s call authentication, ensure communication security through the end-to-end pre-call flow.

Call authentication ensures complete security, verifies calls from origination to delivery, and gives businesses full confidence in their communications. This is particularly valuable because companies can notify the system beforehand that a call will be made, and when the call takes place, it’s securely paired with the caller’s intent. This pairing ensures branded and business calls are fully verified from start to finish, offering greater security than standard methods alone. Furthermore, this can be implemented with a Rest API implementation, and there are new, even simpler implementation methods in the works.

This difference in call authentication is pivotal in high-risk industries like financial services, where call spoofing can lead to fraud or identity theft. The ability to deliver a secure, unspoofable, branded call—complete with a logo and verified by the caller themselves—provides peace of mind to both businesses and customers, increasing answer rates and reducing fraud.

It’s worth noting that call authentication is required for businesses that use logos in branded calls. However, this security feature is available to all INFORM customers, ensuring secure communications regardless of logo use. Furthermore, blocking capabilities are available through First Orion’s SENTRY solution to ensure your numbers are only used when authorized.

Industry Adoption Milestones

As of 2024, branded calling has seen significant adoption. Over 4,500 businesses, including 15% of Fortune 500 companies, currently use the solution. These companies recognize the value branded calling adds to their customer interactions, driving higher answer rates, customer engagement, and revenue. Additionally, 3.7 billion branded calls have been delivered this year and are expected to reach five billion by the end of 2024, highlighting the growing demand for this solution.

These milestones also reflect the broader shift in how businesses approach phone communication, moving from traditional, unverified calls to secure, end-to-end call authenticated branded solutions.

What’s Next for Branded Calling

As more businesses adopt branded calling, combining rich content, end-to-end call authentication, and network-wide consistency will set the industry standard for secure and trusted communication. Moreover, as fraud and robocalls continue to be a significant issue, the ongoing development of authentication methods will play a bigger role in protecting consumers and ensuring the legitimacy of business communications.

Furthermore, as carriers and device manufacturers develop new features, such as interactive logos, multi-channel communication integration, and real-time analytics, it will only enhance the branded calling experience, providing businesses with even more ways to engage with customers. As companies explore ways to build trust, improve engagement, and secure communications, branded calling with logos will remain at the forefront of these efforts.