INFORM Offer for U.S. Essential Service Providers for Critical Communications Impacted by COVID-19
Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is First Orion offering?

A. Launching Wed, April 1st, First Orion is offering its programmable Caller ID enhancement service, "INFORM," for free. The program will run April 1 to Sept. 31, 2020 for qualifying Essential Service Providers, including hospitals, first responders, and healthcare providers. Once enrolled, businesses will be verified, and their correct business details will be applied to their calling number(s) to help ensure calls are identified properly as they make outbound calls.

Q. Why offer it now?

A. During this time of crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to increase critical communications and ensure delivery. First Orion is stepping up to be part of the solution. Consumers are trained to not answer calls from unknown numbers, but our INFORM Call Enhancement solution encourages consumers to answer calls that would otherwise be ignored or go to voicemail. At this critical moment, calls from hospitals, first responders, healthcare providers and other essential businesses need to be identified and answered because lives are at stake and time is of the essence.

Q. What organizations are eligible?

A. U.S. Essential Service Providers are eligible to receive our Call Enhancement solution, INFORM. These include hospitals, first responders, and healthcare providers.

Q. What is INFORM?

A. Our INFORM programmable business caller ID solution enables businesses to correctly identify themselves to consumers when calling before they answer. This ensures critical calls are answered the first time - eliminating the phone tag cycle or important calls being missed entirely. Many organizations using our Call Enhancement solutions have experienced answer rates double.

Q. What specifically do organizations get?

A. The solution includes:

Q. What specifically do organizations have to pay?

A. We are offering qualified businesses:

Q. How does this compare with Caller ID?

A. Caller ID solutions scrape the web and various databases to identify the caller, but the name is often displayed as gibberish to the consumer-- "Amr Hth", "Unknown," or "1-877-342-1111". Our programmable solution overrides traditional Caller ID and puts your organization in control of what appears on the customer’s phone when you call.

Q. Does INFORM work with all phones?

A. Today, INFORM works on nearly 80M US mobile devices. By the end of the Q2 2020, we expect it to be over 100M devices.

Q. What is the First Orion verification process?

A. All businesses who sign up will receive a phone call from a First Orion employee. Qualified business service numbers will be vetted to ensure they are valid, and First Orion will monitor traffic from those numbers to ensure calls are legitimate.

Q. Can my number be spoofed?

A. Spoofing is when your phone number is displayed in the Caller ID even though it is not you making the phone call. Using INFORM does not increase or decrease the chances that your phone number may be spoofed. While First Orion deploys technologies with our Carrier partners to help detect spoofing activities and identifies those calls as Scam, not all spoofed calls can be identified.

Q. How long does it take to turn on the service?

A. No integration is required, and typically within hours of completing the onboarding process the organization's name will be properly displayed on each outbound call they make on nearly 80M U.S. mobile devices.

Q. Can you explain why this is necessary?

A. Business call volumes are spiking and contact centers are now relying heavily on call-back solutions to better connect with customers. However, 84 percent of calls go unanswered because callers don't typically answer unknown numbers and want to know who's calling before answering. Each type of organization benefits in a slightly different way, but some examples are: