Call Masking: Everything you need to know!

People always have concerns while giving their personal information including phone numbers to strangers. 😨

And it is good to be cautious, since hackers can easily break into your bank accounts, emails, social media profiles by just knowing your phone number.

Thats when the call masking features comes into a picture. 👊

Call masking helps customers and businesses to protect their information from frauds and other dangerous threats.

Let’s dive right in! 👇

What is Call Masking?

Call masking is a telephony feature that displays a designated phone number when making outgoing calls. Callers only see the ID you choose, not your real number. This allows you and your team use your main or a local number for calls in a specific area.

On the contrary, it helps businesses protect customers’ phone numbers as both parties use temporary phone numbers to communicate privately during a given time.

In addition, the use of a masked number is very easy to use, improves customer experience, and safeguards personal information.

Why is Call Masking Important?

Call masking establishes a secure communication between customers and businesses. It protects the personal information and increases the trust and confidence of customers toward your business eliminating the risk of information leaks.

Let us show you some statistics which can help you to change your mind about call masking:

• 90% of people call or contact a company only if their phone number looks safe and secure.
• 79% of people are not confident to share their personal information with others.
• 65% of people feel comfortable making contact with a company if the company uses call masking solutions.

What are the benefits of Call Masking?

Businesses and companies of all sizes use call masking to interact and build trust with their customers. Some of the benefits call masking offers you are:

• Protect Your Phone Number: Call Masking feature lets you keep your business calls separate from your phone number. You can mask your call with an unallocated phone number and protect your number and your identity.

• Use the Main Number: The business calls are routed directly into your company’s or business’s main phone number.

• Manage who Calls: You can manage all the calls that make contact with you. You can provide an extension to those people who want to reach you directly.

• Increase Sales: Call masking is used to bring in local customers. If the call is made from a local number, you can directly contact them instead of sending them to a voicemail.

• Safeguard Customer’s Privacy: Customer information is safeguarded during conversations since calls are routed through the call masking server and are encrypted end-to-end.

• Call Tracking and Monitoring: All incoming and outgoing calls between agents and clients are recorded and monitored for quality control and data analysis.

• Real-Data Insights: Call logs provide meaningful information insights on call performance, which improves client engagement and measures agent effectiveness.

How Does Call Masking Work?

Call masking is a feature used to protect the personal phone numbers of two parties that wants to connect with each other but wants to keep their number private. Each party receives a temporary number for communication during a set time. After this period ends, the numbers are reassigned to different users on the platform.

Call masking software is used in this process to mask or hide the phone number from each other.

💡 For example, if the sender’s phone number is 666-666-6666, first, it goes through the call masking software. It forwards the call to the recipient, but the recipient won’t see his actual number i.e., 666-666-6666.

Instead of 666-666-6666, the recipient will see another designated number, like 555-555-5555, 444-444-4444, or other phone numbers. Nevertheless, the recipient can call that masked number and reconnect with the sender if they get disconnected.

How is Call Masking Different from a Virtual Number?

A virtual phone number is an internet-based phone number that are often mistaken for phone number masking due to their similarities. But the key difference lies in the fact that virtual phone number is linked to existing telephone numbers unlike phone number masking.

A virtual phone number is a permanent phone number that is connected to a person or a business. It is usually used for reducing long-distance calls and also to promote local presence. However, it is not used to protect the privacy of customers.

On the other hand, call masking means connecting two parties but not revealing information about each other. It is only good for a limited time. The call first goes to the call masking software, where the phone number gets cloaked and finally reaches the recipient with a new (cloaked) number.

What are the Use Cases of Call Masking?

Let’s talk about the few use cases of call-making for different businesses:

1.    For Transportation and Riding Apps

The best example of this is the Uber ride. In these kinds of transportation and riding apps, the drivers and passengers communicate with each other to share the rides. Usually, they do so with a phone number.

But sharing the phone number with a total stranger can sometimes be dangerous, so call masking is used in this case. When the passenger calls the driver, the driver won’t be able to see the real phone number of the rider but sees the temporary phone number assigned by the call masking software.

2.    For Delivery Businesses

The company needs your phone number to safely deliver the package to you in the delivery business or courier business. But, it would be best if the delivery is done without giving your real phone number to other people you don’t know.

With call masking, your phone number is hidden, and people who come for delivery will deliver and go their own way without your real phone number. In addition, the individual providing the goods can use call masking to provide updates and assist them in contacting the consumer when it counts the most.

3.    For Healthcare Professionals

Healthcare professionals need to be available to their patients and contact them directly in their phone numbers. Even if it is important, they don’t always give out their real phone number.

Health Professionals might get a lot of calls if they have lots of patients. Giving out the real phone number can compromise their security and privacy sometimes. So, to avoid random calls, healthcare professionals can use phone number masking.

Besides, if some patients are very important to them who they want to make direct contact with, they can provide those patients with an extension to reach them.

To Sum Up,

Call masking means hiding your real number and displaying a temporary phone number to other people to keep you secured. It is very important for businesses to keep their customer’s phone numbers secure and is very important to build trust and confidence.

In addition, it has different benefits and can be used in different fields.

We highly recommend go for a KrispCall, if you feel you want software that can provide you the call masking feature.

KrispCall provide you with temporary numbers for specific period to have a secure communication without revealing your real phone number.

Not only the call masking feature, but you can use other features like unified callbox, shared workspace, do not disturb feature, member-to-member communication, and many more only starting at $12/user/month.

Arun Chaudhary

Arun is SEO Analyst at KrispCall. He has written in extensively in the field of cloud telephony and call center solutions.