An Interview with TNS: Gold Winner of Best Digital Transformation Project in Telco

November 2023

Telecoms & Connectivity

Juniper Research

Analyst House

Earlier this year, TNS triumphed at the Future Digital Awards for Telco Innovation, with their Enterprise Branded Calling solution winning the Gold Award for Best Digital Transformation in Telco.

To celebrate this win, and learn more about Enterprise Branded Calling, we sat down with Greg Bohl, Chief Data Officer at TNS.

What Benefits Can Branded Calling Bring to Enterprises such as Retailers?

"The persistence of robocall scams has forward-looking enterprises digitally transforming the voice channel with branded calling and call authentication technology because of the wide-ranging benefits they offer. In the retail industry for example, bad actors continue to impersonate legitimate retailers as part of their schemes, with TNS’ latest survey data showing that 69% of US adults are concerned about robocall scams that pose as retailers and claim a package is pending pickup or that they are due a refund.

It’s unsurprising that subscribers are unwilling to answer phone calls from unknown numbers, but it does pose a challenge for enterprises who rely on the voice channel to communicate with customers. Branded calling solutions such as TNS Enterprise Branded Calling display vital brand information on incoming call screens so consumers can discern legitimate calls from malicious ones.

This technology can be a critical business investment for improved communications, one that helps enterprises protect their brand and facilitate a superior customer experience. Enterprises have also reported dramatic improvements in conversion rates as a result of empowering customers with the information about who is calling, because those that choose to answer the call are more receptive to speaking with the company. Our survey data shows that 82% would answer a branded call from a company to whom they have previously given permission to contact them."

What Services Does TNS Provide to Enterprises to Enable Branded Calling?

"As part of TNS’ Identity and Protection suite, we currently offer three branded calling services for enterprises. As mentioned earlier, TNS Enterprise Branded Calling allows enterprises the opportunity to ensure every outbound call includes their brand information. To enhance this offering, we’ll soon be launching TNS Enterprise Authentication which gives enterprises and service providers the confidence that calls to subscribers are not spoofed. This suite of services leverages our unique out of-band call event API, where the enterprise customer can query and notify TNS that a call is ‘in progress’ allowing the branded call to be verified.

Only verified calls get fully branded call treatment, and all unverified calls get the spoof protection service. This is particularly beneficial for retail enterprises that have their telephone numbers spoofed and whose customers need confidence that the person calling is a legitimate employee of the company.

This is especially true if the call involves sharing sensitive personal information. And finally, TNS Telephone Number Reputation Monitoring gives enterprises the ability to understand their telephone number reputation score and improve scoring by conforming to behavior less likely to trigger negative labeling by analytic engines and allow the enterprise to know of potential spoofing."

How Will the Rise in Deepfake Robocalls Impact Mobile Voice Users and Enterprises?

"Let’s face the facts, fraudsters now have the capability to replicate voices for financial gain and this is the dark wave generative AI brings to our market. This can be done with audio clips of as little as five seconds, but generally takes about 20 seconds of audio according to our labs at TNS. Scammers will then use the synthetic voice to create short audio bursts such as crying or the phrase ‘help me’.

AI has also been leveraged by bad actors in phishing attacks and other impersonation schemes targeting healthcare organizations, financial services firms or even retail companies. Mobile voice users will likely look to the FCC, policymakers and the telecom industry for enforcement measures and look to enterprises to adopt branded calling and call authentication technology, so they have the confidence to answer legitimate phone calls. Without this, trust in voice calling will likely erode further as more subscribers fall victim to deepfake robocalls, and enterprises will find it more challenging to reach their customers." 

How Can AI Help Detect this Emerging Threat?

"The telecom industry remains at the forefront of adopting innovative solutions to integrate AI into ongoing robocall prevention measures such as STIR (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited)/SHAKEN (Signature-based Handling of Asserted information using toKENs), advanced call analytics and other rigorous enforcement measures that will help safeguard consumers from these fraudulent bad actors.

I am extremely passionate about the possibilities that AI brings (and acknowledging the challenges), and this is something I had the opportunity to discuss at an FCC (Federal Communications Commission) workshop in July and during my presentation at this month’s SIPNOC. For example, discriminative AI (a widely used algorithm method) identifies patterns and distinguishes legitimate calls from spam. By consistently fine-tuning algorithms, carriers reduce false spam positives and flag robocalls more effectively. Predictive AI goes a step further by analyzing the behavior of bad actors behind spam calls, offering valuable insights into what they might do next. There is also industry momentum towards AI-powered voice biometrics that can identify synthetic voices, enabling carriers to distinguish between legitimate calls and nefarious voice cloning scam calls."

How Does TNS See the Future of Branded Calling?

"We expect branded calling to become the baseline for any business hoping to interact with their customers using outbound services. Consumers today get overwhelmed by fraudulent calls, and as our survey points out, this offers a way for firms to get their customers to engage. A logo being displayed will be next where the customer can not only see the caller, but the company's logo as well, bringing the next level of call reinforcement to the handset.

The next step would then be the call intent to be displayed. It would be great if a customer could see a business name, logo and then a short phrase such as ‘next appointment’ or ‘customer service check-in’, and for a business to be able to deliver that, so this is something we are working on bringing to the market. This will be underpinned by our Enterprise Authentication solution I mentioned earlier, which gives enterprises and service providers the confidence that calls to subscribers are not spoofed."