A business can have the right message, the right customer and the right reason to call — yet still fail to reach the person on the other end. When customers hesitate to answer unfamiliar numbers, even important business communications can go unnoticed.
Authenticated calling offers a way to address this trust problem. By allowing voice service providers to verify caller ID information through technologies such as STIR/SHAKEN, businesses can benefit from a more trustworthy calling environment. While authentication does not guarantee higher answer rates, it helps establish the technical credibility of caller identity information and supports wider efforts to restore confidence in business phone calls.
For enterprises that depend on outbound communication, understanding this relationship is an important step towards improving customer engagement.
Why Are Customers Becoming Reluctant to Answer Business Calls?
The Growing Problem of Unknown Numbers
Customers receive calls from businesses, service providers, delivery companies and unfamiliar numbers throughout the day. At the same time, caller ID spoofing and unwanted calls have made it increasingly difficult to determine which incoming calls deserve attention.
As a result, many people avoid answering numbers they do not recognise.
A 2022 Transaction Network Services (TNS) survey of US wireless subscribers, conducted by Kantar, found that 75% of respondents never answered calls from unknown numbers. The research also found that 78% were more willing to answer when the incoming caller ID displayed the name and logo of a recognised brand.
These findings highlight a major challenge for businesses: customers may reject legitimate calls simply because they cannot establish who is contacting them.
How This Affects Enterprise Communication
For organisations that depend on telephone communication, low answer rates can affect several important activities:
Sales teams may struggle to connect with qualified prospects.
Healthcare providers may have difficulty reaching patients about appointments.
Financial institutions may experience delays in customer communication.
Delivery companies may fail to connect with recipients.
Customer support teams may spend more time attempting repeat calls.
Consider a bank calling a customer about an account-related notification. Even if the call is legitimate, an unfamiliar number may cause the customer to ignore it.
The problem is not necessarily the quality of the communication. It is the lack of confidence surrounding the caller's identity.
How Authenticated Calling Helps Build Customer Confidence
Understanding STIR/SHAKEN Authentication
STIR/SHAKEN is a framework designed to authenticate and verify caller ID information across compatible IP-based voice networks.
It uses digital certificates and cryptographic signatures to help establish whether the calling-number information presented with a call has been authenticated by the originating provider.
The process generally works as follows:
A customer places an outbound call through a participating voice service provider.
The originating provider evaluates the caller and calling number information.
The provider generates a digitally signed Identity header using its authorised certificate.
The receiving provider retrieves the relevant certificate and verifies the signature.
The verification result provides information that can support downstream call-handling decisions.
This creates a technical chain of trust between participating providers.
Why Authentication Matters for Businesses
Imagine a retail company contacting a customer about an order. If its voice service provider properly authenticates the calling number, the receiving network has additional information to evaluate the call's caller ID.
This is more meaningful than relying on the displayed telephone number alone.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) identifies STIR/SHAKEN as an important mechanism for verifying caller ID information and reducing the effectiveness of illegal spoofing.
For businesses, the benefit is indirect but valuable: authentication helps establish greater confidence in the calling identity that reaches the customer.
However, authentication does not automatically display a company's name or logo on a smartphone. It verifies caller ID information at the network level. The receiving provider determines how that information is used in its call-handling process.
Can Caller Authentication Actually Improve Call Answer Rates?
The Connection Between Trust and Answer Rates
Customers make quick decisions when an incoming call appears on their screens. If they recognise the caller or have confidence in the displayed identity, they may be more willing to answer.
Authentication contributes to this trust by making caller ID information more verifiable. It can also support network-level decisions that help distinguish authenticated calls from calls with missing or invalid authentication information.
The FCC's 2020 STIR/SHAKEN order discussed research indicating that additional caller ID information, such as a business logo, increased pickup rates from 21% to 71% in a study cited by the Commission.
This is an important distinction: the cited result relates to additional caller identification information rather than proving that STIR/SHAKEN authentication alone produces the same increase.
Authentication and Branded Calling Work Together Differently
Caller authentication and branded calling are related but separate capabilities.
Caller authentication: Helps participating networks verify the authenticity of calling-number information.
Branded calling: Displays additional business identity information, such as a company name or logo, on supported recipient devices and networks.
Call reputation services: Use available signals and analytics to assess calling behaviour and reputation.
Call treatment services: Apply policies that may label, filter or block calls.
A business may benefit from combining these capabilities, but one does not automatically provide all the functions of the others.
The practical lesson is that authentication helps establish technical trust while branded calling can make business identity more visible to the customer.
Business Benefits of Authenticated Calling Beyond Answer Rates
Protecting Brand Reputation Against Caller ID Spoofing
Caller ID spoofing can damage a company's reputation when fraudsters imitate its telephone numbers.
Customers who receive fraudulent calls displaying a familiar business number may begin to distrust future calls from that organisation.
STIR/SHAKEN helps participating providers detect inconsistencies in authenticated caller identity information. This can make certain forms of spoofing more difficult and give downstream providers better information for handling calls.
It does not eliminate all spoofing or prevent every fraudulent call. Nevertheless, it provides an important layer of network-level protection.
Supporting More Reliable Customer Communication
Authenticated calling can support business operations where telephone communication is time-sensitive.
For example:
Healthcare: A clinic calling patients about appointment changes benefits from customers having greater confidence in its outbound calling identity.
Financial services: Banks can use authenticated calling infrastructure as part of a wider strategy to protect their legitimate communication channels.
E-commerce and logistics: Delivery providers can benefit when customers are more willing to engage with calls about deliveries and service updates.
Customer support: Service teams can build more consistent outbound communication practices when their calling infrastructure supports authentication.
These examples illustrate potential operational benefits. Actual answer rates will still depend on customer behaviour, call timing, number recognition, network policies and the quality of the communication.
What Businesses Should Do to Improve Customer Answer Rates
Establish a Reliable Caller Authentication Framework
Businesses should work with their voice service providers to understand whether their outbound calling infrastructure supports STIR/SHAKEN where applicable.
Important considerations include:
Confirming that the originating provider is authorised to authenticate calls.
Ensuring that calling numbers are properly associated with the relevant customers.
Maintaining valid STIR/SHAKEN certificates.
Supporting authentication across compatible IP network connections.
Monitoring certificate validity and renewal requirements.
Reviewing authentication and verification results where available.
These measures help establish a reliable technical foundation for authenticated business calls.
Combine Authentication With Responsible Calling Practices
Authentication alone cannot solve every reason customers ignore business calls.
Enterprises should also consider the broader customer experience:
Use consistent business numbers: Avoid unnecessary changes to outbound calling numbers so customers can become familiar with legitimate business communication.
Call at appropriate times: Align outbound campaigns with customer preferences and applicable calling regulations.
Maintain accurate customer records: Outdated telephone numbers and poorly maintained contact lists can reduce engagement.
Use branded calling where supported: Displaying a recognised business name and logo can help customers identify legitimate calls.
Measure call outcomes: Track answer rates, repeat attempts, customer engagement and call completion to understand where improvements are needed.
A useful analogy is to think of authentication as a security seal on a business package. The seal helps establish that the package has not been improperly altered, but the recipient still needs to recognise the sender and understand why the package has arrived.
How PeeringHub Supports the Infrastructure Behind Authenticated Calling
Certificate Management Is Essential to STIR/SHAKEN
STIR/SHAKEN depends on a certificate governance system that establishes trust between participating voice service providers.
An authorised provider needs valid certificates to support its call authentication workflows. These certificates must be issued, hosted and maintained through appropriate infrastructure.
This is where PeeringHub provides specialised support.
PeeringHub offers STIR/SHAKEN Certificate Authority services designed to help eligible voice service providers manage certificate-related operations without building the entire certificate infrastructure themselves.
PeeringHub's Tools for Certificate Workflows
Its documented capabilities include:
STI-ACME Server: An RFC 8555-compliant service supporting automated STIR/SHAKEN certificate issuance.
Certificate Repository (STI-CR): Hosts certificates and provides URLs for retrieval by the relevant infrastructure.
STI API: Supports authentication token generation, private key generation and certificate requests.
Identity Header Parser: Helps developers decode and inspect SIP Identity header information.
Certificate Inspector: Supports certificate inspection and validation.
Python Tools: Provides additional options for certificate-related development and lifecycle workflows.
Eligible providers must have their own OCN and approved STIR/SHAKEN Service Provider status from the STI Policy Administrator before using PeeringHub's ACME issuance service.
Supporting the Technical Foundation Without Overstating the Role
It is important to understand the distinction between certificate infrastructure and customer engagement solutions.
PeeringHub supports certificate issuance, hosting, lifecycle management and technical inspection. It does not independently determine whether customers answer calls, display branded caller ID information or block unwanted calls.
The originating voice service provider remains responsible for its call-signing implementation and attestation decisions while receiving providers perform their own verification and call-handling processes.
By supporting the certificate infrastructure behind STIR/SHAKEN, PeeringHub helps providers maintain an important component of authenticated voice communication.
Explore the PeeringHub documentation to learn more about its certificate services and developer tools.
Conclusion: Make Customer Trust Part of Your Calling Strategy
Authenticated calling can contribute to better customer answer rates by helping voice networks establish confidence in caller ID information. Through STIR/SHAKEN, participating providers can verify digitally signed caller identity information and support efforts to reduce illegal spoofing.
However, authentication is not a direct guarantee of increased call pickup rates. Businesses should combine it with recognisable caller identity, branded calling where supported, responsible outreach and consistent customer communication practices.
Behind every authenticated call is a technical infrastructure that needs reliable certificates and lifecycle management.
PeeringHub supports this foundation through its STI-ACME Certificate Authority service, Certificate Repository, STI API and developer tools.
Want to strengthen the certificate infrastructure behind your authenticated calling workflows?
Visit https://www.peeringhub.io/ to explore PeeringHub's STIR/SHAKEN solutions and build a stronger foundation for trusted enterprise voice communication.
Note: The answer-rate statistics cited above come from US consumer research and should not be treated as guaranteed results for every business, market or authentication deployment. STIR/SHAKEN requirements discussed here relate primarily to the US telecommunications framework.
Editorial distinction: The article separates STIR/SHAKEN caller ID authentication from branded calling and reputation services. The cited answer-rate research supports the value of recognisable caller identity but does not establish a direct causal answer-rate increase from certificate authentication alone.
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