What is call screening and how can it increase your productivity?

Have you ever been working on a tight deadline when the phone rings and pulls you out of your zone? It takes a while to get back on track, which is frustrating. In fact, according to a recent study by a German think tank, it takes 15 to 24 percent more time to complete a task following one single interruption. That can quickly eat away at your day and productivity.

Screening your calls can help you stay focused, increase productivity and decrease those pesky spam calls. Keep reading to see how call screening can work for your business.

What is call screening?

Call screening is a generic term meaning a way of collecting various information about the caller to help people decide what calls to answer. The information collected can include the following:

• Name
• Phone number
• Location of the caller
• Information indicating spam or a robocall

How does call screening work?

There are a few ways that call screening works. In some phone systems, the incoming number is run through a calling name (CNAM) database to display the business or name of the person who owns the phone number. This shows on your phone’s display. It can be a bit more advanced with Ooma’s Caller Information Match, which pulls information from a CRM system, social media account or a Google search and shows who is calling.

Some call screening requires the caller to press a button or state information that identifies them as a true caller and not a robocall or spam call.

Caller ID comes with all Ooma Office plans, while Caller Info Match is only available through Ooma Office Pro and Ooma Office Pro Plus.

Ooma’s newest feature, Call Screening, is only available with Ooma Office Pro Plus. It’s an advanced system providing an automated way to prompt the caller to state their name. The name is recorded and played back for the person answering the call. That person can then decide to answer the call or reject it (and send the call to voicemail).

What are the benefits of call screening?

Let’s take a look:

Increase productivity and save time. The most important benefit is that it prevents you from having to answer every single call—even those that might be spam or robocalls—and allows you to spend your time more productively. Remember, your task will take 15 to 24 percent longer to complete after an interruption.

Reduce calls from known spammers. In 2022, the average American received 31 spam calls per month. That’s a lot of unnecessary calls, interruptions and time wasted answering the phone for nothing. Ooma Office will automatically filter out calls from known spammers and treat such calls according to your settings, like send to voicemail or play a busy tone. Ooma Office partners with Nomorobo to reduce robocalls, telemarketers and phone scammers from calling your phone. This feature is available to Ooma Office Pro and Pro Plus customers.

Manage calls better and improve the customer experience. By knowing who is calling before you answer, you can better manage the customer experience. The Ooma Office desktop app can pull information about callers from other data sources, allowing you to identify high-priority callers and focus more on their experience while sending other callers to self-service options.

Reduce the number of calls that ring your phone. You can increase your focus even further by asking callers to introduce themselves before you decide if you want to talk to them. When configuring the Call Screening feature (available with Ooma Office Pro Plus), you can decide whether you want all callers to record their name, or just those who aren’t on your contacts list. Usually, robocallers, telemarketers and spammers don’t record their names, so their calls are less likely to interrupt you. You can decide if you want to pick up calls from those who take the time to introduce themselves.

Call screening with Ooma Office

As a business, you can’t afford to miss a sales call or ignore a valuable customer, but you also can’t have constant interruptions from unproductive calls. Call screening is a set of simple, yet effective, business tools that can help you screen your calls to take only the ones that matter most. Learn more about Ooma Office.