I recently tried to contact a car-buying service offering discounts through a membership, but my call didn't go through. My phone number, it seems, isn't as portable as I had thought -- a problem of old meets new.
Many companies have long regionalized their services, using Caller ID to prescreen callers and qualify them based on area code. This gets problematic in a BYOD-enabled, mobilized world in which people want service when and where they choose. The old, conventional thinking about local number portability (LNP) no longer holds true.
Consumers who retain their mobile phone numbers when they move may find themselves unable to use toll-free numbers if companies have set up call-center access via Caller ID. Such was my experience in calling that car-buying service.
A similar problem crops up in call centers that route callers based up Caller ID. Area code is no longer a given for location, so callers routed using this prefix may end up funneled to the wrong service or sales group.
Originally intended to be useful for customers porting their phone numbers from one service to another, LNP wasn't conceived with an understanding that numbers would one day be used all over the country. But given bundled services and declining costs for voice, phone number retention seems to be the trend.
However, data from the Pew Research Center shows statistical differences among those consumers who only have cellphone numbers, those who carry a cellphone and have a landline, and those who only have a landline phone. In a piece titled, " Accurately Locating Where Wireless Respondents Live Requires More Than A Phone Number," Pew researchers wrote:
More people who have only a landline phone have lived their entire life in the same community (43%) than is the case for Americans with both a landline and cell or only a cell phone. More cell-only have moved within the same state (31%) than those in other groups, whereas more dual users with both a landline and cell phone (both wireless mostly and those who use their cell phones less often) have moved across state lines. The landline-only have also lived in their communities longer than people with a cell phone; they have lived in their community for more than 20 years on average, nearly twice as long as the cell mostly (11 years) and cell-only groups (9 years).
More people who have only a landline phone have lived their entire life in the same community (43%) than is the case for Americans with both a landline and cell or only a cell phone. More cell-only have moved within the same state (31%) than those in other groups, whereas more dual users with both a landline and cell phone (both wireless mostly and those who use their cell phones less often) have moved across state lines. The landline-only have also lived in their communities longer than people with a cell phone; they have lived in their community for more than 20 years on average, nearly twice as long as the cell mostly (11 years) and cell-only groups (9 years).
Enterprises that want to capture new customers and retain existing customers need to pay attention to these patterns and understand LNP from a mobility perspective.
While LNP addressed one problem, consumers introduced another as they used the LNP rule to port their landline numbers to their cellphones -- and then moved within the state or out of state. These choices potentially disrupt efforts to collect data and throw off demographics.
On top of that comes the trend of cutting the cord on landlines and using VoIP and subscription services for voice -- further derailing the old vertical and horizontal, or V&H, coordinates used to determine geographic locations of telephone services. This is an erosive effect that is breaking down the use of the old telephone system and reliance on Caller ID for accurate information. Personally, I have three area codes ringing my cellphone. How could the marketing data possibly reflect an accurate picture of me as a consumer?
LNP to cellphones has brought about a new challenge and that is to accurately identify consumers in the right demographic group. As the Pew Research Center suggests, doing so may take adding ZIP code or other such data to validate location. While Caller ID spoofing casts doubt on whom the callers are, Caller ID itself is no longer accurate for use in identifying callers as part of a demographic based on geography.
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