Why don't prospects answer unknown numbers, and what can you do about it?

Why do people ignore unknown numbers?

They've been burned. Hiya's 2024 State of the Call surveyed more than 12,000 consumers in six countries (the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Spain), plus 1,800 people who use the phone for work. The headline numbers:

• 46% of calls from unidentified numbers go unanswered, even when a legitimate business is on the line.
• 77% of consumers are more likely to pick up when they know who's calling.
• 92% of consumers think unidentified calls are fraudulent.
• More than 28% of the 46.75 billion unknown calls Hiya analyzed in 2023 turned out to be spam or fraud.

Two honest caveats. These are consumer numbers and your buyers are at work, so treat them as direction, not a forecast. And we found no clean public study of answer rates for B2B sales calls specifically. What the survey does show is the wall your call hits on a prospect's screen.

Two more lines from the same survey belong on a sticky note. Among the business workers surveyed, 31% picked adding caller identity as the single best lever for answer rates, and 33% said scammers had placed calls in their company's name. Your name on the screen helps. It also gets copied.

Every phone plan we publish already assumes most dials won't connect. This page is about the part you can move.

Doesn't STIR/SHAKEN already fix this?

No. It fixes a different problem. STIR/SHAKEN is the caller ID authentication framework the FCC made mandatory: phone companies use it to check that the caller ID on a call matches the number that actually placed it. The FCC's March 2020 order required originating and terminating providers to run it on the IP parts of their networks by June 30, 2021. That's a weapon against spoofing.

What it checks is the number, and only the number. It doesn't put your company name on the prospect's screen, and it doesn't tell their phone that you're a sales team worth picking up for.

What can you actually do? Four levers

Prices and plan details as of October 2026, from Hiya's own pages. Hiya is one vendor among several; we use it here because it publishes its terms.

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Two details on branded calling. You pay Hiya only when your branding actually shows up, and whether it shows up depends on the phone and the network on the other end, which differs from region to region. So don't promise your team a logo on every call.

On local presence: we found no independent data showing it raises answer rates, so we don't claim it does. If your dialer offers it, run a two-week split on one list: half your calls from local-area numbers, half from your registered main line. Keep whichever books more meetings. Comparing dialers? See the best parallel dialers.

How do you check if your number is labeled spam?

Hiya lays out a free do-it-yourself check. Here's our condensed version:

1. Call a set of test handsets. Line up phones on several different carriers, plus a couple with caller ID apps installed. A colleague calls each one from your outbound number while you note any warning text that appears.
2. Look the number up. Put it into a search engine and into the consumer spam-report apps, and see whether it's been reported.
3. Watch the numbers behind the number. If one line's pickup rate falls while the list hasn't changed, suspect that line first. Very short calls and sudden shifts in your call pattern are warning signs too.

Hiya also offers a free call inspection to businesses placing over 2,000 calls a month, showing how your numbers display across networks and devices (vendor offer). Calling, texting and recording rules differ by country and state, so check your local rules before you dial.

What's the 30-minute fix plan?

1. List every number your team dials from, including the ones inside your dialer.
2. Register them with the mobile networks, through a free registration service or whatever your dialer provides. Ask your dialer vendor whether registration is already included.
3. Run the three-step check above on each number.
4. Pick one caller-name approach for the number your reps use most.
5. Re-check monthly. Put it on the calendar.
6. Ramp volume on new numbers instead of jumping. Hiya says spam-detection systems watch for volume spikes and rapid-fire dialing to unrelated numbers.

What should you do when they still don't answer?

Don't make the phone carry the whole job. Put the other channels to work:

• Email first. Our house cadence emails on day 0 and calls on day 1, so the prospect has already seen your name. See the multichannel prospecting cadence.
• Leave a short voicemail on call 1. Here's what to say.
• Dial a better number. Cognism's 2024 cold calling data found mobile numbers get the highest response. Here's how to find a direct phone number.
• Be ready for "how did you get my number?" The answer is on cold call objection handling.
• Know when email beats the phone. Read cold email vs cold calling.

When should you skip each fix?

• Branded calling: skip it until your numbers are registered and clean. Also skip it if you place fewer than 250 calls a month, because the self-service plans we found start there.
• Number registration: skip it only if your dialer already registers your numbers. Get that in writing.
• Local presence: skip it until your own split test shows it books more meetings on your list.