Keep queues clean, stop junk before it rings agents#
Your agents are judged on speed and outcomes. Junk calls torch both. The queue clogs, ASA slips, abandon climbs, and your ops team gets buried in "why did this ring?" tickets. You can't police the public PSTN. You can police what reaches your PBX.Where CallerAPI sits
Right before your PBX/Cloud PBX presents a call to a queue, ring group, or agent—pre-ring. One question: "Do we let this caller through?" We answer with a tier (SPAM / BUSINESS / UNKNOWN) and the why (raw data, reason codes). You enforce: block, challenge, or allow. Done.
What we're actually fixing#
Queue health: fewer junk calls presented; agents work real conversations.
ASA & abandon: shorter lines, better answer times, fewer walk-aways.
Customer experience: fewer false “Spam Likely” moments on legitimate callers, fewer escalations.
How you run it (boring and predictable)#
| Case | Default action | What actually happens | Why this is sane |
|---|
| SPAM | Block | Don't ring the queue. Play a short message. Log the reason. | Protects agents' time. Kills obvious junk fast. |
| BUSINESS, but with recent spam reports | Challenge | Light IVR gate (press-to-continue) with a tight timeout. | Humans pass. Robocallers choke. Keeps false positives down. |
| UNKNOWN | Allow | Route normally. Tag for monitoring. | Most first-time callers are fine. |
Start conservative. Put the gray zone in Challenge, not Block. Tighten after a week of data.
Day-1 to Day-30 - the playbook#
1
Week 1 - Pilot and test
Run pre-ring decisions on your noisiest queues (support, sales). Don’t enforce yet. Pipe tier + reasons to ops. Build two live lists: must-pass (VIP, clinics, existing customers) and must-block (known abusers).
2
Week 2 - Turn on enforcement
Enforce SPAM = Block on those pilot queues. Keep BUSINESS (with reports) = Challenge. Show your supervisors the exact reason strings so they can explain decisions.
3
Week 3 - Tune by queue
New sales, renewals, and support behave differently. Set per-queue thresholds. If challenge pass-through is high, you're too strict—loosen a notch.
4
Week 4 - Automate hygiene
Cache low-risk callers for a short window to shave milliseconds. Auto-escalate repeat gray callers to Challenge. Keep signed decision logs - dispute enders.
What to measure (and how to read it)#
Spam interception rate - stalls mean widen “SPAM.” Spikes in complaints mean you went too far.
ASA / Abandon - should improve. If not, your gray zone is too wide.
Challenge pass-through - low = you're hurting humans; simplify the prompt or loosen thresholds.
Agent feedback - supervisors will tell you if legit callers get stuck; adjust weekly.
Quick win: enforce on publicly listed main lines and toll-free DIDs first. That’s where junk hurts most.
Edge cases you will hit#
Cost & Data Control - "Daily Spam Report" for flat spend#
Some PBX teams want zero surprises on cost and one simple nightly job: pull a curated set of bad actors and enforce it across queues.
What you get
A daily set of confirmed spam/abuse numbers, validated by our systems + human review. Scoped to your tenant.
Why it exists
Predictable spend. One (or a few) fetches per day. Load once, protect every queue.
How you use it
Pull today's JSON, push to your PBX block/challenge lists, and run the same SPAM / BUSINESS / UNKNOWN policy. No per-call metering.Endpoint: dedicated Daily Spam Report per tenant.
Fields: number, created date, violated date, consumer state, subject (spam category), robocall (yes/no).
Cutover time: posted before 13:00 UTC daily; covers the prior 24h.
Validation: algorithmic scoring + human review for high-impact entries.
Retention: last 24h available (30-day window on request).
License: tenant-wide use across your PBX queues.
Pricing: flat monthly fee.
Purpose: cost control with enough fidelity to keep agents protected.
Ask us to enable Daily Spam Report for your tenant. We'll hand you a hardened URL, auth, and a sample file so your team can wire the nightly job.
You keep control of region and retention on your side.
Daily Report - budget certainty; great for global hygiene across queues.
Real-time - when you need per-call context (queue, campaign, business hours) and want to challenge the gray zone instead of blunt-blocking it.
How to talk about this internally#
Be clear with ops and supervisors: "We block obvious junk. We challenge the gray. We log every decision with reason + timestamp." Give team leads visibility of reason codes in their dashboards. Angry tickets turn into quick fixes.
Talk to an expert
Make your PBX spam-resistant by integrating CallerAPI.