If you’re in the market for a phone validator API, what process should you follow to pick the best? What features should you look out for? Remember that the right API will play a major role in enhancing your communication and marketing strategies. Besides, a phone validator API isn’t just a means for identifying users based on their phone numbers.
It’s also a crucial tool for guaranteeing data accuracy, improving customer reach, reducing fraud, and enhancing the overall service delivery in your business. In this article, you will learn more about choosing the right phone validator API based on a couple of indispensable features. Let’s get started.
To Begin With, What’s an API?
You’ve probably come across the term API before in techy articles before. But just in case you didn’t, the term stands for Application Programming Interface, which is a set of protocols that facilitate and guide communication between two software applications. An API works like a messenger, collecting and sending requests and responses between applications, enabling them to work like they were a single unit developed under the same platform.
Are APIs the Same as Microservices?
It’s not uncommon to come across individuals who believe APIs and microservices are the same thing. Besides, they are both methods of developing software in modular forms, connecting independent units of software so they can achieve a common goal.
However, there is a slight difference. Microservices are simply components of a software application that have been broken down into individual units so users can install and use the services that meet their needs. Conversely, APIs are a set of rules that handle communication between two different applications.
Bear in mind that a microservice requires an API to work since it’s not a complete application.
So, What Is a Phone Validator API?
Now that you have the concept, it should be easy to understand what a phone validator API is. A phone validator API is a set of rules that facilitate the communication between phone validation applications and external applications that offer validation services.
For this application, the API will take verification requests from the user and query an external validation service provider’s database, then present the user with a response from the external application’s database. The main reason for using validator APIs is so you won’t have to develop an entire phone validation system from scratch.
When you use a Phone validator API from a reliable provider like Trestle, you can have access to accurate, regularly updated phone number data in real-time. That way, you won’t go through the trouble of collecting and managing phone number data manually.
Why Opt for a Phone Validator API?
With other types of phone validation methods such as single search lookups and bulk upload validator tools, why should you consider using an API instead? Well, it comes down to the following main reasons:
Convenience
APIs offer the highest flexibility and automation when compared to all other verification methods.
That’s mainly due to their ability to facilitate real-time validation of phone numbers and frequent updates to databases to guarantee data accuracy.
Better Outreach
Thanks to automation and real-time validation capabilities, businesses can reduce communication errors and reach their intended targets using the right channels, with the right message.
Better Data Quality
A clean database is a no-brainer for any business that aims to deliver high-quality services. Phone validation and enrichment APIs from top providers like Trestle make data cleansing and enhancement possible, so you are sure you are working with viable leads.
Lower Costs
Phone validation APIs are not only a tool for determining the deliverability of messages to individual phone numbers; they are also an aid to cost efficiency. How, you may wonder? Well, they provide sufficient data for your sales and marketing teams to determine where they should concentrate their efforts.
Unreachable and less-active numbers are an indication that the associated leads are not likely to convert.
What Leading Features Should a Phone Validator Have?
When choosing a phone validator API, make sure it has the following fundamental features:
- Caller ID – Caller ID information can give you supplemental information about a contact, and give you enough ground to verify users and personalise services.
- Line Type – Though this may not seem like a vital feature, determining whether a phone number is a landline, VoIP, or mobile can help you use the right communication channels and ensure message deliverability.
If you can find a phone validation API that breaks this further into original and current line types, you can keep up with your customers, for example when someone switches from a mobile line to a landline phone.
- Carrier Information – Getting a phone number’s carrier information is beneficial if you are interested in estimating the location and network quality of a prospect’s line.
Like with the line type, it’s always a blessing when an API offers carrier change updates. That can help you retain your connection with prospects and customers.
- DNC Check – If you haven’t heard about DNC checks before, they simply mean Do Not Call. If a phone number is in the DNC registry, you don’t want to add it to your contact list. Trying to contact such numbers can result in various legal issues that aren’t worth the risk.
- TCPA Check – This is another must-have feature for phone validation APIs. Just like the DNC registry, there is a registry that contains numbers with TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) litigation history.
Unlike DNC complainers who will only report violations, TCPA litigation means the owner took steps to initiate legal action. You should, by all means, avoid calling these numbers, so don’t add them to your contact list.
- SMS Email – This feature enables you to create SMS email addresses from phone numbers. That way, you can send text messages via email.
- Location – This one should be a no-brainer. Acquiring the location information of a phone number before adding it to your contact list can improve communication and help you adhere to regional regulations.
The location information should also be supplemented with additional information such as where the number is registered and the current time zone to help you enhance your compliance and engagement scores.
- Line Status – You don’t want to collect phone number information and use it blindly. This information helps you determine whether a phone number is reachable, disconnected, or unavailable entirely. That way, you can always ensure you have a clean contact list and better results from your outreach efforts.
Get These Features and More
Incorporating a phone validator API into your business’s sales & marketing arsenal is a brilliant decision that can boost the overall performance of your business. Thankfully, the features you want to consider when selecting the right tool aren’t ambiguous, so it’s only a matter of time before you can find the ideal product.
Trestle, as one of the leading providers of phone validation and data enrichment tools offers powerful solutions to ensure you’re always working with accurate and reliable data. Check out their website today to learn more about these tools or try one to see why they are the best!
