A spam call is an unwanted phone call, often unsolicited sales, scams, or automated messages, that a recipient did not ask for. Spam calls waste time and can be deceptive. Businesses use screening and filtering to keep them from interrupting staff or clogging the phone line.
Spam calls range from aggressive telemarketing to outright scams. They are a persistent problem for businesses because they interrupt work and can be hard to distinguish from real calls at first ring.
Call screening helps by asking each caller to identify themselves and their purpose, which quickly exposes many spam callers. An AI receptionist can screen every call this way and filter out obvious spam so staff only deal with genuine callers.
Spam calls overlap with robocalls, which are automated, but not all spam is a robocall and not all robocalls are spam.
It can help. By screening every caller with the same questions, an AI receptionist identifies and filters many spam callers so they do not reach or interrupt your team.
Related: Robocall, Call Screening, Call Screening Questions, Call Routing