Phone Number Format and Type CheckerPhone Number Format and Type Checker

You might think that selecting and storing phone number formats is a relatively trivial aspect of data quality and maintenance, but as your CRM database grows so does the importance of having consistent, standard phone numbers. Unstandardized formatting can be difficult for auto-dialers and click-to-call software to process, and it makes it even more challenging to deduplicate records based on the same format.

Different countries have a variety of standards for how to format their phone numbers, and even within countries there are variations. For example, in Uruguay, the first group of digits often identifies the dialed province. This could be a digit-based system or one based on the letters ABB CCC DDD (see this article for more details).

Determine Phone Number Type and Carrier Format

In Ireland, there is a move to standardize local phone numbers by merging and extending existing area codes. This is still being carried out gradually, however, and so a number may start with 4 or 9 digits. In addition, some phone numbers in the country are presented with alphanumeric characters for added memorability.

The phone number format and type checker zap transforms the raw data returned in your trigger step into a standard form that will be compatible with your software and systems. It also carries out multiple checks on the data, including a syntax check to ensure that the format is correct for the country code selected, as well as a lookup against active carrier data to identify the phone’s line type (e.g., landline, mobile, VoIP). It can even detect if a number has recently been ported and alert you to this potential fraud risk.

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