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Call screening

Is your business getting overwhelmed with spam or irrelevant calls? Put a stop to it today with Dialpad’s advanced call screening system, you can see exactly who’s phoning, block unwanted calls, and keep lines clear for high-priority callers and customers. Try Dialpad's unified communications platform for free! It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and you'll be set up with a virtual phone number too.

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What is call screening?

When we picture screening phone calls, we often think of caller ID—the functionality that displays the phone number and area code of an incoming voice call. You might choose to press your call rejection button, answer, or send the call to voicemail.

There are some advanced call screening systems that take these basic caller ID features further, but that’s how it works for the most part.

If you have a call routing system set up, call screening works by letting you set specific incoming call screening rules for handling spam calls, anonymous calls, or calls from phone numbers not in your contacts list.

Some call screening apps also automatically decline robocalls for you, which lets your agents focus on calls from actual customers or prospects and keep wait times low.

Dialpad: More than just call screening software

One of the best things about Dialpad? It doesn’t just give you phone calls, video meetings, and team + SMS/MMS messaging features in one app. It’s also basically a built-in—fully included, no hidden charges or add-on pricing. And not only that, you get a ton of other functionality too:

All your communication channels in one place

Make VoIP calls, have video meetings, send SMS messages, and more—all from the same beautiful desktop or mobile app. It works across iOS, Android, PC, and Mac, and even works on web browsers, no downloads needed. If you want to work from anywhere, Dialpad will work with you.

A video conference happening in Dialpads app

Call routing

Dialpad can also route calls to the right department or person for you thanks to its easy-to-use automatic call distributor (ACD) system and multi-level auto attendant. Depending on your preset routing rules, it'll send callers to agents round-robin style, by idle time, by skill level—or send them straight to voicemail. You can do all that, and easily update your IVR system, right from the online dashboard. (Which call screening software can do that?)

Screenshot of Dialpads call routing options

Easy call forwarding

Dialpad’s call forwarding feature automatically redirects incoming phone calls to a maximum of five alternative phone numbers. You can forward incoming calls to your cell phone, a colleague, or just your voicemail. Never miss an important customer call again!

Screenshot of adding a call forwarding number from Dialpad’s online dashboard

Do-not-disturb mode

For times when you’re in a business meeting, concentrating on an important task, or just off the clock and want to relax without distractions, do-not-disturb mode is your go-to call setting. Dialpad's DND mode sends calls to voicemail and pauses incoming message notifications across your devices—and you can even set a DND timer, just in case you forget to turn do-not-disturb mode off when you’re back in action.

Screenshot of Dialpads do not disturb feature blocking a call

Integrations with your other tools

What if your business phone system automatically synced with your other software? That’s what Dialpad does. It integrates with a wide range of popular tools like Salesforce, Google Workspace, and more to automate activity logging and essentially embed a phone app inside your CRM. Want to build a custom integration? You can do that too with Dialpad’s open API.

Screenshot of Dialpads integration with Salesforce
👉 How WeWork handles call blocking:

The bigger your company, the more daily spam calls you probably get. See why WeWork's Head of Building Technology says, "I receive a lot of spam on my desk phone line, and Dialpad’s spam shield does a great job of stopping it. I never see it until I log in, which has been great in my day-to-day efficiency."

Screening a call with Dialpad

Call screening with Dialpad is easy to set up, manage, and like many of its business phone system features, you don't even have to lift a finger to start using it. Here's how it works.

How the phone call screening feature works

Dialpad uses spam scores to filter out potential nuisance calls. With the help of reliable third-party sources, we tie this spam score to your inbound calls. A caller with a spam score of 100 or more will just be blocked from ringing the Dialpad platform.

Using custom spam blocking rules, you can also choose what Dialpad’s system does with anonymous callers, callers not in your contacts list, and/or callers with high spam scores.

Screenshot of setting up call blocking in Dialpad's online dashboard

You can:

1. Send calls straight to voicemail or directly to your spam folder with no notification. This is where you’ll most likely send callers with a high spam score.

2. Send calls straight to voicemail but with a voicemail transcript notification. This option helps identify unknown callers and assess the importance of a call while weeding out any spam.

3. Have the caller's name play when you pick up. This allows you to identify exactly who’s calling. Before your phone rings, Dialpad’s IVR will address the incoming caller with a message that says “Hello, please state your name after the tone and Dialpad will try to connect your call”. Once they’ve done this, your phone will ring, and on answering, you’ll hear “Hello, [name] is trying to reach you via Dialpad; press 1 to accept this call”.

All calls identified as spam will be sent directly to your spam inbox where they can be viewed at your convenience. You can also see a call summary of taken calls to identify any hidden spam callers.

Get more than just a call screening app with Dialpad

Being able to redirect and block unwanted calls is just the beginning. With Dialpad, you don’t have to pay for a separate’s call screening service to manage incoming calls—you get that functionality included, even in the least expensive pricing plan at $15 per user per month.

Even better is that Dialpad’s call screening app? Best of all, Dialpad works on Android phones, Apple iOS, Windows operating systems, and pretty much any device you and your team are using.

Need a phone system with built-in call blocking?

See how Dialpad's unified communications platform makes it easier to screen calls—and check out all the other functionality that's designed to help teams work from anywhere. Book a demo or take a self-guided interactive tour of the app on your own first!

FAQs about call screening