First Orion, a leading provider of communication transparency solutions, today announced U.S. Essential Service Providers are eligible to receive “Inform” Call Enhancement solution at no cost during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“Nearly 84 percent of all calls go unanswered because people either don’t recognize or trust the caller’s identity,” said Charles Morgan, Chairman and CEO of First Orion. “During this unprecedented time, First Orion is here to help mission-critical calls get answered from hospitals, first responders, healthcare providers and others because lives are at stake and time is of the essence.”

People are trained not to answer calls from unknown numbers so essential businesses and service providers are struggling to reach customers with critical communications. Consumers are nervous, and business call volumes are spiking because of it. To deal with increasing call volume, contact centers are now relying heavily on call-back solutions, yet calls from unknown numbers still go unanswered.

First Orion’s “Inform” programmable business caller ID solution enables businesses to correctly identify themselves to their customers when calling before they answer. This ensures critical calls are answered the first time — eliminating the phone tag cycle or important calls being missed entirely. Many organizations already using First Orion Call Enhancement solutions have seen answer rates double.

To sign up, organizations can visit www.firstorion.com/inform-covid-19 to get qualified for free activation.  No IT integration is required, and typically within hours of completing the onboarding process the organization’s name will be properly displayed on outbound calls to nearly 80M US mobile devices today, and an expected 100M devices within the next few months.

Hospitals and healthcare providers are all excellent candidates for the service. In response to a request by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the White House, First Orion has been working with other telecom service providers, such as Telo and Somos, to support the U.S. government’s request to display caller ID instead of the telephone number for critical government-run Toll-Free hotlines, including the initial phone lines for COVID-19 test results ("Results Center"). In just the first few days, First Orion has helped deliver thousands of COVID-19 test result calls and seen answer rates increase to over 70 percent.   

First Orion's Inform solution enables essential services to provide verified details about who is calling, ensuring that consumers are not missing important calls, such as:

 ●   Hospitals / Healthcare Providers: Patients need to know about test results, appointments and other critical information – and medical personnel need to be contacted with little margin for error

●      Pharmacies: Customers need to know as soon as medications are ready – delays can be detrimental 

●      Local, State and Federal Governments Officials and Municipal Organizations

●      Non-Profit Organizations (e.g. American Red Cross) 

First Orion is offering its programmable call enhancement service for free from April 1 to May 31, 2020 to qualified Essential Service Providers. Once enrolled, an organization’s correct business name will be applied to their calling number(s) to ensure outbound calls are properly identified and consumers answer.

To learn more and enroll today, visit www.firstorion.com/inform-covid-19