Validating Global Phone Numbers 101: A Quick, Easy Tutorial

By Allison Moon Data Quality Analyst 

 With the advent of
global communications and business, chances are you are not only capturing
addresses of your contacts, but contact phone numbers as well. This is where
Melissa’s Global Phone Object comes into play.

Global Phone Object
validates registered phone numbers in more than 240 countries and territories,
as well as enrich your data by appending information such as latitude,
longitude, city, predominant language spoken, and more.

Setting up the object is
quick and easy, especially if you’re a current customer of any other Melissa API.

Here’s a quick tutorial:

First, add the Phone
Object DLL or .SL file to your project and instantiate an instance of the
Global Phone Object:

SET globalPhonePtr as NEW Instance of GlobalPhone

Second, set your license
string:
CALL SetLicenseString WITH LicenseString

Next, initialize the
data files:
CALL Initialize WITH DataPath RETURNING Result
IF Result <> 0 THEN
     CALL GetInitializeErrorString
RETURNING
ErrorString
    PRING “Error: ”
& ErrorString
ENDIF

Now you’re ready to
start validating phone numbers! Using the ‘Lookup’ method, you can now loop
through and feed your contact phone numbers through the object. For best
results, pass in both the phone number and country associated with it with the
Lookup method. If you require all the digits necessary for dialing
internationally from your country, you will also need to pass in the Country of
Origin (e.g. the country from which the caller is dialing from).

The outputs returned
from the Global Phone Object are useful for call-centers or businesses that
would benefit from knowing about the general area the contact is located. For
instance, the UTC (Universal Time Code) output can help the caller schedule an
appropriate time to dial the contact and the language output can provide the
caller information on the language most comfortable for the contact.

The appended regional
information, such as the latitude, longitude, locality (city), and
administrative area (state) can be sued to get a general sense of where the
majority of your contacts are located.

If you’re capturing
international contact information, the Global Phone Object will be a useful
tool in determining registered phone numbers, standardizing phone number
formats, and understanding more about where the contact is located.

To test Global Phone for
free, go to: https://www.melissa.com/phone-verification