Change Your Phone Name

Who are you?

Is your phone name “WIRELESS CALLER”?

Or “NTELOS PCS”?

Or maybe “UNKNOWN”?

These caller ID names come up frequently on our phone system at the studio.  They are generally assigned by your wireless phone company as the default when you sign up for service.  And, you can change them!

Now, I’m not certain how exactly it works for other services, but I’m sure there’s something similar available on other systems.  Here’s how to change your name on Sprint (our wireless carrier):

1. Login at Sprint.com.
2. Hover your mouse over “My Sprint” (second row of tabbed buttons).
3. Click “My Account” (it’s clickable, even though there are other options under it).
4. In the third section (devices), you will see your phone(s) listed.  Under the type of devices, you will see “Caller ID name is set to: ” followed by what people see when you call them.
5. Click on “Caller ID name” and a pop-up window will show the names for each of the devices on your account, give you the opportunity select one of the defaults, and also to enter a Custom Entry.  Once you’ve done that, it takes up to 24 hours to get spread throughout the system.

Now, when you call a business or someone else with Caller ID, your name will show.  The likelihood of your call being accepted is MUCH greater if you include your name in the Caller ID.  Businesses generally get a lot of Spam calls and sales calls each day, and they will often associate out of area phone numbers (in this area, ones that don’t have a local area code) with another sales call, FAX or robo-spam call.  And they might just get ignored.

We pick up virtually every call.  Since switching to a digital phone service a couple of months ago, we can also recognize people who call frequently and add their Caller ID to our system.  It helps make sure we take calls from people who are clients we know best.

But if you’re calling for a local service or product, and don’t get an answer… maybe it’s because your Caller ID says “UNKNOWN” or something else that’s not as appealing as your beautiful name is. 🙂