How to Find Out Who Owns a Phone Number
You’ve probably called an unknown phone number before. So, you know calling a phone number with no idea who’s going to answer is worse that calling someone you’ve never met. There’s a lot of mumbling and stuttering when you call an unknown phone number.
For businesses, having phone leads without names can be the worst case scenario. If the salesperson must ask who they’re talking to, the sales call is likely doomed to fail. It makes people feel unimportant when a business calls without knowing their name. And making a customer feel unimportant is one of the cardinal sins of sales.
So, knowing who owns a phone number is a big deal for businesses that do phone outreach. Can you find out who owns a phone number? Yes.
Can you do a free phone number lookup? Also, yes. But, free phone lookup services often use static databases which aren’t updated frequently. So, the results can be unreliable, especially for business purposes.
However, you can do a phone lookup or cell phone lookup for a minimal cost. We’ll get to the details about that shortly.
First, here’s what you need to know about how to find out who owns a phone number.
How do you trace an unknown phone number?
As we mentioned earlier, you can try to find out who owns a phone number for free. But, there’s no official mobile directory with names. Landlines are slightly easier to find. However, the days of being able to do a reliable phone number lookup in the phone book are gone.
It’s not the best way. But, if you’re intent on finding out how to find someone’s name by phone number for free, we’ll answer a few questions to help you out.
Can you Google search a phone number?
Yes. Absolutely. You can Google search a phone number.
However, Google pulls information from wherever it is, regardless of how reliable that source might be. But, the information is likely to be outdated or incorrect.
Google is not specialized for finding phone numbers. So, people with common names, changing phone numbers, and other changes in personal information make Google results unreliable for finding out who owns a phone number.
But, you can Google search a phone number. And, you might find some info. But, it’s not wise to rely on Google search results. Google is a great information finding tool. It’s just not designed for finding out who owns a phone number.
Is there a free reverse phone lookup service?
There are plenty of companies that offer free reverse phone lookup services (SpyDialer, reversephonelookup.com, usphonebook.com, and others).
The problem is that there’s no central directory for cell phones or landlines. People change their phone numbers often. So, finding accurate phone number information requires real-time access to multiple data sources. Those data sources include public records, cell phone carrier databases, and other data streams.
There’s just no way to retrieve data in real time and search that data for the correct phone number and related personal information.
Free reverse phone lookup services usually rely on databases that they purchased from data providers. These databases can’t be updated in real time. So, the information is hit or miss.
These free services can work. But, it’s unlikely that a free reverse phone lookup service will be reliable enough for business.
How do you trace an unknown phone number?
That brings us to doing a dependable phone number lookup. The best method is to use a reverse phone lookup service—like Searchbug—if you need to find out who owns a phone number.
It’s not free. That’s because the data is dependable. Searchbug uses a proprietary system that retrieves data in real time and searches that data for the telephone information you need.
How to do a reverse phone lookup
Let’s start with the best part: it only costs about a dollar to find out who owns a phone number.
If you want to find out who owns a phone number right now, use the Searchbug reverse phone lookup tool. You can find out who owns a single phone number for a dollar, in a matter of seconds.
That’s it. Doing a reverse phone lookup can be as easy as typing the phone number into a search bar.
But, that’s not efficient for businesses. If you have an entire list of phone numbers that are missing names or you need to validate the names on your customer phone number list, the Searchbug batch append service is a much better option.
How to do a bulk reverse phone lookup
Doing your reverse phone lookups in bulk is the best solution for businesses. If you keep your phone leads or customer phone numbers in a database, this method is incredibly efficient.
All you have to do is export your list to a .csv, .txt, or Excel file. Then, upload it through the online, self-service interface. You’ll get an updated list in a matter of minutes. And, it costs less than a dollar to find out who owns a phone number when you do a bulk reverse phone lookup.
If your business operates with databases of customer information and phone numbers, our batch append service will protect your bottom line from incorrect and incomplete customer information.
Ultimately, you certainly can find out who owns a phone number. And, it’s not expensive. If you use the right reverse phone lookup tool, you can scale your business without adding much overhead cost as you add phone numbers to your databases.
In fact, the cost per phone number goes down as you do more phone number lookups. So, growing your business with a reverse phone lookup service is one of the most cost efficient decisions you can make.
And, finding out who owns every phone number in your database will make your sales teams more efficient. Preparation is a huge part of the outbound marketing process. So, the Searchbug reverse phone lookup service will make your phone lists more profitable and more than pay for itself.
In the end, it actually costs your business more money to keep working without knowing who owns your phone numbers than it does to start using our reverse phone lookup service. But, the choice is yours.
What to do now
If you need to find out who owns a phone number, use our reverse phone lookup tool.
If you’re a business that needs to know the names associated with a lot of phone numbers, try our batch append service.
