Telephone number formats in Vonage Contact Center in Salesforce

If you are using NewVoiceMedia in Salesforce, NewVoiceMedia matches inbound callers with phone numbers held in Salesforce records. To ensure the best chances of finding a match, you must standardize phone numbers within Salesforce.

National number display format in NewVoiceMedia

You can set your number display format in your system settings in the NewVoiceMedia platform. For information on system settings, see Editing System Settings.

E.164 format

The recommended format for all telephone numbers is E.164. This format is internationally recognized and is country independent. By default, NewVoiceMedia presents phone numbers to Salesforce in E.164 format.

E.164 defines a format for international telephone numbers. Numbers are usually prefixed with the plus sign (+), include the international country calling code and are limited to a maximum of 15 digits.

Phone numbers include:

• a + sign to indicate that the number is international
• a country code, such as 44
• a region code, such as 1234 (remove any leading digits, usually a zero, if applicable)
• the subscriber number, such as 567890

Example telephone numbers in national and E.164 format

Format for numbers for North American agents

When agents with North American (US and Canada) locales type phone numbers into Salesforce records, Salesforce reformats ten- and eleven-digit numbers that start with 1. For more information, see Salesforce help. To deal with this, NewVoiceMedia presents the numbers in both national and international formats regardless of account settings. NewVoiceMedia can then match North American caller's numbers to their national format number even if the account is set to match on international numbers.

Format for numbers with extensions for Click to dial

When an agent clicks to dial a number with an extension, NewVoiceMedia dials the number that appears before the extension. The agent can manually dial the extension number when they are successfully connected to the number. In addition, NewVoiceMedia correctly links the call to the Salesforce record that the agent clicked to dial from.

Click to dial extension support relies on the correct format being used for numbers in phone fields. NewVoiceMedia identifies the extension number when separated from the main number by an unexpected character. Unexpected characters are non-numeric characters, such as letters or symbols, excluding space, hyphen, (the first) plus sign, period, and parentheses.

Examples of formats for phone numbers with extensions