careCycle
Numbers and call routing

Suppress Unwanted Callers

Block unwanted phone numbers across your organization, apply suppression from call outcomes, and manage your list with CSV imports and exports.

Use phone suppression when a number should no longer reach your team or receive outreach from your organization. It is useful for repeated unwanted calls, abusive callers, and suspected spam.

Suppression applies to the phone number across your organization, not just one campaign. A number does not need an existing customer record to be suppressed.

What suppression does

  • Inbound calls: careCycle disconnects the caller before an AI conversation starts or an agent rings.
  • Outbound contact: new call and SMS attempts to the number are blocked. Pending outreach is canceled.
  • Customer records: matching records show that the phone number is suppressed.

Suppression does not end calls already in progress or recall messages already sent. It cancels pending appointment outreach, not the appointment itself.

Suppression is different from Do Not Call or Do Not SMS. It also blocks inbound calls. Your existing contact preferences remain separate: adding or removing suppression does not rewrite them or remove a carrier opt-out.

Add a phone number

Open Settings > Organization > Phone Suppressions.

Select Add phone number and enter the caller's number.

Choose the reason, then select Suppress number.

The list includes numbers without customer records. Adding a number does not create a customer. If a number was previously removed, adding it again reactivates suppression and records the new action in its history.

Suppress from a call disposition

An administrator can associate suppression with a selectable library or custom disposition in the organization's default disposition settings or a transfer destination's disposition editor.

Enable the disposition's suppression policy and choose its reason. You can also set this policy while creating a new disposition in those settings.

Agents continue using the same disposition picker. When a call is completed with that disposition, careCycle adds the caller's number to the organization's suppression list. The policy applies organization-wide, even when configured from a particular destination.

Changing a policy does not retroactively suppress numbers from earlier calls. Disabling or removing a policy does not remove numbers already suppressed. The built-in Do Not Call disposition records an outbound contact restriction. It does not add the number to the phone suppression list or block incoming calls. Use phone suppression when you also want to prevent the caller from reaching your team.

Review a suppressed number

Search by phone number or filter by Status, Reason, Origin, Added from, and Added through. Dates use your organization's timezone. Date filters include the full selected days.

Select a row to open its details:

  • Customers shows matching customer records you have permission to view, including their separate Do Not Call and Do Not SMS preferences.
  • Activity shows blocked-call records and canceled outreach.
  • History shows when suppression was added or removed and its recorded reason and origin.

Remove suppression

Open the number's details, select Remove suppression, then confirm.

The number becomes eligible for future contact subject to your other contact rules. Any independent Do Not Call, Do Not SMS, or carrier opt-out remains in place. Previously canceled outreach does not restart automatically.

If you do not have access to remove suppression, contact your administrator.

Remove several numbers

Select the checkboxes beside the numbers, or use the header checkbox to select the current page. To include other pages, choose Select all matching this filter. Your search, status, reason, origin, and date filters all apply. You can uncheck individual numbers to exclude them.

Select Remove selected, review the count, then confirm. Numbers that changed since selection may be skipped; review any remaining numbers before trying again. Previously removed numbers cannot be selected.

Import a CSV list

Use Import CSV to add a larger list. A file can contain up to 50,000 data rows and must be a UTF-8 CSV no larger than 4 MiB. Split larger lists into separate files.

Select Download template, or prepare a file with exactly these two headers:

phoneNumber,reason
+12125550123,customer_request
+442079460123,suspected_fraud_spam

Choose your file. Review how many rows are valid, duplicated, or invalid before importing.

Select Import valid rows and follow the progress shown in the dialog.

Review the result. If some rows failed, keep the file selected and use Retry import. Numbers already imported successfully are not added twice.

Importing a file adds to your list. It does not remove numbers that are missing from the file or create customer records. Repeated numbers are counted once, using the first valid row. Importing a previously removed number suppresses it again.

Use the following reason codes to categorize your numbers. Blank or unrecognized reasons are saved as other, so those numbers can still be imported. The preview shows how many rows will use Other. Invalid phone numbers are skipped.

ReasonCSV code
Abusive behaviorabusive_behavior
Customer requestcustomer_request
Deceaseddeceased
Duplicate or recently handledduplicate_recently_handled
Failed verificationfailed_verification
Not interestednot_interested
Otherother
Out of networkout_of_network
Repeated shoppingrepeated_shopping
Suspected fraud or spamsuspected_fraud_spam
Wrong person or invalid numberwrong_person_invalid_number

Export the list

Set the filters you want, select Export CSV, then Start export. When the file is ready, select Download. You can also leave the page and download it later from export activity.

The file contains matching phone numbers, reasons, statuses, origins, and recorded dates. Export files are available for 24 hours. Dates in the CSV use UTC; the date filters use your organization's timezone.

An export is a reporting file, not an import template. To import selected numbers from it, keep only phoneNumber and reason, and review the statuses first so you do not unintentionally reactivate removed numbers. Exported phone cells may have a leading apostrophe to keep spreadsheet software from treating them as formulas; remove that spreadsheet prefix when preparing the two-column import file.

Permissions

Viewing the list, managing individual numbers, importing, exporting, and configuring disposition policies are separate permissions. Matching customer details also require customer and contact-information access.

If an action is missing, ask your administrator to review your roles and permissions.

For normal handling of callers who are not suppressed, see How Inbound Calls Route.

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