We burned three numbers in our first month of testing. Three.

Not because we were doing anything dodgy. Perfectly normal outbound campaign. 200 calls a day from a single number, 9am sharp, retrying every 48 hours like clockwork.

Textbook setup. And carriers killed our numbers within weeks.

We wrote about the core problem and our calling infrastructure. That was the foundation. This is the upgrade. Two new features that take number protection from reactive to predictive.

Waboom Phone Number Health Scores dashboard showing score of 87 with signal metrics

The Problem No One Else Is Fixing

In the US, carriers run a system called STIR/SHAKEN. It verifies whether a call is legitimate before it rings. Not perfect, but it gives you a fighting chance.

In NZ and AU? We have nothing. Zero caller authentication at the network level. We covered this in depth in our piece on how diallers get numbers burned.

So carriers rely on behavioural pattern detection instead. And the threshold is lower than you think.

Call someone three times in a week from the same number? Flagged.

Start your campaign at exactly 9:00am every day? Pattern detected.

Call for four hours straight without a pause? That’s a robot, mate.

(I learned this the expensive way.)

Most AI calling platforms don’t think about any of this. They plug into Twilio, fire off calls, and hope for the best. Your answer rates drop from 45% to 12%, and nobody tells you why.

Sound familiar?

What We Built

Two things. Together, they make Waboom the only AI voice platform in NZ or AU with real anti-spam intelligence.

Phone Number Health Scores.

Your check engine light. They tell you when a number is at risk before carriers flag it.

Anti-Spam Cadence Controls.

The engine management system. They stop your calling patterns from looking like a robot in the first place.

Phone Number Health Scores

Every outbound number on your account now gets a health score from 0 to 100. Traffic light system. Green, yellow, orange, red. Always visible next to your number in the portal.

We compute the score from four signals. These aren’t guesses. We identified them by burning our own numbers during 3 months of testing so you don’t have to.

Phone Number Health Score dashboard showing 87/100 score with four signal breakdowns: hang-up rate, sentiment, answer rate, and burst velocity

Each number gets a real-time health score from 0 to 100 based on four weighted signals.

Short hang-up rate. Recipients hanging up within 5 seconds of answering? Carriers see that as rejection. We track it per number and weight it at 30% of the score.

(And no, we don’t penalise you if your agent skips voicemails. We know the difference.)

Negative sentiment. Our agents already analyse call sentiment. If one number keeps producing hostile conversations, that’s a complaint waiting to happen. 25% of the score.

Answer rate drop. Your number was connecting at 40%, now it’s at 18%. Carriers have already started silently burying your calls. We catch the trend before you notice. 25% of the score.

Burst velocity. 50 calls in 30 minutes from one number? That’s how you get flagged in a single afternoon. 20% of the score.

When a number drops from healthy to caution, you get an alert. Specific recommendations. Rotate it out. Slow down. Let it cool off for 48 hours.

“Can’t we just buy more numbers?”

“Sure. I’d love a $2.5 million ACMA fine.”

Every burned number is a complaint waiting to happen. In Australia, ACMA fines go up to $2.5 million per contravention under the Do Not Call Register Act. In NZ, the Privacy Commissioner can hit you with $10,000 per complaint. And every new number means 2 weeks of warmup where you’re back to 30 calls a day instead of 100+. Buying more numbers isn’t a strategy. It’s a liability.

Anti-Spam Cadence Controls

Health scores are reactive. These are proactive. Four layers of behaviour built into our Smart Booster that make your AI agent’s calling patterns look human.

Four layers of human-like behaviour built into every Smart Booster campaign.

Randomised Daily Start Times

Your campaign starts at 9:00am. Except it doesn’t. Not exactly.

Each day, we add a random offset. Up to 15 minutes either way.

Monday it starts at 9:07am. Tuesday at 8:52am. Wednesday at 9:14am.

The offset locks for the day so it stays consistent across our 1-minute cron cycles.

Subtle? Sure. But carriers absolutely detect clock-precision patterns. Ask your answer rates how subtle it is.

Micro Cooldowns

A human making calls grabs a coffee after 2 hours. Checks emails. Has a yarn with a colleague. They don’t call for 4 hours straight.

After 90 to 150 minutes of continuous calling, your campaign takes a break. 8 to 20 minutes. Then picks back up. The thresholds vary each day so even the breaks don’t form a pattern.

From a carrier’s perspective, that’s a person.

Variable Retry Timing

Old approach: didn’t answer? Wait 48 hours. Try again. Same gap every time.

Now: the system waits 24 to 48 hours, with up to 2 hours of time-of-day jitter. First call at 10:15am Monday? Retry comes at 2:30pm Wednesday. Not 10:15am Wednesday.

Small change. Measurable difference in how carriers evaluate your behaviour.

Rolling 7-Day Attempt Cap

Maximum 3 attempts to any phone number in a rolling 7-day window. Cross-campaign. If the same person appears in two campaigns, we count both.

No more accidentally calling someone 5 times in 10 days. That’s how you get complaints. Complaints are how you lose numbers. Numbers cost $3 each and take 2 weeks to warm up.

Do the maths.

Why This Actually Matters

Every call your AI agent makes is a brand interaction. When someone sees “Spam Likely” on their screen, they’re not thinking about carrier algorithms. They’re thinking about your company. We wrote a whole piece on how dumb AI platforms destroy your brand. It’s worth reading.

In NZ and AU there’s no network verification to fall back on. One bad week of calling patterns burns a number you spent 2 weeks warming up.

We know because we did it. Three times. In our first month.

That’s $9 in number costs. But the real cost?

2 weeks of warmup per number. 200 missed calls per day while you wait. And every one of those prospects seeing “Spam Likely” instead of your business name.

Think about what that does to your pipeline.

Nobody else is protecting your numbers like this. Not Retell. Not Bland. Not Vapi.

Not in NZ. Not in AU. Full stop.

Live Now

Both features are in your portal today.

Health Scores.

Visible on your dashboard and phone numbers panel. Scores update automatically. Alerts on every status change.

Cadence Controls.

Activate automatically on all Smart Booster campaigns. No config needed. The system handles it.

If you’re running outbound AI calls in New Zealand or Australia, this is what protecting your brand looks like. Everyone else is hoping for the best.

We built the system that actually does it.

If you’re in real estate, check our complete guide for property professionals to see how this fits into your workflow. For a deeper look at NZ and AU privacy compliance, we’ve got that covered too.

See our AI Voice Agent platform → Talk to Waboom →

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a phone number health score?

A health score is a 0 to 100 rating assigned to every outbound number on your Waboom account. It tracks four signals: short hang-up rate (30%), negative sentiment (25%), answer rate drop (25%), and burst velocity (20%). The score uses a traffic light system so you can see at a glance which numbers need attention.

How do anti-spam cadence controls work?

Cadence controls are four layers of behaviour built into Waboom’s Smart Booster. They randomise your daily start times, insert micro cooldowns after 90 to 150 minutes, vary retry timing with up to 2 hours of jitter, and cap attempts at 3 per phone number in a rolling 7-day window. Together, they make your AI agent’s calling patterns indistinguishable from a human.

Why do AI calls get flagged as spam in NZ and AU?

New Zealand and Australia don’t use STIR/SHAKEN caller authentication like the US. Carriers rely entirely on behavioural pattern detection. If your calling patterns look robotic (high volume, metronomic timing, burst dialling), your number gets flagged as “Spam Likely” or silently blocked.

Do I need to configure cadence controls manually?

No. Cadence controls activate automatically on all Smart Booster campaigns. There’s nothing to set up. The system manages randomised start times, micro cooldowns, variable retry timing, and rolling attempt caps without any manual configuration.

How quickly does a phone number health score update?

Health scores update automatically after every calling session. When a number’s status changes (for example, dropping from green to yellow), you receive an alert with specific recommendations on what to do next.