A business VoIP provider was losing days — and customers' patience — to number-porting paperwork and carrier silence. We automated document collection with OCR validation, carrier submissions, and scheduled status chasing, cutting average porting time from 18 days to 9.
Typical results
9 days
Average port time
2x
Faster than before
7%
Carrier rejections
-75%
Status calls per port
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Every port meant collecting bills, letters of authorization and account PINs by email — and a quarter of submissions bounced back over small mismatches the team only discovered days later. Carriers went silent for a week at a time, customers called support four times per port asking for news, and each rejection restarted the clock.
Before and after
Average porting time
−50%Carrier rejections
−71%Status calls per port
−75%The automation
We built a guided porting flow on Make: customers upload their current bill and signed LOA, OCR extracts account numbers and service addresses, and every field is validated against the numbers being ported before anything reaches a carrier. Clean submissions go out with tracked reference numbers, automation polls each carrier for status on a schedule and escalates stalled ports, and customers receive proactive updates at every milestone until activation.
How it works
- 01
Collect
Customers complete a guided porting form; OCR reads the uploaded bill and letter of authorization.
- 02
Validate
Account numbers, PINs and service addresses are checked against the numbers requested before anything is submitted.
- 03
Submit
Clean requests go to the losing carrier with a tracked reference number logged in the CRM.
- 04
Chase
Automation polls carrier status on schedule and escalates ports that stall past their expected window.
- 05
Update
Customers receive proactive notifications at every milestone, right through activation day.
Starts from
- Porting request forms
- OCR'd bills & signed LOAs
Delivers
- Tracked carrier submissions
- Scheduled status chasers
- Customer milestone updates
The impact
Average porting time dropped from 18 days to 9 — half of what it was. Carrier rejections fell from 24% to 7% because errors are caught before submission, and status calls per port dropped from four to one, freeing the support team for real issues.
Questions about this automation
How are porting documents checked before submission?
Customers upload their current phone bill and signed letter of authorization through a guided form. OCR reads the account number, PIN and service address, and each field is compared with the numbers requested. Any mismatch goes back to the customer to fix before anything is sent, which avoids most carrier rejections.
How does it keep track of carrier status?
Each submission gets a tracked reference number logged in the CRM. The automation checks carrier status on a schedule, through an API where one exists or by parsing carrier emails where it doesn't. Ports that stall past their expected window are escalated to a team member with the full history attached.
What does the customer hear during the port?
Customers receive proactive email or SMS updates at each milestone: documents accepted, submitted to the carrier, date confirmed and activation day. If a port is rejected, the message explains what needs fixing and links back to the form. It is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with the guided form and document checks.