Adding country code to contacts

This article covers how to change your existing contacts' phone numbers to include the country code (international format) in the case where your original list contains the numbers without this information.

Standardising the phone number format can be useful for outbound calling if you use message templates to send SMS messages after a call. It can be even more useful if your agents work with inbound calls; if the number formats are standard it will be easier to recognise numbers when the customer calls in.

Check the existing number format

The instructions in this article cover one very specific situation.

They take a number in the local national format, strips out the leading zero, and inserts the country code instead. The example takes a number like 0123456789 and adds the Finnish country code, +358, making the resulting number +358123456789.

Important notes

Before applying these changes to all contacts' phone numbers, check that they are all in the expected format.

• If a number in your contact list is already in international format, the country code will be duplicated, +358123456789 becoming +358358123456789.
• Following these instructions will apply the same country code to all numbers. Obviously, this will create incorrect phone numbers if some of the numbers in your list are for different countries.

These instructions are provided as an example only, and care should be taken when working with real data. It is strongly recommended that you make backups of your original contact list before starting and that you double-check the results before uploading the result to LeadDesk for calling.

Finally, it should be noted:

• The examples were written in Excel working in English with comma as a decimal separator. If you are working in a different language, or with a different decimal separator, you will need to modify the formulae.

Editing before uploading to LeadDesk

Changing the phone number takes three steps:

• First we need to remove the 0 from the start of the phone number.
• Second, we need to add the country code.
• Finally, we need to replace the existing numbers.

Remove the leading 0

Insert two empty columns to the left of the column containing the phone numbers you want to change. In cell to the left of the first phone number, type the following formula, replacing C2 with the cell containing the first phone number. =RIGHT(C2;LEN(C2)-1) Copy this formula and paste it down the column for all rows that have numbers that need to be changed.

Add the country code

For this example we'll use Finland's extension +358.

In the cell to the left of the first one containing the formula from step 2, type the following formula, replacing 358 with the correct country code and B2 with the cell containing the first use of the first formula. ="+358"&B2 This adds text +358 to the front of the contents of cell B2. Copy this formula and paste it down the column for all rows that have numbers that need to be changed.

Replace the original numbers

To reduce confusion when uploading this contact list, you will likely want to replace the original phone number with the adapted one.

If your column of changed numbers includes blank spaces (because you had numbers that did not need to be changed, for example), repeat the following steps as needed, making sure not to select and copy any of those blank cells.

Select the correctly formatted phone numbers and copy them. Don't copy any blank cells. Now you must paste the values, not the formulae, of the correctly formatted numbers over the originals. There are several ways to do this, including: Right-click on the first of the cells to be replaced. In the Paste Options, click the Values icon

Repeat as needed until all relevant phone numbers have been replaced. Double-check that values are as expected. Once you are happy that the results are correct, you can remove the extra columns you inserted.

8. Right-click on each of the extra columns and click to select Delete.
9. You can now upload your contact list. See Uploading a contact list.