I have a text messaging web application in which users can upload multiple phone numbers through Excel or CSV sheet. However, I need the phone numbers to be in specific format (i.e. E.164 - the international format) for my application to work.
Now I can format these numbers programmatically but, I need to know the specific country to which they belong or else I might parse them wrong.
For Example :
A client once tried to upload a list of contacts that had numbers like this in their excel sheet :
203745xxxx
Now this is a valid number for Egypt, however upon adding the dialing code for US (+1), it becomes a valid US number too.
My client intended this number to be of US, but my application parsed it to be of Egypt thus he was charged on the basis of texting rates of Egypt.
Now this doesn't happen that often, however once in a while I have to face this issue.
So I was wondering what the solution might be without increasing the complexity of uploading contacts (many clients have very little technical knowledge and some of them don't even know how to format number in international format)
This is how my upload screen looks like right now :
The contact list they upload can consist of :
- Multiple contacts belonging to single country
- Multiple contacts belonging to multiple countries
Phone numbers might be in international format or not.
I was thinking of adding a checkbox below file upload control that says "Format Numbers" or something like that, and upon checking that checkbox, I show a drop-down list of countries, from which they can select a country of which the phone numbers belong to. But in this case, they will be limited to upload list of one country only which is not that desirable solution at all.
Or maybe, add two different tabs - one for single country list and the other for multiple countries list.
What do you guys suggest? What would be better in terms of user experience?