How to use Voice Communication to Retain Customers?

By Alexey Aylarov

In a world full of messages and videos, voice remains the most powerful tool we can use to retain customers. This is largely down to emotional intelligence. When it comes to customer service, customers like and are loyal to companies that listen and respond to their issues accordingly, rather than those that send a generic, automated, and often irrelevant response. According to research, 77% of people believe a phone call is the most effective way to get answers quickly despite various alternatives. 

Voice-based technologies that enable a richer online experience are game-changers, and the use of such technology is continuing to increase significantly. Leading technology companies such as Apple and Samsung invest time and energy into elevating their customer support channels with voice activation, recognition, and other technologies. This technology enables them to offer more human interaction, opening up significant new opportunities to satisfy the existing customers, attract new ones and improve brand perception in the long term.

Many companies use voice communication to their advantage. When a customer comes with a complicated request, it is typically better to communicate by voice. Indeed, more than 50% of customers across all age groups usually use the phone to reach out to a service team, making it the most-used channel for customer service. It is hard to imagine an industry where voice communication would not drive improved experiences and efficiencies. This means that the technology that drives these voice experiences online is beneficial for customers and businesses alike. Companies across a range of industries including healthcare, education, and financial services, are also turning to these communications technologies to enhance their services. 

For example, through a recently launched initiative by Starbucks, customers had the opportunity to order their coffee hands-free via Alexa. They could request out loud their orders to their devices as they were dashing out the door or pulling out of the driveway so that it would be ready to collect as they arrived at the store. In using voice commands, customers could save the most valuable resource they have – their time. And for the business, it pays off. Starbucks saw a 16% increase in monthly revenue per user for consumers who used voice to place orders. Customers lauded this initiative publicly and tend to do so for any other business that follows similar approaches to customer satisfaction. Social media is full of consumers praising organizations that offer a superior level of service, most of which would not be possible without innovations in real-time voice communication.

One crucial benefit of voice communication, over methods such as email, is that it can be used synchronously. Of course, in some cases, asynchronous communications are preferred — perhaps the customer does not want to speak and prefers to leave a message. Still, synchronous conversations enable the opportunity for more in-depth interactions: they are faster, more dynamic, and as a consequence, more effective. In today's reality, when companies are fighting for customers' attention, the ability to manage and resolve customer complaints quickly can become a decisive factor, and technologies that enable the use of voice communications and the possibility to scale it  can help a company achieve its goals.

Despite its popularity, voice communication is not necessarily an alternative for texting or video, both of which are still growing significantly. However, customers prefer to have different channels for their communications depending on their circumstances, selecting the right one for the right time, person, business, or need. For this reason, many companies seek to offer seamless omnichannel communications so they can reach their customers however they prefer. 

While we know that customer satisfaction will be higher for companies that offer their customers the option to communicate via voice, it is essential to remember that this must be set up in such a way to make it seamless and easy for the customer to use, while keeping it sustainable and scalable for the company. A click-to-call button that only works some of the time or long hold times could be a massive deterrent for a customer. 

One tool for ensuring scalability and growth for voice-based customer services is Interactive Voice Response (IVR). Simply put, an IVR is an automated phone capability with call routing capabilities that interacts with callers and can gather information by giving them choices via a menu or through voice recognition of what is said. It then performs actions based on the caller's answers through the telephone keypad or their voice response. The caller's preferences decide the actions of the IVR - it can provide information or, if the issue is more complex, route callers to a human agent who can better handle their needs. In tandem with AI functionality, this technology can help to make the conversation flow more natural and give fast and convenient responses to the customers. Using platforms such as Voximplant, companies have the option to embed voice communications with AI-powered Interactive Voice Response (IVR) directly into their existing channels. 

Airbnb, known for its innovative use of technology to deliver exceptional customer service, recently integrated task-oriented conversational AI technology. Its AI models aim to learn and mimic how human agents provide warm and effective customer care. The process starts with a personal and intelligent automated issue identification to quickly understand the user's situation, needs, questions, and concerns with minimum friction. Once the issue is determined, the AI bot generates responses dynamically and guides users through various product workflows to solve their problems or route them to human agents. With the integration of automated support, Airbnb can help guests and hosts solve their issues most efficiently, enhancing their experience and leading to customer retention in the long term.

It is worth remembering that technology and communication options will not work in a silo to improve customer service. Rapid response time, creative solutions, and empathetic responses to customers' issues are the key to pleasing your customers. It is also essential to properly train customer support representatives to communicate effectively with customers and to have flexible boundaries for deserving clients. Not only can this deliver a quicker and more effective resolution to your existing patrons, but this positive brand perception can also help gain new prospects.  

What should you do if your company is not already leveraging voice technology? Our advice would be to get started as soon as possible. Determine which scenarios would be supported and define the requirements. After that, you may find a vendor capable of complying with all your required specifications to add this new communication channel that also understands your industry's precedents and processes. 

When choosing a vendor, it is crucial to consider three major factors:

• It should be easy to use: if you're striving to save your customers' time, make sure that they can access your solutions without any additional effort.
• It should be cost-effective: try to find not one vendor for every different type of communication but the one that can satisfy many of them at a time, eliminating the need for additional software. Easy to integrate platforms that are flexible and scalable are a great option for you to consider. 
• It should offer advanced features: even if you're testing a communication channel, find a vendor that could potentially satisfy your growing demand and provide more opportunities you can switch to in the future.

In today's reality, every company needs to move forward with the waves of technological revolution not to get stuck in mud after the water settles — and now it's time for voice communication technology. Voice communication has tremendous value for businesses in almost every industry, and its capabilities are not yet used to their full potential. This type of communication is the next step forward in the technology world, and voice technology will continue evolving to drive innovative new use cases and customer experiences. 

The byline is written by Alexey Aylarov, the co-founder and CEO of the cloud communications platform Voximplant. Voximplant helps businesses implement communications in apps of any scale, adjusting to the company’s exact needs through a single platform: it has over 30,000 customers, including Hyundai, Burger King, KFC, Glovo, and Rappi.