“Identity is king.” - Tanvi Saxena, VP of Product Management at Hiya
For the 6th year in a row, Hiya has gathered top trends and insights across the voice channel into its annual State of the Call report. The annual report combines Hiya’s data from over 243 billion calls with market research from businesses and consumers across North America and Europe.
Alex Algard, Hiya CEO and founder, and Tanvi Saxena, Hiya VP of Product Management, revealed the top trends and insights from the report in Hiya’s State of the Call 2023 webinar. The full webinar is now available to watch on demand.
One of the key takeaways from the research was that in our omnichannel world, there will always be a place for the phone call. It's necessary for complicated conversations, emotional conversations, sales conversions, and situations in which personal information needs to be shared. Certain demographics, that may be less technologically savvy, are often most comfortable doing business over the phone.
Top trends from the State of the Call 2023:
- Spam and fraud frequency is increasing which threatens trust in the voice call.
Out of the 243B calls analyzed, 25B were flagged as spam or fraud in 2022 (up from 19B in 2021) with individuals receiving 11 spam or fraud calls per person each month.
- Financial impacts are not the only cost of spam and fraud.
The global average cost of spam and fraud in countries covered by Hiya sits at about $366.17, while the average time lost is about 26 minutes.
- Trust and security are major opportunities for carriers and businesses alike to improve the customer experience.
One out of 3 businesses surveyed have had their name used by an impersonator making spam calls – and only 27% of consumers who have received an impersonated spam call say it had no impact on their perception of business being impersonated.
- Businesses are feeling the impact of spam and want to improve their voice reputation.
39% of businesses know that their calls are being flagged as spam - and 17% report a decline in answer rates due to spam calls.
- Identity can help reestablish trust.
Businesses and consumers agree that call identity is needed. 72% of consumers say they're more likely to answer a call if they know who is calling and 72% of workers say they would enable branding on their outbound calls if they could.
Take your call center from being a cost center to a revenue generator
There are three different ways an enterprise’s call can show up on a phone’s display: as just the phone number, with a “spam” identifier, or with their identity. You wouldn’t answer your door if you didn't know who was on the other side – why would a phone call be any different?
As 72% of consumers report they are more likely to answer a call if they know who is calling, branded caller ID helps businesses identify themselves with their name, logo, and even their reason for calling – resulting in better answer rates, right-party contacts, better customer retention, and more.
Businesses should also implement good call practices to avoid spam labeling and to more successfully reach their customers across the voice channel. This can mean adjusting actual calling behaviors, as well as evaluating when and how they use phone calls for different customers and at different points in the customer journey.
Branding with Hiya Connect
With Hiya Connect adding a logo, company name, and call reason to your outbound calls is as simple as uploading your logo and a CSV of phone numbers to the full-suite connect console. To learn how Hiya’s Branded Call can improve your answer rates and secure your identity within the voice channel, schedule a Hiya Connect demo.
To learn more about the findings from the State of the Call 2023 report, watch the full-length webinar on-demand.
