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AI Voice Agents - The Complete Guide to Voice Chat (2025)

Nov 23, 2025
7 mins

Learn everything about an AI voice agents, its benefits, implementation tips, and the AI voice chat applications for business success.

Longer wait times, high call volumes, and language barriers in call centers often frustrate customers. Complex interactive voice response (IVR) menus only add to the problem, leading to customer dissatisfaction. That’s why companies are adopting smarter self-service solutions like artificial intelligence (AI) voice agents. In fact, experts predict the voice bot market will reach $98.2 billion by 2027, showing a clear trend toward smarter solutions to improving customer experience.

AI voice agents technology combines Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, and voice recognition to transform customer interactions. It provides quicker, more efficient service and improves the overall customer experience.

In this guide, we'll explore what AI voice agents are, their key features, practical use cases, and tips on how to implement a voice agent in your business.

What is an AI voice agent?

An AI voice agent is a two-way conversational tool that communicates with the customer. It automates inbound and outbound calls without human intervention and transfers calls to a human agent when needed.

The biggest advantage? Callers can navigate an IVR by speaking naturally, without listening to long, complex menus or pressing numbers on a keypad.

Popular AI voice agent examples include Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon's Alexa. These tools simplify interactions, provide instant answers, and automate tasks. In contrast, advanced bots like IBM’s Watson Assistant and Microsoft’s Cortana handle customer support, sales inquiries, and internal communications.

Types of AI voice agents

Here’s a breakdown of the four main types of AI voice agents and how they can benefit your business:

Rule-based AI voice agent

Rule-based voice agent use predefined sets of questions and rules to offer answers or perform tasks. Such voice agents handle routine tasks and customer FAQs. They answer all queries that fall under the if-this-then-that logic.

For example, an e-commerce site using a bot to guide customers in checking their order status or a banking site handling routine inquiries like balance checks, bill payments, transaction histories, etc.

AI-assisted voice agent

AI-assisted voice agents use machine learning and natural language to interpret conversations so they can analyze the context and grasp what the speaker means. This makes them far more capable and user-friendly than the conventional, rule-based voice agents.

Let’s suppose a user asks Alexa, 'What's the weather tomorrow?' and then follows up with, 'How about next week?' it remembers the context. This adaptability means customers don’t have to repeat themselves, creating a more contextual customer experience.

Conversational AI voice agent

Conversational voice agents make conversations using natural language. They’re more nuanced than AI-assisted voice agents as they can handle complex conversations using everyday language to create more personalized interactions.

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Google Duplex, and IBM Watson Assistant, are examples of conversational voice agents. They can make phone calls, make reservations, and handle natural conversations with a human-like tone.

Voice-activated voice agent

These bots use voice commands to answer practical questions and perform routine tasks. They are more flexible than personal voice agents that adapt to speakers and perform customized tasks.

Such bots serve as digital assistants to AI-assisted bots like Siri.

How does an AI voice agent improve customer engagement?

A customer calling your sales team wants to feel valued and understood. An AI voice agent does that. It puts the customer at the center, creating a better experience and driving business benefits as a result. Let’s understand it with a few use cases. 

Use case: Get a quick update on order status, 24/7

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Assuming the AI voice agent is integrated into your CRM, it greets the customer by name. Instead of navigating through a branched IVR to get their order status, the customer can simply say ‘order status’ and the voice bot pulls out the order details from the CRM and gives the user a real-time update within seconds.

Sheraz Ali, the Founder of HARO Links Builder states that their voice agent managed over 30% of customer interactions in one of their company projects and drastically reduced wait times.

“It also improved our response efficiency and led to a 20% increase in customer satisfaction scores and a reduction in operational costs within three months.” 

Benefits:

  • Decreased waiting time.
  • Limited IVR menu navigation.
  • No human intervention is required.
  • Quick response times.
  • Reduced business costs.
  • Tangible increase in customer satisfaction.

Use case: Improve language learning for students 

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A language learning platform uses a voice agent to provide real-time translations and personalized tutoring. So the voice agent instantly supports students in any subject by translating and clarifying complex terms in their preferred language.

Benefits:

  • Reduced requirement for multilingual staff.
  • Increases inclusivity as the bot answers in the user’s preferred language.
  • Language barriers are removed.

Use case: Improve patient outcomes in healthcare

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It's easy to miss appointments or forget to deliver prescriptions to the patient’s home timely. A healthcare service can employ a voice agent to deliver personalized care and offer preliminary health assessments, medication reminders, and easy appointment scheduling, all according to the individual patient's needs.

Benefits

  • Saves time by streamlining appointment bookings.
  • Ensures medication adherence with timely reminders.
  • Reduces workload for healthcare providers with automated support.

Use case: Streamline routine financial services 

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Once integrated with the banking system, the voice agent automates routine financial tasks, provides instant account information, processes transactions, and delivers personalized financial advice around the clock.

Benefits:

  • 24/7 access to financial services without wait times.
  • Improves customer experience with quick, accurate responses.
  • Automates routine tasks, freeing up staff for complex queries.
  • Provides personalized advice to improve financial decision-making.

Use case: Get personal shopping assistance  

Source

An e-commerce platform can use a voice agent to assist customers with product selection, provide personalized recommendations, and automate the sales process from start to finish.

Benefits:

  • Delivers a personalized shopping experience 24/7.
  • Boosts sales with customized recommendations.
  • Reduces cart abandonment by guiding customers to checkout.
  • Improves customer satisfaction with fast, accurate service.

Features of an AI voice agent

To understand why voice agents are so effective, let’s look at the key features that improve the overall customer service experience while streamlining business operations.

The best voice agents for businesses come equipped with:

Natural language understanding (NLU)

An AI voice agent understands user queries by converting speech into text using AI and NLP. It then forms an appropriate response and converts it back into speech using text-to-speech (TTS) technology. This ability to understand and respond in natural, conversational language sets AI voice agents apart from traditional IVR systems, which rely on rigid, menu-based responses.

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Personalization capabilities

Customers want quick, personalized responses to their queries, unlike complex IVR systems that frustrate them with lengthy menus. An AI voice agent offers contextual conversations, adapting to the user’s intent. It detects speech cues, skips irrelevant interactions, and also transfers calls to the right agent.

Hence, when comparing voice agents to IVRs, the bot's ability to offer personalized interactions like a human outshines communication systems that follow even the best IVR practices.

Multi-language support

AI voice agents break down language barriers, supporting multiple languages to provide a more inclusive and accessible customer experience. Businesses can easily connect with diverse customer bases across the globe.

For instance, Plivo supports speech recognition in 27 languages and their regional variants. 

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Integration with other platforms and services

AI voice agents easily integrate with platforms like customer relationship management (CRM) systems, Enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools, and ticketing software. They access and update customer data in real time to ensure accuracy.

These bots also pull relevant details, automate follow-up actions, and sync with communication channels like email or chat. This creates a personalized and consistent customer experience across all touchpoints.

Benefits of voice agents

Let’s now look at the benefits of AI voice agents.  

Enhanced user experience

Many businesses have concerns over the quality of a voice agent for customer service. However, a voice agent answers queries quickly regardless of the time of the day. Speedy, reliable answers are important to providing excellent service, making voice agents an invaluable tool for businesses looking to improve customer satisfaction.

Additionally, businesses can:

  • Handle routine queries and common tasks faster than human agents.
  • Remove the need for users to navigate complex IVR menus.
  • Manage high-volume calls without errors.

Better cost efficiency

An AI voice agent doesn’t just save time, it also saves money. It boosts user satisfaction and reduces support times by automating repetitive queries. This frees up staff for higher-value tasks, and interacting with customers after hours has improved lead conversion.

The direct benefits to businesses are:

  • Reduces the need for a larger customer support team.
  • Allows human agents to focus on complex, high-value inquiries.
  • Engages users outside business hours to boost marketing return on investment (ROI).
  • Lowers training costs and minimizes the risk of providing incorrect information.

Accessibility for users with disabilities

With over one billion people living with disabilities worldwide, voice agents make services more inclusive. They enable hands-free, accessible interactions, allowing customers with visual, motor, or cognitive impairments to engage with the business easily. This not only improves customer satisfaction but also broadens the company’s reach to a more diverse audience.

Data collection and analysis for improved services

Voice agents don’t just serve customers — they also gather insights. Use this data to analyze data and improve services, personalize marketing efforts, and make more informed business decisions.

24/7 availability

Unlike human agents, voice agents are always accessible. They ensure customers get help whenever they need it, contributing to a more consistent and reliable customer experience.

Future of AI voice technology

As IBM's data engineer, Chris Hay puts it, "We're entering an era where every mom-and-pop shop can have the same level of customer service as an enterprise." This statement captures the transformative potential of voice recognition technology.

AI voice chat applications benefit businesses of all sizes by delivering top-tier customer experiences. Tech giants are already paving the way. Microsoft has updated its Copilot AI with advanced voice capabilities, allowing it to handle complex queries with natural language reasoning, while Meta has introduced voice AI to its messaging apps.

AI voice assistants will move beyond smartphones, integrating into wearable devices like the recently unveiled Meta Orion augmented reality glasses. For businesses handling sensitive client relationships, this could mean smarter, empathetic bots that mirror the tone and approach of a human assistant.

Key upcoming trends:

  • Hyper-personalization: Customized voices and targeted recommendations.
  • Advanced problem-solving: Managing complex queries using natural language.
  • Real-time analytics: Analyzing customer tone for deeper insights.

Yet, challenges remain. Arvind Rongala, the founder of a skill-management solution provider, shares, “There are still issues, especially with data privacy and ensuring interactions are human-like. In addition to resolving problems with bias in training data and regulatory compliance, businesses must strike a balance between automation and personalization. For example, adhering to GDPR regarding the storage of voice data can be challenging, but doing so is essential to fostering trust.”

Ultimately, businesses need to prioritize data security, explore multi-device integration options, and develop stronger contextual understanding for natural interactions.

Launch an AI voice agent with Plivo

Any scaling business needs a voice agent that's easy to integrate, globally accessible, and cost-effective without sacrificing quality.

Plivo checks all these boxes, offering seamless integration, seven global points of presence for low-latency interactions, and competitive rates starting at just $0.0040 per minute. It's ideal for businesses willing to scale while keeping operational costs in check.

In fact, Plivo can reduce operational costs by up to 40%.

Moreover, its commitment to reliability is backed by a 99.99% uptime guarantee, with failover capabilities that switch within two seconds if any disruptions occur.

You can launch voice agents with Plivo using just a few lines of code.

  • Log in to your OpenAI Account: Secure your API key and RealTime API access.
  • Log in to your Plivo Account: Sign up and get a voice-enabled number.

With integration options for leading speech-to-text (STT) and TTS providers like Deepgram and ElevenLabs, you can launch AI voice agents in multiple regions, including India, using local numbers.

Use Plivo-powered voice agents for: 

  • Personal shopping assistance: Offer personalized recommendations, go through product selections, and close sales. 
  • Healthcare automation: Improve patient outcomes with medication reminders, and appointment scheduling, and offer preliminary health assessments.
  • Inclusivity in education: Break language barriers in learning with real-time translations and personalized tutoring across multiple subjects.
  • Routine financial services automation: Provide instant account information, personalized financial advice, transaction processing status, etc. to customers.

With a 24/7 AI voice agent, your business can handle these tasks around the clock, ensuring that customers are never left waiting. Want to improve customer experience with Plivo? Contact us today.

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Feb 16, 2026
5 mins

8 Best AI Voice Automation Platforms in 2026

e Automation Software for Sales & Support (2026) Meta Description: Explore the 8 best AI voice automation platforms in 2026. Compare enterprise-ready tools for sales, support, scheduling, and intelligent call handling.

8 Best AI Voice Automation Platforms in 2026

The era of "Press 1 for Sales" is effectively over. In 2026, customers expect immediate, intelligent conversation, and businesses that stick to rigid keypad menus are actively losing revenue.

Modern voice automation has evolved far beyond simple call routing. Today's best platforms enable you to deploy infinite agents that sound, think, and react like your top employees, handling complex sales objections, scheduling appointments, and resolving support tickets without a human ever picking up the phone.

But with hundreds of new tools flooding the market, finding one that actually delivers low latency and stability is a challenge. We have analyzed the top contenders to bring you the 8 platforms that are truly enterprise-ready.

Here is the list.

How to select the best AI voice automation platforms

To ensure this list serves both technical engineering teams and non-technical business owners, we evaluated eight platforms based on four critical performance metrics:

  • Latency & Human-Likeness: We prioritized platforms that minimize the "awkward pause" (sub-1000ms response times) and offer voices that capture human nuance, including the ability to handle interruptions and "barge-ins" naturally.
  • Integration Capabilities: A voice agent is only as good as the data it can access. We selected tools that offer deep, native integrations with major CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce) or robust APIs that allow the agent to trigger complex backend actions.
  • Reliability at Scale: We looked for infrastructure capable of handling hundreds of concurrent calls without degrading audio quality or crashing, ensuring stability for high-volume campaigns.
  • Flexibility (Code vs. No-Code): We purposefully included a mix of "developer-first" APIs (for maximum control) and "no-code" visual builders (for rapid deployment) to cater to different organizational needs.

Also Read: AI Voice Agents-The Complete Guide to Voice Chat

A Quick Overview of the Best AI Voice Automation Platforms

Tool Best for What it does best Key strengths Pricing
Plivo Businesses needing reliable AI phone calls at any scale Automates real customer phone conversations across voice, SMS, and WhatsApp Owns its full telephony stack for ultra-low latency and 99.99% uptime Pay-as-you-go; Enterprise from ~$1,000/month
Bland AI Enterprises running very high call volumes Handles massive inbound and outbound call campaigns Scales concurrent calls with highly programmable logic Custom pricing (contact sales)
Vapi Developers building custom voice agents with BYOK Orchestrates STT, LLMs, and TTS with extremely low latency Model-agnostic, developer-first infrastructure Usage-based, $10 free credit
Retell AI Developers turning LLMs into voice agents fast Converts existing LLMs into real-time phone agents Industry-leading latency with minimal VoIP setup Pay-as-you-go; Enterprise available
Synthflow Agencies and non-technical teams Builds appointment booking and lead intake agents without code Visual builder with deep CRM integrations Pay-as-you-go; Enterprise tier
Poly AI Large consumer brands with complex calls Handles messy, interrupt-driven customer conversations Best-in-class speech understanding for accents and noise Custom enterprise pricing
Cognigy Enterprises with regulated contact centers Automates complex support flows with compliance controls Hybrid NLU + GenAI for safe automation Custom enterprise pricing
Talkie AI Healthcare clinics and medical offices

Top 8 AI Voice Automation Platforms

Plivo

Best for: Businesses that need to automate actual customer phone calls with high reliability and low latency, scaling from simple no-code workflows to complex, programmable enterprise solutions.

Plivo is a voice-first AI agent and cloud communications platform that distinguishes itself by owning and operating its entire telephony, messaging, and AI stack. Unlike many tools that rely on third-party carriers like Twilio, Plivo's single-stack approach significantly reduces latency and improves reliability, boasting 99.99% uptime and compliance with standards like HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS. Small businesses can start quickly with its no-code builder, "Vibe," using plain English instructions, while enterprises can leverage powerful programmable APIs to build complex, multi-channel workflows that share context across voice, SMS, and WhatsApp without ever switching platforms.

Key features

  • Built-In Telephony: Native phone numbers, global connectivity, and SIP trunking without dependence on external carriers.
  • Real-Time Audio Streaming: Streams live call audio via WebSockets for low-latency speech recognition and natural turn-taking.
  • Multi-Channel AI Conversations: Extends agent logic and context across voice, SMS, and WhatsApp for consistent interactions.
  • No-Code AI Agent Builder (Vibe): Allows users to create and deploy voice agents by defining goals and workflows in plain English.
  • Programmable APIs & Integrations: Full control over workflows with well-documented APIs and webhooks to connect with CRMs and internal systems.

Pros

  • Reduced Latency: Owning the telephony infrastructure eliminates hops to third-party carriers, ensuring faster response times.
  • Production-Grade Reliability: Trusted by Fortune 500 companies with a 99.99% uptime guarantee.
  • Seamless Scalability: Start with a small no-code workflow and scale to a fully programmable production system without rebuilding.

Cons

  • Overkill for Basic Needs: Not ideal for businesses that only require a simple IVR or voicemail system with no AI logic.
  • Configuration Required: Not suited for users seeking a pre-scripted, vertical-specific agent with zero configuration.

Pricing

Plivo offers pay-as-you-go pricing on our Professional plan with no monthly commitment, while Enterprise plans start at $1,000 per month for teams that need higher scale and dedicated support.

Bland AI

Best for: Hyper-scalable, enterprise-grade automated phone calls and voice agent workflows where large call volumes and deep customization matter most.

Bland AI is a voice automation platform focused on handling both inbound and outbound phone interactions using realistic conversational AI. Built with enterprise needs in mind, it provides programmable call flows, voice synthesis, and integration hooks that let teams automate complex telephony use cases, such as sales outreach, customer support, appointment reminders, and high-volume engagement, without relying on large human call center teams.

Key features

  • Realistic, human-like voice agents capable of sustaining natural phone conversations.
  • Developer-first APIs and webhook access for custom call logic and integration with CRM/telephony systems.
  • Support for high concurrency and massive call volume automation.
  • Voice cloning and multilingual voice customization options.
  • Pathways or programmable conversation flows to define logic, routing, and call outcomes.

Pros

  • Handles large call volumes reliably without degradation
  • Strong customization through APIs and programmable logic
  • Voice quality is more natural than many competitors

Cons 

  • Steep learning curve for non-technical teams
  • Costs can escalate quickly with high usage

Pricing 

Bland AI does not publish pricing publicly, and you need to contact their sales team for current plans and quotes.

Vapi

Best for:  Developers who want a low-latency orchestration layer to mix and match the best AI models (BYOK) for their specific needs.

Vapi is a dedicated infrastructure that glues together various AI components rather than offering a single black-box solution. It handles the difficult mechanics of voice conversation, such as turn-taking, endpointing (knowing when someone has finished speaking), and latency optimization, while allowing you to plug in any provider you want. This means you aren't locked into a specific voice model; you can use Deepgram for transcription, OpenAI for intelligence, and ElevenLabs for speech, all orchestrated seamlessly by Vapi.

Key features

  • Developer APIs and SDKs for full workflow control
  • Real-time voice orchestration with low latency (sub-600 ms)
  • Plug-and-play with multiple STT, LLM, and TTS providers
  • Support for inbound and outbound voice agents via telephony or web embeds
  • Multilingual support and customizable conversation logic

Pros

  • Allows instant swapping of LLMs, voices, or transcribers as better models hit the market
  • "Bring Your Own Key" model avoids the usage markups typical of all-in-one platforms
  • Clean, modern API with excellent documentation tailored specifically for software engineers

Cons 

  • Not beginner-friendly or no-code
  • Costs increase as external services scale

Pricing

Usage-based, pay-as-you-go pricing with a free $10 credit, plus custom enterprise plans via annual contract.

Retell AI

Best for: Developers seeking the fastest route to convert an existing LLM into a low-latency voice agent.

Retell AI is an AI voice agent platform that lets businesses build, deploy, and manage conversational phone agents that sound human, handle inbound/outbound calls, and automate routine workflows with low latency and high reliability. It combines speech-to-text, LLM intelligence, and telephony integration into a unified system for customer service, lead qualification, scheduling, and more.

Key features

  • Connects to any custom LLM backend (OpenAI, Anthropic) via WebSocket
  • Visual dashboard for testing prompts and voices without code
  • Built-in noise cancellation for clear audio transcription
  • Supports both phone numbers and web-based audio streaming
  • Detailed post-call analytics including latency breakdowns

Pros

  • Visual playground enables testing ideas in minutes
  • Industry-leading latency (often <800ms) for natural pacing
  • Removes the need to build complex VoIP infrastructure

Cons 

  • Complex logic requires hosting and managing your own server
  • Creates a dependency on their proprietary gateway

Pricing

No platform fees with pay-as-you-go usage pricing, plus a custom enterprise plan for high-volume teams.

Synthflow

Best for: Agencies and non-technical teams who need a no-code visual builder to automate appointment setting and lead intake.

Synthflow AI is a voice automation platform designed to help businesses automate inbound and outbound phone interactions using intuitive visual builders and enterprise-grade telephony. It combines speech recognition, natural language understanding, and human-like voice synthesis to create AI agents capable of handling real customer conversations at scale.

Key features

  • Visual drag-and-drop flow builder for designing conversation paths
  • Native deep integrations with GoHighLevel, HubSpot, and Zapier
  • One-click appointment booking and real-time calendar syncing
  • White-labeling capabilities allowing agencies to resell the software
  • Pre-built templates for niche industries like real estate and dental

Pros

  • Enables rapid deployment of functional agents without any coding knowledge
  • Seamlessly automates post-call tasks like updating lead status in CRMs
  • Agency-focused features simplify client management and resale
  • Huge library of templates drastically reduces setup time

Cons 

  • Lacks the granular control and flexibility of code-based solutions
  • Customizing complex backend logic beyond standard integrations is difficult

Pricing

Synthflow's pricing consists of a usage-based "Pay as you go" model that is free to start and a custom "Enterprise" tier for teams handling more than 10,000 minutes per month.

Poly AI

Best for: Large consumer brands (restaurants, hospitality, banking) needing human-like voice assistants that handle messy, complex conversations.

PolyAI distinguishes itself by building voice assistants designed for "customer-led" conversations—meaning the caller can speak freely, interrupt, tell stories, or mumble, and the AI will still understand. Unlike developer-focused tools (like Vapi) or sales-focused tools (like Air.ai), PolyAI is a managed enterprise solution. They use proprietary speech recognition models trained specifically on billions of seconds of conversational data to handle heavy accents and background noise better than off-the-shelf models.

Key features

  • Proprietary speech recognition tuned for names, addresses, and noisy backgrounds
  • Enables free-flowing, customer-led conversations without rigid IVR menus
  • Detects frustration to trigger seamless handoffs with full context
  • Native support for 120+ languages and accents in a single assistant
  • Pre-built voice modules for hospitality, banking, and dining

Pros

  • Handles interruptions and messy speech significantly better than competitors
  • Resolves 80-90% of calls autonomously due to superior understanding
  • Managed service model eliminates hallucination risks for enterprise brands

Cons 

  • High cost makes it unsuitable for small businesses or startups
  • Closed "black box" system requiring their team for all changes

Pricing

Poly AI does not publish pricing publicly, and you need to contact their sales team for current plans and quotes.

Cognigy

Best for: Large enterprises automating complex contact centers with a mix of precise NLU and Generative AI.

Cognigy is an enterprise-grade platform designed to sit directly on top of existing contact center infrastructure (like Genesys or Avaya). It distinguishes itself with a "Hybrid AI" approach, allowing businesses to combine rigid NLU for compliance-heavy tasks (like payments) with Generative AI for natural conversation. This ensures high-stakes customer service interactions are both fluid and strictly controlled.

Key features

  • Visual low-code flow editor for designing complex conversational logic
  • Native integration with major CCaaS platforms (Genesys, Avaya, NICE)
  • Hybrid engine combining traditional NLU with Large Language Models
  • Seamless "Agent Handover" that transfers full call context to human reps
  • Enterprise-grade security and compliance certifications (GDPR, SOC2)

Pros

  • Safely automates highly regulated enterprise processes
  • Preserves context perfectly when transferring calls to humans
  • Deep integrations with backend systems like SAP and Salesforce
  • Scales effectively to handle massive enterprise call volumes

Cons 

  • Implementation is complex and often requires professional services
  • Pricing and architecture are overkill for SMEs or simple use cases

Pricing

Cognigy does not publish pricing publicly, and you need to contact their sales team for current plans and quotes.

Talkie AI

Best for: Medical clinics and healthcare providers automating patient scheduling and front-desk triage.

Talkie.ai specializes in voice assistants for the healthcare industry, serving as an intelligent virtual receptionist that handles high call volumes without human intervention. The platform focuses on simplifying patient access by autonomously managing appointment bookings, prescription refills, and routing urgent calls, while offering a user-friendly interface for non-technical staff to manage flows.

Key features

  • Specialized modules for appointment booking and patient triage
  • No-code visual builder for designing conversation scripts
  • Seamless handover to live agents for complex medical queries
  • Multi-language support to serve diverse patient populations
  • Integrations with medical scheduling systems and calendars

Pros

  • Drastically reduces front-desk workload and missed patient calls
  • Pre-trained on healthcare scenarios for better medical context understanding
  • Rapid deployment compared to general-purpose enterprise voice tools
  • Ensures 24/7 availability for patient inquiries

Cons 

  • Heavily optimized for healthcare, making it less ideal for general retail sales
  • Advanced custom integrations usually require enterprise-tier setups

Pricing

Talkie AI does not publish pricing publicly, and you need to contact their sales team for current plans and quotes.

How to choose an AI voice automation platform for your business

Choosing the right AI voice automation platform comes down to understanding how it will fit into your team, your workflows, and your growth plans. These questions will help you evaluate options in a practical, business-focused way.

1. Will your team need a no-code tool or a developer-first platform?

This matters because the people building and maintaining the system determine how quickly you can launch and improve it. If your team is non-technical, a no-code platform lets you move faster. If you have engineers and need deep customization, a developer-first tool gives you more flexibility long term.

2. How many calls do you need to support now and as you grow?

Call volume affects both cost and performance. A platform that works well at a small scale may become expensive or unreliable as usage increases, so it is important to choose something that can grow with your business without surprises.

3. How complex do your conversations and workflows need to be?

Some businesses only need straightforward call flows, while others require integrations, branching logic, or real-time actions. The more complex your workflows are, the more important it is to choose a platform that can handle real conversations rather than rigid scripts.

4. How important are voice quality and response speed for your use case?

Natural speech and quick responses make a big difference in how callers perceive the experience. If the AI sounds robotic or pauses too long, it can reduce trust and engagement, especially in customer-facing roles like sales or support.

5. Does the pricing model align with how you plan to use the platform?

Pricing structures vary widely between platforms. Understanding whether you are paying per minute, per call, or per feature helps you estimate costs accurately and avoid unexpected increases as your usage grows.

Try Plivo Free

Exploring AI voice automation should feel straightforward and low-risk. Plivo lets you start with a free trial and complimentary credits so you can test real voice automation use cases without any upfront commitment.

You can create and run AI-driven phone calls using Plivo’s visual tools or APIs, allowing you to see how automated voice interactions behave in real conditions. This includes testing inbound call handling, outbound call flows, and multi-channel automation across voice, SMS, and WhatsApp, all using your own workflows and data.

Starting with a free trial gives you the flexibility to validate performance, reliability, and fit before deciding how extensively you want to adopt AI voice automation across your business.

Start your free trial and build your first AI voice automation experience today.

Feb 16, 2026
5 mins

8 Best AI Voice Agents for Recruitment in 2026

Discover the 8 best AI voice agents for recruitment in 2026. Compare features, use cases, and pricing to automate candidate screening and hiring.

8 Best AI Voice Agents for Recruitment in 2026

Recruitment teams don’t struggle because they lack applicants. They struggle because every job post brings in hundreds of responses, many of them unqualified, and screening them all takes time recruiters don’t have.

AI voice agents help by handling the repetitive, early-stage conversations - screening candidates over the phone, asking the right questions, and routing qualified applicants forward - so recruiters can focus on real hiring decisions.

In this guide, we’ve curated the top AI voice agents for recruitment, based on what actually matters. Let’s begin.

A Quick Overview of the Top AI Voice Agents for Recruitment

Tool Best for What it does best Key strength Pricing
Plivo Recruitment teams that want to run real AI voice agents on actual phone calls End-to-end AI voice agents built on native telephony Owns telephony + AI stack, low latency, high reliability Pay-as-you-go (Professional); Enterprise starts at $1,000/month
Lindy Lean recruiting teams that want fast AI voice automation Voice agents for calls, follow-ups, and scheduling Quick setup, strong for coordination tasks Free tier available; paid plans from $49.99/month
Twilio Engineering-led teams building custom AI voice recruiters Programmable voice infrastructure Maximum flexibility and global scale Usage-based, approx. $0.008–$0.014/min
HeyMilo Staffing teams running large-scale AI interviews AI-led voice interviews with scoring Scalable, structured screening Custom pricing (sales-led)
Synthflow HR teams wanting no-code AI voice workflows Build custom voice agents visually No-code flexibility, modular flows Pay-as-you-go; Enterprise for high volume
CloudTalk Teams needing a calling platform with AI automation AI voice agents + call center tooling Strong dialing, analytics, global coverage From $25/user/month (annual billing)
Talvin Teams focused on screening and reference checks AI voice interviews + automated references Structured, qualification-first hiring $175–$750/month
Voiceflow Product-led teams that want to design and control AI voice logic Build AI agents using knowledge bases and workflows Strong conversation design and collaboration Free plan; paid from $60–$150/month

Top 8 AI Voice Agents for Recruitment

Plivo

Best for: Recruitment teams and hiring platforms that want to run real AI voice agents on actual phone calls, not demos or chat-only experiences.

Plivo is a voice-first AI agent and cloud communications platform built to automate real phone conversations at scale. Unlike many AI voice tools that depend on external telephony providers, Plivo owns and operates its telephony, messaging, and AI layers as a single stack. This gives teams more consistent call quality, lower latency, and better reliability as volume increases.

For recruitment use cases, this matters because screening calls, qualification conversations, and candidate follow-ups need to work predictably. Teams can start quickly using Plivo’s no-code AI agent builder, Vibe, and then add deeper programmable control through APIs as workflows grow more complex, without switching platforms.

Plivo is trusted by Fortune 500 companies worldwide, delivers 99.99% uptime, and complies with standards such as HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, PCI DSS, and STAR, making it suitable for high-volume and regulated hiring environments.

Key features

  • Build AI voice agents on real phone calls: Plivo lets teams build AI agents that answer, route, qualify, and complete conversations on inbound and outbound phone calls using its native voice infrastructure.
  • No-code AI agent builder (Vibe): Vibe allows teams to create and deploy AI voice agents using plain-English instructions. Recruiters can define goals, workflows, and actions without writing code, then iterate as hiring needs evolve.
  • Built-in telephony (not third-party): Phone numbers, global connectivity, call routing, recording, and SIP trunking are native to Plivo. This avoids reliance on external carriers and helps maintain low latency and high uptime.
  • Real-time audio streaming: Plivo streams live call audio over WebSockets to AI runtimes, enabling low-latency speech recognition and responses, natural turn-taking, and interruption handling during conversations.
  • Programmable voice and messaging APIs: Well-documented APIs and SDKs give teams full control over calls, messages, verification, number masking, and workflows, making it easy to integrate AI agents with ATSs, CRMs, and internal systems.
  • Multi-channel AI conversations: The same agent logic can run across voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and chat, with shared context across channels so candidates do not have to repeat themselves.

Pros 

  • Reliable performance at scale: Users consistently cite stability and uptime, even with high call volumes.
  • Strong telephony control: Teams value having direct ownership of routing, numbers, and call behavior.
  • Flexible for both no-code and API users: Works well for recruiters and engineering teams alike.

Cons

  • More capability than very simple use cases require: Smaller teams may not use the full platform depth.
  • Advanced workflows benefit from upfront planning: Complex agent logic requires thoughtful setup. 

Pricing

Plivo offers pay-as-you-go pricing on the Professional plan with no monthly commitment, while Enterprise plans start at $1,000 per month for teams that need higher scale and dedicated support.

Lindy 

Best for: Recruiting teams that want a flexible, AI voice agent to handle candidate calls, follow-ups, and interview scheduling without heavy engineering work.

Lindy is an AI agent platform that lets recruiters deploy voice-enabled AI assistants to manage candidate communication across phone calls, calendars, and workflows. Rather than being a pure telecom infrastructure provider, Lindy focuses on task-oriented AI agents that can talk to candidates, coordinate schedules, and take action across tools like email and calendars. This makes it especially useful for lean recruiting teams that want automation without building everything from scratch.

Key features

  • Place and receive natural-sounding phone calls with candidates for screening, follow-ups, and confirmations
  • Coordinates availability and books interviews directly on connected calendars
  • AI agents can call candidates, send emails, update records, and trigger next steps automatically
  • Connects with calendars, email, and internal tools to keep recruiting workflows in sync
  • Escalates conversations to a recruiter when the AI detects uncertainty or complex questions

Pros

  • Recruiters can launch AI voice workflows without deep technical setup
  • Especially effective for scheduling, rescheduling, and candidate follow-ups
  • Can reason across steps instead of just asking static screening questions

Cons

  • Lacks deep hiring metrics or ATS-native reporting
  • Less granular call routing and voice infrastructure control than CPaaS platforms 

Pricing

Lindy offers a free plan with 400 credits per month. Paid plans start at $49.99 per month.

Twilio 

Best for: Engineering-led recruiting teams that want to build highly customizable AI voice agents on top of enterprise-grade voice and messaging infrastructure.

Twilio is a cloud communications platform that provides programmable APIs for voice calls, SMS, and messaging. In recruitment, it’s often used as the underlying infrastructure for AI voice agents that handle candidate screening calls, interview scheduling, reminders, and follow-ups. Rather than offering ready-made recruiting agents, Twilio gives teams the building blocks to design custom voice workflows tailored to their hiring process.

Key features

  • Twilio lets you design exactly how calls are placed, routed, recorded, and escalated, giving full control over the candidate calling experience.
  • Built-in support for international phone numbers, SMS, and voice delivery makes it suitable for distributed or global hiring.
  • Twilio integrates cleanly with speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and large language models to power conversational AI agents.
  • Voice events can trigger downstream actions in ATSs, CRMs, calendars, or internal systems.

Pros

  • You’re not constrained by predefined workflows—every part of the voice experience can be tailored to your hiring process.
  • Designed to handle high call volumes with strong uptime and telecom stability.
  • Suitable for advanced or global recruiting operations where off-the-shelf tools fall short.

Cons

  • Building an AI voice recruiter with Twilio requires technical resources and ongoing development.
  • As call volume and automation increase, usage-based pricing can become expensive.

Pricing

Usage-based, pay-as-you-go pricing starting at roughly $0.008–$0.014 per minute for voice calls, with additional costs for phone numbers and advanced features.

HeyMilo

Best for: Recruiters and staffing teams that want AI-powered voice interviews and automated candidate screening at scale. 

HeyMilo is a recruitment platform built around conversational AI voice and multimedia interviewing, designed to automate candidate engagement, screening, evaluation, and structured interviews. Instead of just asking preset questions, HeyMilo’s AI adapts dynamically to candidate responses and delivers data-backed insights tailored to each role. 

Key features

  • Natural two-way spoken interviews that adapt to candidate responses and assess fit.
  • Contacts applicants via phone, web voice/video, SMS, email, and WhatsApp.
  • Provides structured interview reports and scoring to inform hiring decisions.
  • Works with existing applicant tracking and HR systems to sync data.
  • Enables interviews and outreach in multiple languages for global recruiting.

Pros

  • Can conduct hundreds of interviews simultaneously, easing burden on recruiters. 
  • Automated scoring and structured interviews help reduce manual variation. 

Cons

  • AI may struggle with very open-ended or highly contextual responses that a human interviewer would catch. 
  • Teams need to configure questions and scoring to fit specific roles and workflows. 

Pricing

HeyMilo does not publish pricing publicly, and you need to contact their sales team for current plans and quotes.

Synthflow

Best for: HR departments at mid-sized companies looking to automate interview scheduling and FAQ handling.

Synthflow is a no-code conversational AI platform that lets users design, launch, and manage AI voice agents to automate phone interactions. Rather than providing a ready-made recruiter bot, Synthflow gives teams a visual builder where they can create custom voice workflows. It emphasizes flexibility and usability, making it suitable for recruiting teams that want to own their own voice agent logic without writing code.

Key features

  • You can design modular voice flows with a no-code builder where specialized "subflows" act as independent agents to manage complex logic, such as a "Verification Agent" for candidate ID or an "Appointment Agent" for booking interviews.
  • Provides enterprise-grade telephony integrations to ensure reliable inbound and outbound calling.
  • A dedicated environment to test recruitment scripts and agent responses before they go live with real candidates.
  • Offers live insights into active calls, allowing recruitment managers to track performance and candidate engagement as it happens.
  • Allows for the refinement of the AI’s underlying data to ensure the recruiter's brand voice and industry-specific terminology are accurate.

Pros

  • Teams can build and iterate voice agents without engineering resources.
  • Works for screening, candidate engagement, follow-ups, and scheduling.
  • Built to manage higher call volumes as hiring needs grow.

Cons

  • Requires manual building of hiring-focused flows and templates.
  • Deep conversational logic and integration workflows benefit from thoughtful design and testing.

Pricing

Synthflow's pricing consists of a usage-based "Pay as you go" model that is free to start and a custom "Enterprise" tier for teams handling more than 10,000 minutes per month.

CloudTalk

Best for: Teams that need a cloud-based calling platform with AI voice agents and automation.

CloudTalk is a cloud call center platform that combines VoIP calling with AI-powered automation and voice agents. While it’s not built exclusively for recruitment, its AI voice agents, smart dialers, and call routing features make it well-suited for hiring teams that rely heavily on phone communication. Recruiters can use CloudTalk to automate outbound candidate calls, handle inbound inquiries, and track call performance through built-in analytics and conversation intelligence.

Key features

  • Virtual voice agents that can autonomously answer and place calls, handle routine interactions, and support self-serve caller experiences. 
  • Dialers, automated routing, IVR menus, and parallel dialing to manage large outbound and inbound call volumes. 
  • Local numbers in 160+ countries with VoIP calling, SMS, and messaging options. 
  • Connects with CRMs, helpdesks, and workflow systems for synced activity and inbox-to-call continuity.

Pros

  • Combines calling, campaign automation, and AI workflows in a single system. 
  • Support for international numbers and multi-region operations. 
  • Built-in conversation intelligence and analytics help teams understand patterns and coach more effectively. 

Cons

  • It’s primarily a call center and sales/support voice platform, so recruiters may need extra configuration for hiring use cases. 
  • Broad call center capabilities can overwhelm teams only seeking simple voice agent recruiting tools.

Pricing

CloudTalk offers user-based subscription plans for its core calling platform, starting at $25 per user/month when billed annually, with higher tiers adding advanced features like analytics and automation.

Talvin 

Best for: Hiring teams that want an AI voice recruiter focused on structured screening and automated reference checks, not just interview scheduling or call automation.

Talvin is an AI recruitment platform built around voice-based candidate screening and reference checks. Its AI conducts structured, conversational interviews over voice to assess communication, experience, and role fit, then follows up with automated reference calls to gather standardized feedback. Talvin is positioned less as a general-purpose voice agent and more as a screening and validation layer that helps recruiters qualify candidates before human interviews. 

Key features

  • Talvin conducts structured phone interviews to assess candidate fit early, so recruiters aren’t reviewing unqualified applicants.
  • Instead of manual follow-ups, Talvin collects reference feedback automatically and delivers it in a standardized format.
  • Interview questions and scoring are tailored to each role, keeping evaluations consistent across candidates.
  • Recruiters receive clear interview and reference reports rather than raw call recordings.

Pros

  • Designed specifically to screen and validate candidates, not just move them through a funnel.
  • Eliminates one of the most time-consuming and error-prone steps in hiring.
  • Standardized interviews and references make it easier to compare candidates objectively.

Cons

  • Not intended for outreach campaigns, scheduling-only workflows, or high-volume dialing.
  • Often paired with an ATS or sourcing platform rather than used end-to-end.

Pricing

Talvin’s plans start at $175/month and scale up to $750/month, based on interview volume and hiring needs.

VoiceFlow

Best for: Product-led recruiting teams that want to design and control the logic of AI voice conversations before deploying them on phone calls.

Voiceflow is a collaborative platform where teams design, develop, and launch AI agents using their preferred models and integrations. In practice, you build an agent by first creating a knowledge base, then adding workflows that define what the agent should do, integrating third-party tools through APIs, and finally launching the agent through Voiceflow’s web chat UI or the Dialog API.

For recruitment, this is useful when you want an agent that can answer candidate questions, guide screening conversations, and trigger workflow steps like collecting details, confirming availability, or handing off to a human, all while staying consistent with your hiring process.

Key features

  • Import documents and data so the agent answers using curated, controlled information rather than guessing.
  • Create multi-step tasks the agent can complete, so conversations can lead to actions, not just responses.
  • Connect the agent to third-party services using Voiceflow Functions and API blocks.
  • Deploy using Voiceflow’s web chat UI or build your own interface using the Dialog API.
  • Designed for teams to build and iterate together, rather than working in isolated scripts.

Pros 

  • Strong control over how screening and interview conversations are structured.
  • Teams can refine conversations without touching telephony systems.
  • Recruiters, designers, and product teams can work together on flows.

Cons 

  • Requires a telephony platform to place and receive calls.
  • Teams must design screening logic from scratch.

Pricing 

Voiceflow offers a free Starter plan, with paid plans starting at $60/month (Pro) and $150/month (Business), while Enterprise pricing is custom for high-volume teams.

Questions to ask before choosing an AI voice agent for recruitment

1. Who actually owns the calling infrastructure?

When evaluating an AI voice agent, one of the first things to understand is how calls are handled behind the scenes. Some platforms rely heavily on third-party telephony providers, while others manage their own calling infrastructure more directly.

This distinction matters because it affects call quality, routing control, and reliability as usage grows. Tools with tighter control over their telephony stack tend to behave more predictably, especially when call volume increases or issues need to be diagnosed quickly.

2. Does the agent respond quickly enough to feel natural?

Voice conversations depend on timing. Even small delays between a candidate’s response and the agent’s reply can make the interaction feel uncomfortable or disjointed.

A well-designed AI voice agent should respond promptly and consistently throughout the conversation. This usually reflects how well speech recognition, language processing, and voice generation work together in real time. If responses feel slow or uneven during a demo, that friction will likely show up even more in real recruiting scenarios.

3. Is the product actually designed for recruitment conversations?

Recruitment is not a generic use case. Screening candidates requires structured questions, follow-ups based on previous answers, and clear decision points about what happens next.

Some voice agents are flexible but require significant customization to support hiring workflows. Others are built with recruitment logic in mind from the start. The difference shows up in how easily the agent can handle screening, availability checks, and smooth handoffs to human recruiters.

4. How does it handle things going off script?

Real conversations are rarely perfect. Candidates interrupt, misunderstand questions, or give incomplete answers.

An effective AI voice agent should be able to handle these moments without breaking the experience. This includes asking for clarification, continuing the conversation naturally, or exiting gracefully when needed. Systems that cannot manage these situations tend to feel fragile in real-world use.

5. Will it still work when hiring volume increases?

Hiring needs fluctuate. A tool that performs well for a small number of calls may struggle when activity ramps up.

It is important to understand how the platform behaves under higher load, both technically and operationally. This includes call quality, reliability, and whether usage scales in a predictable way. A system that handles growth smoothly allows recruiting teams to expand outreach without introducing new problems.

Try Plivo free

Getting started with AI voice agents for recruitment doesn’t need to be complicated or risky. With Plivo, you can sign up for a free trial account and get free credits to test real AI-powered phone calls, without committing upfront or changing your existing hiring workflows.

You can experiment with live screening calls, candidate follow-ups, and interview coordination using Plivo’s no-code tools or APIs. This lets you simulate real recruiting scenarios with your own data and logic before deciding how deeply you want to scale automation across voice, SMS, and WhatsApp.

Get started with your free trial today and begin building your first AI voice agent for recruitment.

FAQs

What is an AI voice agent in recruitment?

An AI voice agent is a system that conducts phone conversations with candidates to handle tasks like screening, availability checks, and interview scheduling.

Can AI voice agents replace recruiters?

No. They are designed to support recruiters by automating repetitive early-stage tasks, not to replace human decision-making.

Are AI voice agents reliable for candidate screening?

They work well for structured, rule-based screening, but nuanced evaluation and final decisions should still be handled by humans.

What should companies look for when choosing an AI voice agent?

Key factors include call quality, response speed, recruitment-specific workflows, and the ability to scale reliably with hiring volume.

Feb 16, 2026
5 mins

Best AI Voice Agents for E-commerce (2026): Top Platforms Compared

Compare the best AI voice agents for e-commerce in 2026. See which platforms handle real calls, integrate with your stack and scale reliably.

Best AI Voice Agents for E-commerce (2026): 

Top Platforms Compared

E-commerce brands don’t lose customers because of poor products, they lose them because conversations aren’t fast enough. Buyers now expect real-time assistance for order status, delivery issues, returns and payments, often beyond business hours. 

That’s where AI voice agents help. Unlike IVRs or basic bots, modern voice agents can understand natural speech and intent, answer calls instantly, pull order data from your systems, resolve common issues and hand off to humans when needed. For e-commerce teams, this means fewer missed calls, lower support costs, and faster resolution.

This list has analysed the best AI voice agents for e-commerce in 2026, focusing on how they actually perform in production, what role they play in your stack and which types of teams they truly fit.

Platform Comparison

Top 10 AI voice agents for E-commerce (2026)

Platform Voice Handling Telephony Ownership E-commerce Integrations Multi-Channel Continuity Production Readiness
Plivo Real-time inbound & outbound Native Native + API-driven Voice, SMS, WhatsApp, chat High (built for scale)
Aircall Inbound & outbound calls Native (cloud phone system) Strong CRM/helpdesk Voice + limited messaging High
Dialpad AI Human calls with AI assist Native CRM-focused Voice-centric High
Voiceflow Voice via integrations Integrated (Twilio/Vonage) API-based Voice + chat Medium
Cognigy Enterprise contact-center voice Integrated (CCaaS partners) Enterprise systems Voice + digital channels High
Talkdesk Contact-center voice automation Native (CCaaS) Retail CX tools Voice + digital channels High
Five9 IVA IVA layered on CCaaS Native (CCaaS) Enterprise CRM Voice-first High
Kore.ai Conversational AI platform Integrated Broad enterprise Voice + chat Medium
Replicant Autonomous inbound voice Integrated Limited e-commerce depth Voice-only Medium
Ada Chat-first, voice expanding Integrated E-commerce helpdesk Chat + emerging voice Medium

Plivo

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Acts as a backbone for customer-facing automation across order status, delivery issues, returns, COD confirmations and payment follow-ups.
  • Replaces basic IVRs and overflow call handling with actual AI-driven conversations that feel natural and can resolve issues or escalate intelligently.
  • Serves as an AI voice agent platform and a communications layer, not just a pre-programmed bot or a basic call tool. 

How It Works in Practice

  • Runs on native, carrier-grade telephony not dependent on third-party calling plugins, thus reducing latency and call failures.
  • Supports real-time inbound and outbound voice, including barge-in, transfers, call recording and queueing.
  • Lets you build custom voice agents using no-code instructions (Vibe) or programmatically via Voice, SMS and WhatsApp APIs.
  • Handles multi-channel engagement from one platform, making it easier to maintain customer context.
  • Integrates into backend systems via webhooks and APIs, so agents can fetch order data, update CRMs, trigger refunds or log tickets.
  • Scales globally with direct carrier connectivity and 99.99% uptime, which matters during sales spikes and seasonal traffic.
  • Offers easy integrations with CRMs and data tools and e-com apps like Shopify and WooCommerce.

Smart choice if you

  • Need reliable, real-time voice automation for customer support or sales in e-commerce.
  • Need HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, SOC 2 compliance.
  • Want to avoid handling different telephony, AI and messaging vendors.
  • Expect call volume spikes during promotions, launches or holidays.
  • Plan to expand beyond voice into SMS or WhatsApp without changing platforms.

Not a fit if you

  • Only want a simple chatbot or basic call routing with no backend logic.
  • Need a fully packaged, zero-configuration voice bot with no customization.
  • Don’t plan to use voice as a serious support or revenue channel.
  • Want built-in analytics dashboards without integrating your own reporting tools.

Aircall

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Aircall is a cloud-based business phone and customer communications platform that encapsulates voice calls, messaging, contact-center workflows and AI-powered tools to help sales and support teams manage inbound and outbound customer conversations from a single hub.
  • Designed to replace traditional desk phones and stand-alone VoIP systems with a modern unified system that supports direct calling, routing, conferencing and analytics without infrastructure.
  • Aircall’s AI Voice Agent sits within the platform to automate basic call handling, answer inbound calls using natural language, capture caller details and hand off to humans with customer context.

How It Works in Practice

  • Its AI Voice Agent can handle inbound calls 24/7, respond using natural language, capture caller details or FAQs, and escalate with context. 
  • Aircall’s broader AI tooling (often sold as an add-on) includes call summarization, transcription, sentiment analysis, action items, key topic recognition and real-time coaching insights to boost team performance and intelligence.
  • Aircall integrates deeply with CRMs and helpdesk tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Shopify, Gorgias, Intercom, Zoho, Slack and more.
  • Supports smart call routing, IVR menus, queueing, power dialers and contextual pop-ups that help agents see caller history and reduce manual steps.
  • In addition to voice calls, Aircall can connect WhatsApp messaging with your phone numbers, allowing teams to manage calls, texts, voicemails and WhatsApp messages from one unified workspace.

Smart choice if you

  • Want a cloud phone system that replaces traditional telephones and integrates voice + messaging + CRM in one place.
  • Are an SMB or mid-market team looking for easy setup and deep CRM/helpdesk integration with real-time call logging and analytics.
  • Want AI insights such as call summaries, sentiment analysis and action items tagging to support coaching and quality.

Not a fit if you

  • Are looking for standalone, autonomous voice agents that can handle complex transactional workflows (like order lookup, 2-way payment flows, or deep e-commerce logic) without human reliance. A lot of features in Aircall are paid add ons.
  • Want carrier-grade telephony control with full low-level API access. 
  • Require multi-channel unified conversational state that seamlessly moves between voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and web chat without separate configurations. Aircall integrates channels but isn’t designed as an omnichannel conversational AI platform at the same depth as standalone bot stacks.

Dialpad AI

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Dialpad is an AI-enhanced unified communications and contact-center platform built on VoIP telephony that combines voice calls, messaging, meeting tools and AI insights into one app.
  • Its AI layer focuses on increasing support and sales team productivity by transcribing calls, summarizing conversations, analyzing sentiment and providing live assistance to human agents rather than purely replacing them.
  • For e-commerce teams, Dialpad helps streamline customer support calls, sales conversations and agent workflows.

How It Works in Practice

  • Dialpad’s AI layer is built into its communications platform so transcription, summaries, sentiment tagging and insights happen automatically during calls and meetings. 
  • Live coaching and assist cards support tailored guidance during conversations, helping teams improve performance and consistency.
  • Its AI Agent and Generative AI features can provide answers from integrated knowledge bases and assist with repetitive tasks like scheduling or information lookups. Although this operates within a supervised environment rather than as a fully autonomous consumer voice bot.
  • Dialpad integrates with CRMs and support systems such as Salesforce, Zendesk, and others allowing call data and AI insights to sync into broader e-commerce workflows but developers/administrators need to configure these links during setup.

Smart choice if you

  • Want a combined AI-assisted communications and contact-center platform that brings voice, meetings and messaging into a single system with powerful transcription and insights.
  • Run a support or sales team that benefits from live coaching, post-call summaries, sentiment analysis, and automated QA workflows.
  • Are okay with a human-centric workflow where AI helps agents rather than fully automates customer calls end-to-end.

Not a fit if you

  • Want a standalone autonomous voice agent that handles inbound and outbound calls entirely without human support.
  • Need native telephony automation APIs for deep programmatic control or highly customized voice bots.
  • Require multi-channel conversational continuity across voice, SMS, WhatsApp and other messaging in a single automated AI experience.

Voiceflow

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Voiceflow is a collaborative low-code/visual AI agent platform that helps teams build and deploy custom voice and chat agents without heavy engineering. Designed to automate customer conversations from support to transactional workflows using drag-and-drop flows and business data logic.
  • Voiceflow puts the workbench in your hands, giving you control over conversational design, logic, and integrations across channels.
  • In e-commerce, Voiceflow is often used for support hotlines, FAQ automation, lead qualification, virtual assistants and prototype voice interactions especially where you want custom behavior tied to backend systems.

How It Works in Practice

  • You design conversations using a visual workflow canvas that supports branching logic, variables and external API calls making it easier to map complex dialogues.
  • Agents can be trained on your business data like product info, order records, policies via a scalable vector database.
  • Voiceflow doesn’t host telephony itself; instead it connects through providers like Twilio or Vonage so your voice agent can receive inbound calls and make outbound calls.
  • Voiceflow supports team collaboration, shared templates and component reuse so designers and developers can iterate rapidly. 

Smart choice if you

  • Want a no-code/low-code platform to design voice and chat workflows without deep engineering.
  • Need highly customized conversational logic tied to your backend systems or data.
  • Run cross-functional teams that must collaborate on agent design and iteration quickly.
  • Plan to automate support workflows, order inquiries, FAQs or lead capture across voice and chat.

Not a fit if you

  • Need out-of-the-box telephony automation with native phone infrastructure. Voiceflow relies on third-party telephony providers.
  • Want a fully autonomous voice agent that runs on phone lines without manual integration setup.
  • Require production-ready voice performance metrics or carrier-grade latency guarantees.
  • Are focused on voice only without chat or UI context.

Cognigy

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Enterprise grade conversational AI platform designed to automate complex customer interactions across voice, chat and messaging by building intelligent AI agents that understand, decide and resolve user intent.
  • It’s commonly used in contact centers, service automation and omnichannel workflows where customers use multiple channels (voice, text, social) and expect consistent responses.
  • For e-commerce, Cognigy helps automate service touchpoints like support conversations, order inquiries, returns handling and FAQs with AI agents that can grasp intent and navigate conversations dynamically.

How It Works in Practice

  • Cognigy uses Generative AI, NLP and machine learning to build agents that do more than keyword matching. They can reason through dialogue, recall context and pursue goals within interactions.
  • Agents can be deployed across voice calls, chat widgets, messaging and social platforms with shared logic, enabling seamless context.
  • Cognigy supports multilingual interactions supporting 100+ languages and large concurrent loads of 25K+ interactions, making it suitable for global e-commerce brands managing peak traffic.
  • Built-in dashboards and data feeds (OData) let teams monitor performance metrics, conversation flows and optimize based on real usage.

Smart choice if you

  • Need robust omnichannel AI automation across voice, chat and messaging with shared logic.
  • Operate a large, international e-commerce operation with high volume and multilingual support requirements.
  • Want enterprise-grade integration with existing contact center systems, CRM, ticketing tools and backend APIs.
  • Have a technical team or partner to configure, train and maintain sophisticated AI workflows.

Not a fit if you

  • Need a standalone plug-and-play voice bot.
  • Your priority is simple, requiring phone-only automation.
  • You want the fastest path to production with zero customization, setup and customization of NLU, dialogs and backend connections take planning and expertise.

Talkdesk

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Talkdesk is a cloud contact center and customer experience automation platform that helps businesses manage and optimize customer interactions across voice, chat, SMS and digital channels from one unified system. It’s a full CX automation ecosystem with AI agents layered in for intelligent self-service and agent support.
  • The platform’s core mission is to automate customer experience workflows end to end, reducing manual work and improving resolution times while keeping context and empathy in place.
  • For e-commerce teams, Talkdesk is often used to handle support hotlines, returns calls, order inquiries, live agent augmentation and self-service using both human and AI capabilities.

How It Works in Practice

  • Talkdesk’s Autopilot and AI Agents use generative AI and conversational intelligence to automate self-service across voice and other channels 24/7. They can interpret customer intent, respond naturally and escalate when needed.
  • Built-in tools like Talkdesk Navigator help with real-time routing and prioritizing inquiries based on context and integrations with CRMs and backend systems let agents retrieve and update order or customer data during automation.
  • The platform includes call monitoring, analytics, sentiment scoring and performance insights to help teams improve support quality and train agents more effectively. 

Smart choice if you

  • Need an enterprise-grade contact center platform that blends automation with human support across channels.
  • Want AI-assisted self-service and agent augmentation rather than just basic scripted bots.
  • Run support or service teams with high call volumes where routing, analytics and quality management are key.

Not a fit if you

  • Are looking for a standalone e-commerce voice bot system. Talkdesk is primarily a contact center platform with AI layers.
  • Want simple phone automation without broader CX complexity.
  • Need lightweight plug-and-play voice bots with minimal integration work.

Five9

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Five9 is a cloud-based contact center platform aimed at automating and optimizing customer service interactions across voice, chat, SMS and other channels. At its core, it helps brands deliver connected, personalized experiences at scale using AI and unified CX tools.
  • Its Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) and AI Agents are conversational automation layers that can handle self-service interactions like routine inquiries.
  • For e-commerce, Five9 is typically used to automate order status, FAQs, returns and basic support calls, functioning as shared infrastructure for AI support rather than a standalone voice-only bot.

How It Works in Practice

  • Five9’s AI Agents and Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) use conversational AI and natural language understanding to automate routine interactions across voice and digital channels. 
  • AI Agents combine generative AI, NLP and conversational logic to detect intent, extract key details, tap knowledge integration and deliver customized responses reducing the need for human intervention on routine issues. 
  • Five9’s IVA builder offers no-code visual workflows and templates so non-technical teams can configure self-service paths for common scenarios like order lookup, appointment scheduling and password resets.
  • Voice quality and presentation are improved with tools like Virtual Voiceover, which can generate high-fidelity, human-sounding speech prompts on the fly, including custom branded voices. 

Smart choice if you

  • Need a cloud contact center platform that can centralize voice and digital support and automate repetitive inquiries across channels.
  • Want conversational AI that blends generative responses with scripted logic and can escalate smoothly to human agents.
  • Care about multi-modal customer journeys that span across voice, chat, SMS and rich media in a unified experience.

Not a fit if you

  • Are looking for a standalone, lightweight voice‐only AI bot that you can launch with minimal integration.
  • Want to own telephony infrastructure or programmable telephony APIs. Five9 is a packaged cloud service, not a telephony-centric CPaaS.
  • Need simple DIY voice automation for a small e-commerce team without contact center context.

Kore.ai

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Enterprise grade conversational AI platform designed to build, deploy and manage intelligent AI agents across voice, chat and digital channels with focus on service automation, workflow orchestration and customer support experiences.
  • It supports brand-aligned, natural voice interactions capable of understanding context, interruptions and topic changes for realistic conversations.
  • For e-commerce, Kore.ai offers Retail-focused AI solutions that help deliver 24/7 self-service, answer product and order queries and assist with purchase decisions without human agents.

How It Works in Practice

  • Agents can operate on voice calls, chat, messaging apps and contact center systems while preserving conversation context across channels.
  • The platform includes a visual AI agent builder and orchestration tools, letting both business users and developers design and manage intelligent workflows.
  • Kore.ai provides a marketplace with 200+ pre-built enterprise templates to speed up deployment and reduce development time.
  • Supports deep integrations with data sources, CRM and backend systems so agents can retrieve, update and act on real business data.

Smart choice if you

  • Want a powerful, enterprise-grade conversational platform that lets you build custom, complex voice and chat automations across channels.
  • Need deep integrations with backend systems, CRM or order management data so AI can handle conditional logic in real customer workflows.
  • Have technical resources to configure, extend and govern AI agents for complex business logic.

Not a fit if you

  • Want a prebuilt, lightweight plug-and-play AI voice bot for simple e-commerce queries with minimal integration.
  • Need standalone telephony infrastructure or a voice bot you can launch in minutes without orchestration tooling.
  • Are looking for pure voice automation without multichannel context or engineered workflows.

Replicant

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Replicant is an enterprise-grade conversational AI platform designed to automate routine customer interactions across voice, chat and SMS. Supports worflow in high-volume support environments where call center load is heavy and manual handling slows response times.
  • Its AI agents aim to resolve inbound customer interactions autonomously using natural language understanding and context-aware dialogue to mimic human responders.
  • For e-commerce, this means it can handle order inquiries, returns, delivery status, account questions and FAQs without human agents for the bulk of interactions, freeing up seniors for complex cases. 

How It Works in Practice

  • The platform’s “Thinking Machine” uses speech recognition (ASR), natural language understanding (NLU) and agentic reasoning to interpret and act on customer speech in real time.
  • Replicant can automatically handle inbound voice calls by listening, replying, asking for follow-ups and escalating when needed, aiming to resolve up to 80% of interactions without human intervention.
  • The platform encapsulates conversation intelligence, automated Q&A along with insights into performance, turning every conversation into actionable data to offer better service quality and AI behavior over time. 
  • Replicant projects often go from pilot to production in weeks with pre-built conversational components.

Smart choice if you

  • Need 24/7 automation of high volumes of inbound customer calls and messages with a single conversational engine.
  • Have complex support workflows including returns, order changes, delivery status, account questions and need reliable voice automation without building from scratch.
  • Operate at mid-to-enterprise scale where automation can dramatically cut handling times and want to reduce load on human agents.

Not a fit if you

  • Only need lightweight or simple automation. Businesses that want a basic interactive voice bot with minimal backend integration may find Replicant overbuilt.
  • Don’t plan to integrate with existing CRM/order systems.
  • Want an extremely cheap, no-setup-required solution.

Ada

Primary Role in Your E-commerce Stack

  • Ada is an AI customer experience platform built to automate service interactions using AI customer service agents that resolve inquiries across channels such as chat, voice, email and messaging. It’s designed as an omnichannel self-service automation platform rather than a simple scripted bot. 
  • The core platform lets brands deploy AI agents that autonomously resolve questions, reducing reliance on human agents for repetitive support and freeing up teams to focus on complex e-commerce tasks.
  • Unlike narrow chatbots, Ada’s agents are built to interpret context, manage multi-step processes and handle inquiries across multiple languages and channels.  

How It Works in Practice

  • Users can build Playbooks (guided SOPs) that instruct AI how to handle specific multi-step processes at scale and refine these based on testing and feedback.
  • Supports 50+ languages and is designed so that agents learn and improve through simulations, real-world performance analysis and optimization tools. 
  • You can simulate conversations, test variations, analyze outcomes and optimize agent behavior before and after launch, giving more control over performance outcomes.
  • Though it doesn’t have telephony-native to its own, Ada provides open APIs and backend connectors for integrating CRM, order systems and e-commerce platforms to fetch and act on real customer data during interactions.

Smart choice if you

  • Want AI customer service automation across channels with the same logic and context continuity.
  • Need to reduce support costs and handle volume spikes without scaling human teams.
  • Value multilingual support and contextual reasoning above rigid script-based replies.
  • Prefer tools with visual Playbooks and optimization workflows that don’t require deep coding.

Not a fit if you

  • Want true telephony-native voice automation. Ada typically integrates with voice channels rather than running native telephony infrastructure.
  • Are looking for a simple, lightweight voice bot with minimal configuration.
  • Need ultra-low-latency, call-centric performance guarantees.

FAQs

  1. What can an AI voice agent realistically handle today?

AI voice agents can handle order status checks, delivery updates, return/refund questions, COD confirmations, appointment scheduling, basic FAQs and call routing. Complex disputes, escalations or edge cases are recommended to move to a human agent.

  1. Do I need to replace my entire support team to use AI voice agents?

No. most teams use AI voice agents as a first line of response to handle volume and after-hours calls. Human agents step in only when needed with full context delivered from the AI conversation.

  1. How hard is it to set this up for an e-commerce business?

It depends on the platform. Some tools require stitching together telephony, bots and integrations. Others provide native voice, APIs and messaging in one system. Expect anything from a few days for basic flows to a few weeks to make deep integrations.

  1. Can AI voice agents connect to my order system or CRM?

Yes, if the platform supports APIs or native integrations. This is critical for real use cases like fetching order status, logging calls or updating tickets. Without backend access, voice agents are limited to surface-level conversations.

  1. Is voice really better than chat for e-commerce support?

Voice may not be better for everything but it’s prompt and efficient for urgent issues. Customers call when orders are delayed, payments fail or something goes wrong. AI voice agents help you answer instantly instead of losing the customer to hold music. 

The Most Practical Path to Voice Automation at Scale

Most AI voice tools look impressive in demos but struggle when real customers call at high volumes. The difference comes down to infrastructure. Platforms that rely on stitched-together telephony, bots and messaging often break under load or add operational complexity.

Plivo works because it starts at the network layer. With native telephony, global carrier connectivity across 190+ countries and AI agents that run across voice, SMS, WhatsApp and chat, it’s built for real customer conversations. You can launch fast with no-code tools, integrate deeply via APIs when needed and scale on usage-based pricing without any long-term lock-ins.

If your e-commerce team wants reliable voice automation that actually works in production, not just another tool to manage, this is the most balanced and future-proof choice going into 2026.

Try Plivo Free

Getting started with Plivo is simple, quick and comes with no strings attached. You can sign up for a free trial account and get free credits to explore the platform’s voice, SMS, chat and WhatsApp capabilities before buying credits or subscribing to the platform. 

You can experiment with API calls, add phone numbers and build or test workflows using Plivo’s no-code tools helping you simulate real-life use cases like AI voice agents, automated messaging or multi-channel engagement with your own data and logic. 

Get started with your free trial now and begin building your first insurance agent today.

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Mar 9, 2022
5 mins

Transforming the Contact Center from a reactive resolution dinosaur to business-critical growth driver

Transform your Contact Center from a reactive resolution dinosaur to a healthy, business-critical growth driver with these four steps.

Customer Service
Contact Center

Since the inception of the Contact Center more than 60 years ago, the demands placed on it by the business have increased every year. This increase is primarily due to the sheer volume of consumer products and services paired with the rise of communication technology. In response to this relentless pressure, new features were tacked on over time, morphing the Contact Center into a clunky but immeasurably necessary business unit. And more recently, it has been acknowledged as a critical revenue center.

We’re at a pivotal point in the life cycle of the modern Contact Center for two primary reasons:

  1. The demands on Contact Centers will only continue to increase as technology advances and consumer communication preferences shift. The rapid pace of growth makes it difficult to know what the business needs are for today and will be for the future.
  2. Contact Center vendors may offer similar features on paper, but these features were often created agnostic of the others and lack the required interoperability. And each new technology added seems to create exponential growth in complexity.

The result of the two points above? A reactive customer service motion that is, simply put, stuck between having too many tools (not having a single reliable place to manage every interaction) and having a piecemeal data/reporting strategy that makes optimization decisions difficult.

The road to implementing a healthy Contact Center - getting started

We know that unnecessary complexity is detrimental, but doing nothing in the face of shifting consumer trends is perhaps moreso. So how do we plot a course forward that both keeps up with consumer trends and fits your business? We’ve come up with a list of considerations that will take your CCaaS operations from large, clunky dinosaur status to living, breathing, revenue-driving workflows that blend CC philosophy with technology.

  1. Identify the objectives of your Contact Center
    By understanding the SMART goals of a Contact Center, your organization will be able to home in on what truly matters as it relates to processes and technologies. These objectives might include CSAT, customer retention rate, time to resolution, NPS score, repeat customer tickets, similar issues, etc.
  2. Map objectives to individual and team KPIs
    Taking objective-building to the next level and ensuring that each person on your team understands how their role will impact the overall objective is essential to putting a sensible tactical framework together. These team KPIs could include average response time, abandonment rate, first contact resolution (FCR), transfer rate, etc.
  3. Map your team’s KPIs to the foundational processes in the customer service motion
    With everyone aligned on the objectives and key results, it’s time to identify what needs to happen in order to bring these to life—channel inventory, required operational functionality (chatbots, virtual agents, automations, etc.), data management, agent training, new products and policies, etc. By identifying the processes that will help you achieve success, you’ll be able to line up the tools you need to succeed.
  4. Map your processes and required functionality to a complementary set of tools that are simple, interoperable and efficient
    Hint: your contact center platform should serve as the centerpiece of your stack as it relates to day-to-day execution. The stack should be unified by a central platform built to make the agent experience as efficient as possible so the customers can reach you, get help, and move on. Perhaps the most important part of this is the ability to easily build workflows that unify the native features with the integrated features. A good Contact Center platform will keep it all together.

We’ll be writing and sharing more of our thoughts on the modern Contact Center in the coming weeks. Feel free to bookmark our blog for best practices and updates in the customer service space.

You can also take a self-guided demo of our Contact Center platform, or request a custom demo from our team here.

Feb 24, 2022
5 mins

Contact Centre Summit Recap: Keynote by Venky, Founder & CEO, Plivo

Our CEO, Venky, presented on Wednesday at the Contact Centre Summit Europe about CX transformation and key methods for catching up to the rigid demands of the modern intelligent consumer.

Contact Centre Summit
Event

If you attended the Contact Centre Summit Europe this week, you heard some great stories from global CX leaders and technology vendors on the state of the modern Contact Center. Perhaps the most powerful part of the event was hearing event presenters and attendees alike share their common pain points and ideas, customer service hacks, and how technology plays a role in building customer loyalty.

Our CEO, Venky, presented on Wednesday on CX transformation and key methods for catching up to the rigid demands of the modern intelligent consumer. His session covered the rapid acceleration of digital adoption since the beginning of the pandemic and how many consumer brands are struggling to keep up with the technology and service demands their customers require.

Some high-level points covered by Venky include:

  • Overcoming the disconnect between the experiences consumers expect and what they actually receive
  • Meeting customers on their preferred channels and catching up to the tech demands of the market
  • Personalizing the customer experience with powerful workflows and integrations utilizing your existing CX tools
  • Using virtual agents and artificial intelligence at the right time and place to keep your agents focused on the more challenging cases and enable your customers to help themselves
  • Making every agent your best agent

To see Venky’s full keynote, click play on the video below, and let us know what you think.

Nov 18, 2021
5 mins

10 Best Practices for Customer Communications

The foundation of customer communications is “right time, right place, right message.” Learn how to nail it every time with great customer service.

Customer Experience

The foundation of any strategic communications is “right time, right place, right message.” A notoriously difficult challenge made somewhat simpler by the technology available to us today.

Contacto’s mission is to enable omnichannel customer communications with a personal touch — especially in a time when human connection is so important. We’ve come up with this list of 10 communications priorities to help you meet new and changing customer expectations, so you can provide a better customer experience and enhance loyalty.

Keep in touch

82% of U.S. consumers want more of the human element in their interactions with agents. That requires open lines of communication, across your audience’s preferred digital channels.

Omnichannel is best

The last two decades have seen a proliferation of new communications channels, from the rise of SMS/MMS, to social media, and now nearly ubiquitous mobile phone and mobile app usage. Your customers are everywhere — and they’d like you to be, too, because it’s more convenient that way. They want you to be there when they need you.

Offer self-service

Research from customer service expert Shep Hyken found that 67% of respondents use digital self-service tools, including AI-powered chat agents, and 41% said they prefer them. While there’s still a large percentage that prefers live agents, self-service can siphon off the low-touch enquiries to give agents more time to handle live interactions.

Be nimble

Over the last two years, amidst constantly changing conditions, agility has become a real competitive advantage. A proactive notification can keep customers in the loop when things are changing fast.

Consider CDC guidance that may lead to store closings or openings, demand-side shifts shaking up forecasting, and supply chain woes impacting inventory levels and fulfillment. Brands had to communicate fast and transparently.

Get the channel right

First, let’s be clear — omnichannel doesn’t mean every channel. Different consumer demographics, different business models, and different verticals all have unique needs — and brands will have a specific face they want to show to the world. That should all impact your channel mix. Plus, get to know what customer interaction types work best on which channels, so you can guide consumers to convenient customer journeys with the lowest friction.

Follow best practices

Omnichannel isn’t a whole new form of customer service. Classic best practices still apply here, in many cases. Even more so, perhaps, because an omnichannel contact center is so well suited to optimizing for metrics like first contact resolution, average response time, and measuring customer satisfaction.

Be dynamic

What’s convenient or most effective for one customer may be ineffective — or even inaccessible — for another. Being dynamic means that you can switch communication channels mid-conversation without losing the thread, to give your customer base a convenient and flexible journey to resolution.

Have a reliable backup

On Oct. 4, 2021, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for the better part of a day. Back in December 2020, Gmail users were unable to fully access services on two separate occasions, over two days.

Outages happen, but if you’re in a competitive market, you don’t want a single minute of downtime to knock you off balance. Giving your audience more than one way to contact your customer service team creates redundancy that ensures you meet your customers’ needs when they need you

Carrier network matters

If you want to create great customer experiences, you can’t take carrier quality for granted.

Contacto is powered by Plivo’s Premium Communications Network. In Plivo’s 10 years, they learned that reliability depended upon building their own network of high-quality carriers, and that:

  • Strong technology and infrastructure alone cannot compensate for poor carrier network quality.
  • Relying on aggregators is not a good way to ensure carrier network quality.
  • Building a premium carrier network requires redundancy.
  • The infrastructure and technology layer all need to have the same commitment to quality.
  • No provider can build a quality carrier network overnight.

Our advice to you: Be proactive and don’t accept carrier network quality as a given.

Choose a vendor that’s committed to your success

Using a cloud platform for communication services beats maintaining your own infrastructure. With a cloud contact center, you don’t need to buy and maintain expensive equipment, or handle carrier relationships in-house. You also don’t need expensive expert developers to keep the software updated.

Look for a vendor that minimizes complexity and  makes your success their priority, as Contacto does.

Ensuring customer success

Our commitment to our customers doesn’t end once they’re up and running. To help you get the most from us, we want to know about your business and how you use Contacto. Our customer success team has a great track record of keeping customers happy. They’re one of our not-so-secret weapons in our mission to provide superlative customer experience.

Our relationships carry the day

With telecommunications, not all problems come from the customer side of the connection. Often businesses have issues with carrier networks and connectivity, but we’re here to deal with the carriers to fix things

Need help bringing it all together?

Contacto offers an easy-to-use way to deliver streamlined, omnichannel customer service. It integrates with your existing business systems to give customer service teams all the data they need, from a single pane of glass. Read more about Contacto’s channels and features.

Oct 28, 2021
5 mins

Omnichannel Customer Service: Beyond the Buzzwords

Omnichannel customer service is a strategy that helps businesses to reach a more human level of interaction with customers across multiple channels.

Customer Service

59% of U.S. consumers say companies have lost touch with the human element of customer experience, found PwC’s Customer Experience Is Everything report. And 82% of U.S. consumers want more of it in the future.

An omnichannel customer service experience can help today’s businesses reach a more human level of interaction with their customers. But what does that really look like?

  • Customer service teams that have the context they need to give customers personalized experiences.
  • A fully integrated contact center that integrates with your existing business tools to create a single source of truth
  • Customers that can communicate with you via their preferred channels — whatever they may be.

What is omnichannel customer service?

The word “omnichannel” gets batted around a lot, so let’s look closely at what it really means. Omnichannel customer service can be thought of like the term “omnipresence” — being everywhere at the same time. From your customers’ perspectives, it should appear that you’re everywhere, all at once.

Whatever channels you offer customer service in, you must deliver a consistent experience across all of them. In the context of omnichannel customer service, customers can find answers to their questions and have issues resolved easily, no matter which channel they choose to use.

A customer may start a service interaction on in-app chat and end it on the phone via a call, or vice versa. And no matter the channel, customer service agents have access to customer details and a history of previous interactions.

Omnichannel vs. multi-channel customer service: What’s the difference?

The difference between omnichannel customer service and multichannel is in the consistency in the entire experience for the customer. Omnichannel customer service channels act as touch points along a single, cohesive customer journey, so customers have an integrated experience across channels and devices. Your team needs to be able to present itself as a cohesive unit whether the same agents are resolving a customer issue via in-app chat or voice call or these get handled by different agents with respective skill sets.

But tacking on new communications channels that don’t talk to one another delivers a fractured, often frustrating customer experience. That’s because unless conversation history and customer details are shared across channels, agents won’t have access to the context necessary to deliver seamless, personalized service.

79% of service professionals say it’s impossible to provide great service without full customer context, per Salesforce’s State of Service.

Common customer service channels

Your business may not need all the service channels we’ll discuss below. Every business is different, as is everyone’s customer service strategy, so you’ll have to think about what each digital channel does well and which are best suited to serve different types of customers at various stages of the customer lifecycle.

Live Chat

There’s a lot of opportunity in live chat as a customer service channel. 56% of CX professionals in retail and wholesale say they’re currently using a chat-based interaction channel, and another 26% say they have plans to add it as a customer service channel within the next year.

Deploying chat on your website or within your mobile app can support everything from answering questions to proactive notifications, to relaying shipping and invoice information about products and inventory and offering post-sales service.

Voice

Voice calls remain the most common way people interact with businesses. They’re also the easiest to record and store. First-contact resolution rates for the telephone are still typically the fastest, so if your customers have complex needs or you have frequent sensitive escalations, you may want to put a lot of your attention on voice.

Messaging

Mobile phones are, at this point, nearly ubiquitous — but only 32.7% of retail and wholesale respondents are currently using instant messaging like WhatsApp and SMS. Maybe that’s why a whopping 40.8% have plans to add it within a year.

And don’t forget MMS — multimedia messaging services — which “lets you send longer text messages. While SMS messages are limited to 160 characters, with MMS, you can send messages with up to 1,600 characters, plus 10 images,” said Founder and CEO of Contacto by Plivo, Venky B.

Chatbots and virtual agents

A chatbot is software designed to simulate human interactions, enabling interactive voice or text conversations. They can be used on your website or mobile app to provide self-service options in response to common questions, so customers can get answers 24/7/365.

By employing a chatbot acting as virtual agents to divert some of the repetitive, frequently asked questions, that leaves more time and energy for live agents to deliver high-touch service for more complex cases.

Self-service

Customers will most likely try to look for answers on their own before reaching out to customer service. Making that process simple can make the interaction so much more convenient for the customer. It may also reduce the agent’s workload as customers won’t have to call in for frequently asked questions.

“While 67% of consumers are willing to use self-service tools, 59% would prefer to call the company. Keep in mind that there is a difference between willingness and preference,” said Shep Hyken.

Benefits of omnichannel customer service

According to insights from McKinsey, customer expectations in service journeys fall into three categories:

  • Speed and flexibility
  • Reliability and transparency
  • Interaction and care

Let’s look at all the ways an omnichannel approach can facilitate positive results in all of those categories.

360-degree view of the customer

When you have all your data about a customer at your agent’s fingertips — like interaction history, past orders, preferences, and more — the experience for customers is more consistent, regardless of the channel they use without having to ask the same questions again and again. Keeping this context at the center enables personalized interactions across channels and can facilitate a higher quality of service.

Plus, when all your systems are integrated, customer service representatives have access to all the information they need, centrally from one screen. They can also switch channels if that’s most convenient for the interaction. The best contact centers will make this easy.

Simplified customer journey

“74% of Americans are likely to recommend a brand or company to friends/ family if they provide a convenient customer experience,” found Shep Hyken. It’s time to end the frustration of hanging up and calling another number.

The omnichannel experience is more user friendly. Customers can switch from one channel to another without worrying that they’ll have to go through the whole process from the beginning or repeat themselves over and over.

Higher customer service agent productivity

It’s not just customers that have a better experience with an omnichannel contact center — it’s your agents, too. That’s true for two reasons: automation and integration.

77% of agents say automating routine tasks allows them to focus on more complex work — up from 69% in 2018. That means that they have more time to spend on more complicated requests to ensure high customer satisfaction.

Integration of business systems gives agents better access to the information they need to do their jobs. In fact, high performers are 1.7x more likely than underperformers to agree with “I can find all the info I need to do my job on one screen.”

Differentiated experience

Competition keeps growing across every sector, but businesses can really differentiate themselves with high quality, personal service. When your customer service teams can go above and beyond to make a happy customer, you increase customer engagement and encourage more customer loyalty.

Continuous feedback loop

When implementing new technology to help with customer service, ensure that you create a continuous feedback loop both on your customer’s end and internally to measure customer service satisfaction and employee engagement. In other words, it will help you assess the success of your technology, while offering you the opportunity to constantly apply your customer’s suggestions and improve goods and services.

Delight your customers with an omnichannel customer service approach

Customers don’t want to need customer service. That’s why it’s so important to remove the friction from frustrated customers’ path to a solution. Cloud based omnichannel customer service platforms can help you achieve that by bringing everything into a unified view, from past interactions to past purchases and preferences. That means you can offer a consistent, seamless experience no matter which channel your audience uses to reach out.

The improvement in your team’s processes is also a win, as it optimizes agent time so they can spend more of it with the customers who need you. Plus, customer service leaders get access to unified data that you can more quickly translate into data-driven insights.

Need help bringing it all together?

Contacto offers an easy-to-use way to deliver streamlined, omnichannel customer service. It integrates with your existing business systems to give customer service teams all the data they need, from a single pane of glass. Read more about Contacto’s channels and features.

Oct 6, 2021
5 mins

Plivo Launches Contacto to Deliver Omnichannel Customer Service with a Human Touch

Plivo CX, a new contact center as a service, delivers a human experience at scale with omnichannel, mobile-first customer interactions.

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New Contact Center as a Service delivers a human experience at scale with omnichannel, mobile-first interactions

Austin, TX — October 6, 2021 — Plivo, the cloud communications platform that enables businesses to engage with their customers, today announced Contacto, the omnichannel, mobile-first contact center platform that delivers seamless customer experiences with a human touch. Contacto allows B2C businesses in retail and ecommerce to boost customer service teams’ efficiency and enable personalized, high-touch interactions—weaving together artificial intelligence, sentiment analysis, and omnichannel capabilities to offer a superior experience, embedded directly into brands’ websites and applications.

Now more than ever, customers interact with brands online. Ecommerce has soared throughout the pandemic—in the US, ecommerce sales in 2020 grew more than 30% from 2019, with mobile commerce accounting for 45% of the total market . And this trend shows no signs of slowing down. With more mobile-first customers come more avenues with which customers can request help—retailers must be able to service their customers with the same experience regardless of channel—whether that be Twitter, Facebook, in-app chat, WhatsApp, SMS messaging, or voice call.

In fact, as B2C sees tremendous growth, with new businesses entering, disrupting and innovating in the space, a contact center built for today’s mobile-first customers will be a significant differentiator for B2C businesses. Winning and retaining customers is dependent on delivering a seamless, effective and efficient experience. No one wants to sit on hold for an hour—or repeat their problem or information endlessly—and, with Contacto, there’s a better way.

“Most businesses don’t have the time or resources to build out a fully customized call center. They’re already too occupied with running their own business,” said Venky Balasubramanian, Founder and CEO at Plivo. “That’s why we created Contacto—so every company from Fortune 100s to small business owners can provide their customers with world-class customer service interactions. Contacto’s AI-powered chatbots can quickly qualify customers and escalate tickets seamlessly to live representatives, where real-time sentiment analysis helps them provide better service—all within the brand’s existing platforms.”

Contacto: Next-level customer service with a human element

Great customer experience depends on the human touch—customers want to feel heard and appreciated while their requests are efficiently resolved. Contacto delivers on these expectations, making technology feel more human and helping agents provide contextualized, personal, and effective service in the customer’s preferred channel.

Key features and benefits include:

  • Conversational chatbots: Intelligent chatbots help verify and qualify customers, increasing agent productivity and helping resolve requests faster.
  • In-app chat: Embedded directly into a brand’s application, customers can easily raise a request via in-app chat, initiating their customer service journey without having to switch channels.
  • Native voice calling: Contacto comes with full-featured voice and messaging capabilities, native to the platform, so there’s no need to engage costly, third-party vendors.
  • Omnichannel platform: Integrating chat functionality, social media, SMS messaging and voice calls, Contacto allows customers to select the channel they prefer to communicate in, then switch channels as desired throughout their journey. For example, a customer could choose to describe their problem via voice call, then have an order tracking number sent to them via SMS. This level of channel personalization helps to reduce friction and create a positive experience for every customer.
  • Customer interaction history: Contacto allows agents to view all of a customer’s previous interactions alongside their current service request, giving them the context they need to solve issues faster and create a better customer experience.
  • Sentiment analysis: Agents interacting with customers see real-time coaching scores, based on sentiment analysis, so they can adopt the right approach to helping the customer. These scores help ensure quality and allow supervisors to provide effective feedback and update workflows.
  • Deep CRM and Help Desk integrations: Designed to work seamlessly with a business’ existing systems, Contacto features out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Service Cloud, Zendesk, Shopify and many more.

Contacto Launch Marks the Next Phase of Plivo’s Growth

The launch of Contacto marks the culmination of Plivo’s first phase as a company—its 10-year evolution in providing customers with a simpler, better business communications platform. Quietly rising to the top of the Communications Platform as a Service market, Plivo has spent the last 10 years building a solid customer base and a stellar suite of APIs alongside a comprehensive and evolving product offering. Today, Plivo’s SMS and Voice APIs are used by thousands of innovative businesses in more than 190 countries, including IBM, Mercadolibre, BYJU’s and Deckers Brands.

Now, with Contacto, Plivo is entering into its next evolution in the market—offering not only best-in-class API products for technical teams, but also cloud-based communications solutions that offer superior out-of-the-box functionality for B2C customer service teams.

“Plivo is in a unique position to offer vertically integrated, end-to-end products, and the market opportunity here is tremendous,” said Balasubramanian. “As Plivo embarks on its next 10 years of growth, we look forward to continued innovation and evolution, while maintaining our focus on providing customers with the solutions they want and need to succeed.”

To learn more about how Contacto enables B2C businesses to create better customer experiences — visit www.contacto.com.

About Plivo

Plivo is a communications platform that enables businesses to connect, engage and interact with their customers in over 190 countries. Thousands of businesses like IBM, Workday, Nutanix, and Gojek rely on Plivo to deliver better customer experiences globally. The Plivo team brings deep experience in communications and modern software to address the needs of today’s businesses – quality, scale, innovation, and agility.

Oct 6, 2021
5 mins

Introducing Contacto: Omnichannel Customer Service with a Human Touch

Introducing Contacto, a mobile-first omnichannel contact center for consumer-facing businesses. Uplevel your B2C customer service - Learn more today.

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Almost everyone has had a poor customer service experience at some time or another. We’ve heard them all:

  • Waiting on the phone line for hours for the next available representative
  • Repeating basic information over and over again as you’re transferred to new agents
  • Being unable to find the answers to a simple, standard question without connecting with an agent
  • Finding out the only way you could contact the customer service department was via email

We have a better way.

We want to make it possible for every company, no matter their size, to provide customers with world-class customer service interactions.

A mobile-first omnichannel contact center for consumer-facing businesses

Most businesses don’t have the time or resources to build out a fully customized contact center — especially not those nimble businesses in B2C retail and ecommerce, where efficient, effective customer service is a growing competitive advantage.

Contacto was purpose-built for today’s mobile-first consumer world so businesses can deliver the fast, flexible, and frictionless customer support that shoppers want. The platform combines traditional and emerging communication channels with an easy-to-use interface and out-of-the-box customizability to fit your business and your shoppers.

With Contacto, you can deliver exceptional customer experiences across channels, all while boosting agent productivity and effectiveness — and potentially even reducing your operational costs.

Let’s look at the channels of communication Contacto can facilitate, then dig deeper into the features of the platform.

Communication channels

The essence of omnichannel is offering a cohesive customer experience at every touchpoint, and that includes facilitating convenient communication methods for fast, easy resolutions.

Contacto comes with native, full-featured voice capabilities so there’s no need to engage costly third-party vendors for enterprise-grade, in-call features, excellent call quality, and high reliability.

Web and in-app chat embedded directly into a brand’s application or website let customers interact with retailers while they shop and beyond.

Customers can choose messaging via SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp — the leading consumer chat app. Brands can also utilize notifications to deliver proactive support updates.

Native integrations with social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are set to debut in Q4 2021.

Feature highlights

Contacto revolves around a unified agent desktop, where all communications channels are presented in a single simple interface.

That enables agents to:

  • Respond to all incoming conversations from one screen, no matter their channel
  • View the customer’s associated conversation timeline and interaction history
  • Create and manage information in third-party systems without leaving Contacto

Contacto is designed to work seamlessly with a business’s existing systems, with out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Shopify, and more.

With all that information in one place, agents have the context they need to solve issues faster and create a more tailored experience for the customer.

The Plivo advantage

Contacto is built on Plivo’s Premium Communications Network, which has been proven for scale over the last 10 years with billions of requests each month. Contactonatively supports voice and emerging channels like in-app chat, WhatsApp, and social media, and has prebuilt integrations with existing applications like Salesforce, Zendesk, Shopify, and Kustomer.

Sound interesting? Join our waitlist!

Interested in giving Contacto a try? You can join the waitlist to try Contacto for free, and our team will reach out when we’re ready to onboard our next batch of customers. We look forward to helping you delight your customers through service with a human touch.

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