Voice Remains the Most Important Business Communications Channel

Business communication has evolved significantly over the past decade. In the last few years, alone businesses and consumers have gotten more used to choosing additional channels to communicate – like video and chat.

Where does that leave the traditional phone call?  Well, 95% of business decision-makers say voice is important for customer engagement and revenue generation and that it’s still a driver for customer experiences and top-line revenue, according to recent research. In fact, company size doesn’t matter when it comes to voice as a key communications channel. From large enterprises to the small end of the SMB space, phones are still the primary communication tool.

Even beyond just customer service calls, phones are also the leading choice for internal calls and meetings and interacting with clients or vendors today. Over half of respondents use phone internal calls (74%) and (82%) reported using phone calls for external client calls.

“Telephony has been a constant in the workplace for decades. While digital channels like messaging and video have grown in popularity, the study shows voice is here to stay and is, in fact, the preferred mode of communication,” said Steven Zachok, vice president of product management at RingCentral. “Critical for customer engagement, as evidenced by the 85% of survey respondents who said the phone was an important tool. It’s clear that business leaders continue to invest in phone communication because it’s easy for employees to use, and it’s the channel consumers prefer.”

Most people expect that phone use will continue to increase at their company with many looking forward to features like the ability to call and text with phones from their laptops or desktops.

"Businesses know that telephony is more than just a communications application, and is central for workplace productivity,” said Jon Arnold, Principal, J Arnold & Associates, an independent industry analyst firm. “When investing in technologies to support hybrid work, compromises cannot be made with telephony given its real-time nature, as well as the fact that the research shows how telephony usage is only going to increase.”

Edited by Erik Linask