WhatsApp’s recent foray into voice calling for enterprises is set to challenge the traditional IVR telephony. And coupled with AI agents, the development could well remodel India’s call centres from what they are today.
Enterprises such as Thomas Cook, Redcliffe Labs, HCG Hospitals and Sobha Realty have already gone live with WhatsApp Calling, which is scheduled for general availability beginning July 15.
Aditya Kandoi, CEO, Redcliffe Labs expects WhatsApp voice to account for 30-40% of its voice interactions within the next 2-3 years, while traditional telephony will serve as a fallback and for specific use cases.
Over the last 6-7 years, feature-rich OTT apps have made a headway into the $1 billion commercial messaging market once dominated by traditional SMSes. Gartner forecasts that out of the CPaaS (communication-platform-as-a-service) market expected at $3.2 billion by 2028, $1.6 billion will be dominated by OTT channels like WhatsApp and Google RCS.
A similar conquest is expected in voice services. UK-based consulting firm GlobalData projects that India’s telecom voice services revenue will shrink at a compound annual rate of 2.49%, falling from $11.5 billion in 2024 to $10.1 billion by 2029.
Telecom companies referred to communication OTT players, or apps, as a “direct substitute” of telecom services which have long eroded the business of telcos without being regulated for issues like spam and fraud. Meta, though, said that instead of competing, the US major is keen on collaborating with telecom companies. “We partner closely with Telco Solution Partners who have enabled WhatsApp Business Calling API as part of their services and offerings,” Nikila Srinivasan, vice-president (business messaging) at Meta told ET.
“We see an opportunity to drive strong partnerships with our telco partners to enable this innovative new calling feature.”
Thomas Cook, which introduced WhatsApp Calling for its forex prepaid card customers last month, has already shifted 14% of its toll-free queries to the platform within just 10 days. The move has helped the global travel firm reduce reliance on international telco partnerships by consolidating support through a single 24/7 WhatsApp account, said Deepesh Varma, executive vice-president, foreign exchange, Thomas Cook India. The app transitioned into a revenue channel for the company.
“Because of WhatsApp, we were able to reduce our call center cost by 25%, which we utilised for sales and made it a revenue center rather than a cost center,” he said, adding that the company processes 600 sales transactions on WhatsApp within a quarter.
Medical diagnosis firm Redcliffe Labs said that 5-10% of the IVR calls have shifted to WhatsApp, particularly from digitally savvy and younger demographics as well as tier 2/3 cities. Wait times of calls have also reduced 25%.
Further, AI agents can now empathise, engage and resolve customer queries remarkably well without the need of any human agent.
