For more than a decade, the CX space has been obsessed with ‘digital transformation’.
Apps, portals, chatbots, and automated journeys have all promised the same thing: fewer calls and lower costs.
On paper, that should mean customers rarely need to pick up the phone. In reality, when something really matters, they still do – with voice still responsible for 70% of the demand coming into the contact centre, according to Contact Babel.
Yet, despite its continued importance, very few vendors champion their phone services... and when they do, it’s often with more of a whisper than a shout.
Kevin McGachy, Head of Solutions at Sabio, sums up this strange situation nicely, suggesting that due to the heavy investment into ‘digital transformation’, “admitting customers still prefer voice feels like failure.”
“But here's what we're missing: we speak at 150 words per minute but type at only 40. When you're frustrated, anxious, or dealing with complexity, voice is simply more efficient.”
Rather than treating calls as a symptom of digital failure, he argues that brands should see them for what they are: the channel customers trust most when the stakes are high.
Why Customers Still Default to Voice
There’s a familiar belief in boardrooms that digital preference is universal – especially for younger, tech-obsessed customers. But is this really the case?
“I think there's a generational bias in leadership,” McGachy notes. “Tech-savvy executives assume everyone wants to self-serve digitally.”
What Sabio sees in the data is more nuanced.
“In practice, even digitally native customers default to voice when issues become complex, emotional, or high-risk,” he says.
The logic is simple. Voice carries tone and reassurance. It lets people describe messy problems in their own words, without trying to squeeze them into rigid flows.
If your payment has gone astray, your flight has been canceled, or your health appointment is at risk, typing into a chatbot rarely feels like enough.
“The mistake is not digital investment itself, it’s measuring success by channel shift rather than customer effort and outcome,” McGachy adds.
‘Channel of Choice’ That Quietly Hides the Phone
Many organizations talk about ‘channel of choice.’ Yet customers often encounter something very different: buried phone numbers, chat widgets that refuse to hand over, and IVRs that seem designed to keep you away from an agent.
This certainly tallies with McGachy’s experience:
“Many so-called omnichannel strategies are optimized for cost avoidance, not customer outcomes,” he says.
“We see organizations obscuring or removing voice access entirely, pushing customers through digital channels regardless of their needs or the complexity of their issue.
“Indeed, at Sabio, we supported clients on the journey of call deflection and promoting digital experiences. But as technology capability evolved, so did we and we now recognise that isn’t the way to deliver brilliant customer experiences.”
On a spreadsheet, it may appear to be the smart, obvious decision: shift volume into cheaper channels, trim contact center headcount, and celebrate lower cost-to-serve.
However, like a billion different scenarios before it, in practice, the result is rarely that straightforward.
McGachy details that in reality, these digital-first strategies often backfire on their own cost-reduction goals:
“When you make voice hard to access, you're not eliminating those contacts – you're deferring and compounding them.”
By the time customers finally get through, they’re more frustrated, and the problem is often more tangled.
“Organizations that restrict voice access consistently see longer average handle times when customers do eventually get through, lower first-contact resolution rates, and significantly higher churn,” McGachy notes.
“This saves money on channel costs in the short term, but loses far more through increased handle times, repeat contacts, and customer defection.”
Voice as a Strategic Differentiator
Voice picked up its ‘expensive’ label in an era of legacy telephony and siloed systems, but modern AI has changed both the experience and the economics.
“The mindset shift needs to start with understanding that modern voice isn't the same as traditional telephony,” McGachy says.