Q&A: Voice 2 Person

Q: Do people buy more if you use a male voice artist, and is it true that a female voice is more calming?

Jenny: There are many studies on this subject, and non point clearly enough in one direction or the other. What we find is that what is said, the script and the tempo and tonality is much more important. It the basic classic branding advice, pick a voice that suits your brand, don't push the customer, be helpful, be to the point and speak clearly.

Q: Do you get more answers if a person calls the customer instead of a recorded voice call?

Jenny: This is a very common question, but no, when someone calls, you will not see who it is beforehand. The main impact on what we call answer rates or pickup rates (calls that are answered/ calls made) are the following:

• Local numbers gives a better pickup rate
• You cant just buy any number off the internet that would result in call screening
• You can improve answer rates by registering the phone number, and also by building a communication with the proper follow up

We work a lot with timing, and have years, and millions of calls made that goes in to our experience in setting up and A/B testing call times depending on brand, situation, and local preference. Thats a clear advantage with the scale we work at. I heard some numbers in a presentation from a company that work very successfully with reactivation recently. I was surprised to hear that they only have 17% as an answer rate in Spain, and also that they see a lot of difference in pickup rates in different markets. Their best answer rates where 46% in Hungary. We do not see that much difference in markets. For regulated markets, answer rates are usually from 45%- 70% and in more tough markets like Japan, Canada, Germany where we cannot call with local numbers, its difficult to follow up with an sms between calls, we have to settle for 30%-40%.

Q: What if I have an ambassador, like a hockey player or a comedian making the call?

Jenny: Same answer unfortunately, there is no way of knowing that you have Cristiano Ronaldo calling, unless you have him as a contact in your phone book.

Q: Can you call in every language?

Jenny: We can build communication in every language. To deliver that communication, for gaming, we have so far found very few markets that ban calls, (New Zeeland, Russia). We have several markets where you have to follow rules for follow up SMS. Canada, NZ, Australia, US, Japan, Vietnam to name a few, you cant use links in SMS messages, which unfortunately eliminates the use of landing pages, and you have to be creative with the copy. Delivery rates of SMS is something that is widely discussed, but that is a strange measurement, if you follow the right format, your SMS is delivered, there is no need to look at rates, they should never drop below 95%

End of Q&A and beginning of the Questioning rather than question section.

Out of the people I introduce to Wiraya communication ( a blend of Recorded voice, sound effects, text and landing pages), 99% are focused on the recorded voice, and there are usually two reactions:

90% say "Oh I hate it when people call me" then about 9% say "Oh I really do not like those robocalls, but I know convert well". Both answers are probably what I thought myself until I started working with Wiraya and learned that this is not how people react to calls, pre recoded or not. Wiraya called millions of customers in 2020 and that was not the reaction at all. I am still curious why we are all so convinced that we do not like phone calls while evidently, we do not mind. I want to commission a study to investigate this. My latest theory on the subject is that we hate calling people and bothering them, but we actually do not mind to pick up the phone ourselves. When I manage to get a university to take on this study I will share the results, until then, I will have to rely on the data that I see every month, and the fact that I would know if my customers would get complaints through their customer service.

With these questions cleared out we can move on to much more fun and creative stuff like how to build communication with sound-effects, gamification elements, and to use this channel to engage, entertain and surprise your customers.