Transforming Contact Centres: Voice AI as a Revenue Generator

For decades, the contact centre has been seen as the ultimate cost centre — a place where customer inquiries pour in and nothing of measurable value flows out. Long hold times, unhelpful agents, and clunky IVRs that make reaching a real human feel like a quest for the Holy Grail only reinforced this perception. And for many businesses, it wasn’t just perception — it was intentional. The long-standing goal was to reduce contact, deflect calls, and drive down cost-per-interaction, even if it came at the expense of the customer experience.

But here’s the hard truth: today’s customers simply won’t tolerate it anymore. Over 30% will abandon a brand after just one poor interaction — and that number is only rising. In a world shaped by seamless digital experiences, every missed call, delayed response, or clunky IVR menu becomes a trigger for churn.

You might see short-term savings by reducing staff or funneling customers into outdated self-serve portals. But your balance sheet is also absorbing silent losses: customer churn, missed upsell opportunities, and fading brand loyalty.

That’s where conversational AI and realistic voice agents are rewriting the story. Powered by advanced voice platforms, these tools combine the efficiency of automation with the familiarity of the human voice. Instead of robotic menus, customers interact with natural, lifelike audio experiences—crafted using cutting-edge audio tools and like-human voices. The result? A smarter, more human way to scale service without sacrificing connection.

Voice Assistants Are Reshaping Business Strategy

In a market where voice assistants are rapidly becoming mainstream—embedded in smartphones, smart homes, vehicles, and now enterprise software—the contact center is undergoing a seismic shift. What was once a reactive, costly support function is evolving into a proactive, AI-powered growth engine.

Thanks to breakthroughs in speech models and realistic voice technologies like Like Voices, businesses can now deploy advanced Voice AI agents that not only resolve issues faster than human agents but also deliver high-fidelity, personalized voice content that converts and builds loyalty.

Take the automotive industry, for instance. As car manufacturers look toward the future, they’re investing heavily in voice-first experiences — not just inside the vehicle, but across the entire customer journey. When a customer calls about a service issue, a Voice AI assistant can instantly access their maintenance history, deliver an audio experience with rich personalization, provide a trade-in valuation, and even schedule a test drive — all in one seamless interaction. That’s voice commerce in action, redefining how service channels can generate revenue.

The voice assistant market is set for exponential growth — not just in consumer devices, but across retail, enterprise, and especially the contact centre. As expectations rise around voice quality, convenience, and personalisation, the future of conversational AI isn’t just about reacting — it’s about predicting, anticipating, and delivering with human-like fluency.

The Contact Centre Isn't Dying — It's Evolving

The idea that the contact centre is a cost sink is outdated. In fact, it’s one of the most untapped growth levers in the business. But only for companies that are willing to reframe their approach.

By embracing Voice AI, CFOs can reduce operational overhead while increasing revenue per call, improving retention, and enabling 24/7 service without bloating headcount. It's not just support — it's smart, scalable customer engagement.

In the future of auto, future of commerce, and the broader digital economy, Voice AI isn’t just a tool — it’s a strategy.

The CFO’s Dilemma: Control Costs or Drive ROI?

As a CFO, you’re responsible for driving financial discipline while enabling scalable, sustainable growth. That’s no easy feat — especially when evaluating the traditional contact centre. You’re faced with surging labor costs, rising customer expectations for 24/7 support, and mounting pressure to "do more with less." While it might be tempting to slash costs to keep margins in check, let’s be honest — cost-cutting is not a growth strategy. It’s a short-term survival move that can backfire in the long term by eroding customer trust and loyalty.

Here’s where Voice AI changes the equation — not just for customer service, but for your entire business model.

What if you could:

✅ Maintain 24/7 service without scaling headcount?

✅ Handle thousands of calls simultaneously with zero wait times and no compromise on experience?

✅ Turn every customer interaction into a revenue opportunity — even those that start with a complaint?

That’s not wishful thinking — it’s exactly what modern voice applications powered by artificial intelligence are doing in call centres across industries. From telecom and finance to healthcare and the automotive industry, companies are no longer seeing the contact centre as a necessary expense. They’re seeing it as a platform for new revenue streams and customer retention.

The Voice-First Shift Is Already Happening

Thanks to innovations in automatic speech recognition, human speech synthesis, and voice cloning, AI-powered voice user interfaces are now nearly indistinguishable from live agents. Even better — they’re always on, infinitely scalable, and capable of learning over time.

Industries like automotive are leading the way. With growing car voice assistant adoption, auto brands are integrating custom voice assistants into both vehicles and service centres. So when a customer calls to schedule a repair, the same AI can access CRM data, flag an expiring lease, and suggest a new model with real-time availability — all through a natural interactive voice response conversation.

It’s a seamless blend of automation and personalization, opening up upsell opportunities that would otherwise be missed. That’s not just saving — that’s scaling profitably.

Voice AI: Built for Market Growth

The voice assistant market is experiencing explosive expansion, with an annual growth rate projected to remain in the double digits through the next decade. As the integration of voice becomes a standard across devices, platforms, and service channels, your contact centre isn’t just competing with other brands — it’s competing with the best voice experiences your customer has ever had.

Whether it's Siri in their home, Alexa in their kitchen, or a virtual assistant in their new car, today’s consumers expect instant, accurate, and conversational service — every time. And now, with enterprise-grade Voice AI, businesses can deliver just that — without sacrificing efficiency or margins.

Voice AI: From Cost Sink to Growth Engine

Traditional thinking says every inbound call costs money — from staffing and training to time spent resolving basic questions. But with speech-to-speech Voice AI, you can flip the equation. You’re no longer just minimizing loss — you’re maximizing return.

Let’s take two examples:

• A customer calls about a faulty phone. Instead of simply troubleshooting, a Voice AI agent can inform them they’re eligible for a discounted upgrade, capture their interest, and seamlessly route the call to sales.

• A driver calls about a transmission issue. Voice AI can check the CRM, recognize their car is over a decade old, and proactively mention a financing offer on a new model — even offering to book a test drive at the dealership.

In both scenarios, the contact center becomes a moment of opportunity — not an expense to be minimized, but a revenue channel to be optimized.

The Real ROI of Voice AI

It’s not just about saving money on agents — though that’s a welcome bonus. It’s about creating a scalable system that:

• Improves customer satisfaction with immediate, relevant, and helpful responses.

• Reduces churn by delivering fast and empathetic support.

• Drives upsells and retention through contextual, real-time insights.

• Extends service availability without increasing headcount.

• Integrates directly with finance tools and CRMs to provide accurate, ROI-centric reporting.

The result? You move from reactive support to proactive revenue — all with measurable impact.

But Only If You See It That Way

Yes, the contact centre can be a big cost — if you treat it like one. If you focus solely on shortening calls and pushing people to self-serve, you strip away the very interactions that drive loyalty and sales. But when you invest in technology that enhances, rather than avoids, customer conversations, the contact centre becomes one of your most valuable assets.