41% of consumers still want a human on the phone. Is it too late to fix the voice gap?

Two decades of investment in digital channels left voice infrastructure behind, and AI is making the gap impossible to ignore.

Consumers still rely on phone calls when they look for support from a company. In fact, according to Sinch research, 41% of consumers want to talk to a human when they have questions. Businesses, on the other hand, have invested more in other channels over the past years and neglected voice. The result? The customer experience has gotten more and more frustrating.

Now, this is costing businesses revenue. Studies show that companies stand to risk $3.7 trillion in global sales due to bad customer experiences. And with the rise of voice AI, organizations are under more pressure than ever to modernize their voice infrastructure.

Is that still possible? How did we even get here? Here's how the industry is changing and why the window to modernize is narrowing.

Voice technology is no novelty, but it's vital in critical situations

It's true that modern communication has made our lives easier in many ways. With emails, we can reach many people in an instant, text messages make communication super flexible, and on Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, we can easily chat with friends and family around the world. But when we really want to connect with somebody? That's when we want to hear their voice.

Research has repeatedly shown that vocal communication reduces stress and makes us feel better. It's also the best way to communicate nuanced messages. A study by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business found that text-only messages often miss the mark because important context gets lost, leading to misunderstandings. But when voice is added, the researchers found that it's much easier to pick up on things like emotion, humor, and tone, making the message clearer.

That difference really matters in customer interactions. On a call, you can hear if someone's upset and respond right away to calm things down. But over text, it's easy to miss their frustration, and that can cost you. Sinch data shows that 75% of consumers would switch brands after just one bad experience. That's why voice remains a high-stakes channel in customer service.

That's why, as often as people have questioned the relevance of voice, customers have actually never stopped calling businesses. But unfortunately, they've been increasingly exposed to a bad customer experience (CX) on the phone. This can range from endless wait lines to annoying interactive voice menus to having to repeat the same problem over and over again. What happened? Why is the voice CX getting worse, even though it's still an essential customer service channel?

Businesses have neglected voice and are now in for a rough awakening

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the sentiment towards voice started to shift. With the rise of digital communication channels like email, SMS, messaging apps, and chatbots, people began to look at voice as a "relic of the past." Why should anybody call a company, if they could just send an email or chat with a bot?

Customers loved the flexibility and fast responses, while businesses saved time, cut costs, and worked more efficiently. They could also link messaging to tools like CRMs or ERP systems, creating a smoother, more connected experience. No surprise, many companies invested further, boosting both service quality and user experience (UX).

That had an interesting effect on voice: Customers started to expect the same frictionless experience when they called a company. If consumers can have such a smooth experience via email or WhatsApp, the same expectation naturally extends to voice. Here's where the voice divide starts to creep in. Because, even though customer demands towards voice interactions have been growing, businesses haven't been addressing them and investment in the voice channel has been stagnant. As a result, customers have started dreading having to call a business. And it's costing companies the most valuable thing in their customer relationships , trust.

From bad voice experiences to lost customer trust

For customers, calling a business can feel like a real ordeal. From waiting an entire lunch break for an agent to pick up to dealing with confusing interactive voice responses to having to repeat the same issue to five different people, these common issues not only create a bad customer experience, they also erode trust.

Each time a customer can't reach a company on the phone? They feel like the business doesn't care about them. Every unsuccessful interactive voice menu experience? It makes them question its competence. And all the times they have to repeat themselves? They don't think it's taking them seriously.

And while customers might have had patience in the past, the recent advances in AI have changed the game.

How the rise of AI is reshaping voice communications

Consumers have started to experience how AI can improve their voice interactions, from automated SMS callbacks to conversational voice responses to having an entire human-like interaction with an AI voice bot that helped them solve their issue. These positive experiences are making consumers ask for more AI across channels. Sinch research found that, on average, 47% of consumers say they want AI-powered support. With younger generations, that number goes up to 72%.

The better the AI interactions get and the smoother customer experiences become due to automation, the less acceptable a subpar voice exchange will be. The industry is now at a crossroads where AI is reinforcing the relevance of voice. That's not only because technical innovations like the boom in voice AI create external pressure to modernize the voice channel. It's also because, like with other technologies before, AI won't replace the wish to connect with another human.

Even with AI, things can and will go wrong, and in these critical situations, customers will keep asking for a human on the other end of the line. That's when companies, now more than ever, need to be able to deliver. Those that can't risk losing customers to competitors who can.

AI is quickly changing customer expectations, and if businesses don't adapt, they'll fall behind. That's why now is really the time to start modernizing voice infrastructure.

First steps in modernizing voice infrastructure

Modernizing voice infrastructure can feel intimidating. It often involves blending legacy systems with modern ones and, when not handled correctly or through the right partners, it can put call quality, security, and compliance at risk. The result? Many businesses end up sticking with existing legacy voice systems to avoid costly, lengthy, and complicated changes.

But with the right technical solutions and the right partners, companies can close the voice gap without the feared headaches and risks. Approaches include flexible SIP trunking, API-based integrations, and automation tools that cut down wait times and make call centers more efficient, without compromising call quality or security.

For most organizations, the starting point is an internal audit of where call quality, wait times, and self-service options fall short, followed by a clear modernization roadmap that blends legacy systems with modern infrastructure.

This story was produced by Sinch and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.

Copyright 2026 Stacker Media, LLC

This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 5:30 AM.