The number of packages delivered by Amazon Logistics in the U.S. more than doubled once the pandemic started, and while domestic volume has eased a bit, the company still delivered approximately 5.9 billion packages last year.
The rise in delivery volume coincided with the relentless barrage of unwanted robocalls and robotexts – many launched by bad actors spoofing legitimate retail companies to swindle money and personal information from their customers. Together, these developments placed an unprecedented strain on retail brands to maintain a superior customer experience.
A 2023 TNS survey revealed that nearly seven in 10 Americans were concerned about robocall scams posing as retailers and claiming a package is pending pickup or that they are due a refund. At the same time, 66% believed delivery or package/mail robocall scams had increased over the past 12 months.
Beyond the consumer risk, there is the retailer brand risk. If a brand is spoofed in a robocall or robotext and the consumer is defrauded, consumer perception of that brand suffers greatly. Further risk to companies’ bottom line exists when retailers cannot reach consumers to schedule and confirm deliveries, resolve support issues, upsell services, manage payments and other day-to-day transactions. The more outbound call attempts agents must make before the customer picks up, the less efficient and productive they will be.
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All of this points to why retailers are increasingly expanding their customer experience (CX) focus to contact center pain points: 68% of Americans refuse to answer calls from unknown numbers, placing outbound CX in the hot seat.
Retailers Must Get More Proactive Against Robocalls
Over the past several years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has attacked unwanted robocalls and robotexts on several fronts, ranging from moving carriers to implement the STIR/SHAKEN caller identification framework, to record-breaking fines and cease-and-desist letters against egregious robocall bad actors, to addressing the growing use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) by scammers.
Today, however, retailers — particularly those that rely heavily on outbound calling and contact center operations — are no longer content with sitting on the sidelines. They desire outbound CX technologies that deliver brand security and protection. These efforts are converging in two core areas – call authentication and branded calling – that have demonstrated an ability to help reduce the impact of unwanted robocalls, increase customer engagement and satisfaction and begin to reverse the erosion of consumer trust in voice calling.
Prevent Failed Outbound CX from Creating Failed Inbound
88% of companies prioritize customer experience in their contact centers. If retailers struggle to reach customers through outbound efforts, the burden shifts to inbound – with dissatisfied customers tying up valuable agent time trying to acquire information that retailers failed to communicate due to low answer rates.
Cultivating successful outbound engagement strategies that drive great experiences and high customer loyalty is paramount for any successful retailer. Beyond that, it leads to reduced inbound CX strain that can undermine retailer sales and operational efficiency.
AI further complicates the CX picture. While contact center AI adoption is an area of significant activity and promise, bad actors also turn to AI to disrupt customer engagement and undermine brand credibility. Scammers have swiftly added generative AI to their arsenal. By leveraging generative AI, bad actors are easily able to clone voices, making consumers susceptible to fraud. This has increased the number of robocall spoof attacks and can pose a significant risk to retailers’ reputations and customer relationships.
Focus Outbound CX on Regaining Customer Trust
Consumer trust has always been tied to the customer experience. Deloitte Digital research found that 96% of consumers trust a brand more when companies make it easy to do business with them, leading to more frequent and higher-value purchases, greater advocacy and other benefits.
Retailers relying on voice calls to reach their customers encounter several significant challenges that can undermine ease of business, including:
- Voice channel mistrust. Consumer confidence and trust in the voice channel are eroding due to spoofing and the constant deluge of unwanted (spam or fraud) robocalls. Businesses are often unaware their phone numbers have been spoofed until it is too late. At that point, the company’s reputation was likely damaged, and customers were lost to competitors.
- Unrecognized numbers. The overwhelming number of robocalls has made consumers extremely reluctant to answer calls from unknown numbers.
- Low answer success rates (ASRs). Unanswered calls often lead to poor performance from contact center call agents, which promotes low contact center occupancy and wastes expensive agent talent on ignored and unanswered calls.
Authenticate and Brand Calls to Evolve CX
Rebuilding consumer trust in the voice channel is increasingly possible through call authentication and branding calls in a way that motivates customers to answer the phone. Call authentication enables retailers to protect their reputation from spoofed calls by only allowing verified calls to reach the end consumer, while restoring trust in the voice channel. If calls aren’t verified, they are blocked with spoof protection, which, in turn, equips consumers with more confidence to answer calls that get through.
Branded calling is another critical piece of restoring trust; retailers can label their outbound calls with rich call information – brand name and logo – so call recipients can better discern who is on the other end of the line.
When paired together, branded calls and call authentication can help bolster the credibility of outgoing calls, fostering trust in the voice channel and ensuring consumers have confidence in the legitimacy of the call and the integrity of the brand.
Consumer research data affirm the link between trust and these outbound CX approaches for retailers:
- 63% of Americans would answer a call from retail brands if the logo/name were displayed on the incoming call screen.
- 82% of respondents would answer branded calls from a company that they have previously permitted to contact them.
- 80% would be willing to answer branded calls from a delivery company while expecting shipments.
Consumer demand for outbound CX attention and innovation should motivate retail businesses to embrace voice channel digital transformation.
Jim Tyrrell is VP of Global Product Strategy at TNS, with specific responsibility for TNS’ Communications Market solutions.
