Aircall

“"Teams that buy an AI tool first and go looking for the value afterward will probably be disappointed,” said Simon. “Start by understanding the problem you’re trying to solve.””

““An add-on to a platform we'd already deployed let us test it out,” he said. “We were able to move from hypothesis and a few different testing stages to actually coming to a confirmed, confident answer that we were making the right call using AI Assist Pro.””

““The more we looked, we ran into the same issue: a separate layer sitting on top of our existing system, another tool reps would have to log into, another app to maintain,” said Simon. “Our reps were already comfortable with Aircall and making all their phone calls from the platform.””

“"Since April of this year, we ran close to 5,000 scored call evaluations, almost 2,000 on inbound and just over 3,000 on outbound,” said Simon. “This volume was never available to us when we were doing manual call scoring, simply because there's only so many evaluations a manager can do in a day."”

“"Our rep calls are consultative. They cover a lot of ground, and the quality of the conversation genuinely determines whether that person ends up with the right FreshBooks product for their business. That's why call quality is something we take seriously and built a robust program around."”

““I wouldn’t start with AI just because AI is the thing everyone is talking about. Start with the collector problem you’re trying to solve. Understand where people are getting stuck, what your team is spending time on, and where technology can genuinely make the experience better. Then keep learning from it. For us, this is forever a work in progress, and that’s the point. We want to keep building it alongside Aircall as our collectors, our business, and the way people communicate continue to evolve.””

““What matters to me is not whether the technology sounds impressive. It’s whether it helps a collector get to the right answer. Every interaction gives us another opportunity to understand what people are asking, where our information may be unclear, and what we need to improve.””

““AI is a tool to support our people and our collectors. It is not a replacement for the human side of customer service. If anything, the goal is to use it in a way that gives our team more time and capacity to be there when a collector truly needs them.””

““We know collectors are going to have different levels of comfort with AI, and we need to listen to that. The goal is not to force someone into an automated experience. It’s to give them another useful way to get an answer while continuing to improve access to our customer service team when they need a person.””

““We’ve seen the AI Voice Agent return meaningful capacity to the team, with earlier measurements showing roughly 20% more available time for our reps. That matters, but capacity only helps if we use it well. We’re actively working to make sure that time translates into faster, better support for collectors who need a person.””

““We’ve also seen wait times improve significantly, with pickup times during the measured period averaging around 25 seconds. That’s encouraging, and now the focus is on making sure speed is matched by the quality and consistency of the experience.””

““We’ve seen our answer rate improve from roughly 20% to around 80%, which is meaningful progress. But we don’t look at that number and say the work is done. We’re continuing to focus on what happens after the call is answered, whether the collector gets the right information, and whether a human handoff happens successfully when one is needed.””

““Creating capacity is only part of the equation. We also have to make sure that when the AI Voice Agent needs to hand a conversation to a person, we have the right process and enough available capacity for someone to respond. That is still a work in progress, but we’ve made meaningful strides, and the AI Voice Agent has been very supportive in helping us get there.””

““Order status is a great example of where this can help. When a collector provides an invoice or order number, the Voice Agent can use the information available through HubSpot to help explain where that order is in the process. We’re continuing to refine the information behind those responses so they are as useful and accurate as possible.””

““What became clear pretty quickly is that the experience gets better as the knowledge behind it gets better. If the AI doesn’t know an answer, that’s okay. That tells us where we have a gap. Our responsibility is to learn from that interaction, strengthen the knowledge base, and make sure we’re better equipped to answer that question the next time.””

““We’re actively looking at where collectors are getting stuck, what questions they’re asking most often, and where technology can help us respond faster without losing the human element. This is not something we consider finished. It’s something we’re continuing to build and improve as we learn.””

““The opportunity is to make information easier to access in the moment a collector needs it. If we can answer a straightforward question immediately, that creates a better experience for that collector and gives our customer service team more capacity to focus on the situations that truly require human support.””

““The challenge is making sure every collector has a path to the right answer. Some questions can be resolved quickly with the right information, while others absolutely need a person. We’re continuing to build the experience so those two paths work together rather than compete with each other.””

““For us, this is deeply personal. When a collector sends something to Beckett, we’re not just holding an item. In many cases, we’re holding something they’ve spent years looking for, something that has real financial value, or something that simply means a great deal to them. They deserve to be able to get an answer when they need one. We’re actively working to make that experience better, and Aircall is helping us create more ways to get collectors the information they need while making sure our customer service team is available when a human conversation is needed.””

“The ability to automatically score our agents against criteria like quality, friendliness, and whether the customer got a satisfactory solution has let us make every experience better for our customers.”

“Analytics helped us identify where we had coverage gaps, and since closing them, we've seen a 15% uptick in the percentage of calls answered.”

“We had huge gaps in weekend coverage or days we would run big sales events. Aircall analytics showed us the specific days and times where we had the highest unanswered call rate. This allowed us to staff properly to reduce unanswered calls.”

“It wasn't just a phone tree with a different name: it's built to actually resolve routine questions on its own, which meant we could stop losing calls to voicemail outside business hours and stop pulling team members off other work for repetitive questions.”

“Everything starts with a great account executive.”

“Analytics has also been huge for us. We get real visibility into both our CS team's performance and what our customers are actually calling about, which we never had before.””