South Africa’s business communications landscape is undergoing a major transformation, driven by the proliferation of digital channels and the rise in use of technology to deliver improved customer experience (CX).
At a time of growing concerns around privacy and spam calls, organisations need to be systems-ready, while balancing automation with human interaction if they are to maintain customer engagement, and retain and grow their customer bases.
While voice calls used to be the preferred method for business communications, this has changed significantly over the past few years, as voice revenues and volumes have largely plateaued or declined, with traditional telecom voice services facing substantial pressure.
Even mobile communication has seen significant declines, with a considerable portion shifting to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, often accompanied by Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) features.
In stark contrast, omnichannel communication is experiencing “hockey stick” growth, demonstrating a compound annual growth rate over three years of 54%, illustrating a clear preference among modern customers for multiple options beyond just phone calls when it comes to communicating with organisations.
Automating transactional interactions
To better deal with the growing requirement for omnichannel, organisations are working with partners to develop either fully automated solutions or digital assistants that assist agents during voice and text-based interactions with customers.
The key to success here is understanding the difference between transactional and engagement-based interactions: while automation is highly effective for simple, repetitive tasks (wanting an invoice or statement, or a copy of a policy, for example), human agents remain crucial when it comes to more complex, nuanced matters (such as financial or health-based consultations).
AI tools can make human agents “superpowered”, by offering instant access to previously untapped information, such as summarising policy details or complex terms and conditions. As such, it is more likely that AI will play a major role in augmenting and enhancing the capabilities of human agents, rather than replacing them entirely.
Better quality conversations with customers across channels
Brands are now looking to meet their customers on their channel of choice – or even to have coherent and seamless conversations across multiple channels, and are turning to omnichannel communications to enable these capabilities.
For example, in South Africa, WhatsApp’s widespread adoption is making it a preferred channel for customer engagement, with the potential to significantly reduce traditional call volumes to a contact centre.
While WhatsApp allows businesses to leverage features such as interactive buttons, product catalogues and bots to streamline workflows, answer FAQs, and even manage sales funnels, Meta, WhatsApp’s parent company, has several policies in place to curb misuse and promote high-quality interactions.
Even the upcoming WhatsApp Business Calling feature is designed with controls to prevent spam. Businesses will need to send an approved message template requesting permission to call, and the customer must accept it within 24 hours. Outbound calls will be significantly more expensive for businesses than inbound calls from customers, encouraging targeted and intentional voice engagements within the platform.
And, it’s not only Meta that is giving users more control over the communications that they receive. As an example, new features in Apple’s iOS26 allow users to screen, silence or filter calls from numbers not in their contact list. In addition, proposed regulation changes have shifted the default from “opt-out” to “opt-in” for customer communications, placing the responsibility on the business to obtain consent.
Moving beyond ‘spray and pray’
Key to creating seamless experiences is hyper-personalisation, and this is dependent on rich customer data that is properly segmented, enabling the delivery of highly targeted and relevant messages, rather than outdated ‘spray and pray’ marketing.
Having this level of insight into customers allows brands to anticipate customer needs, rather than just respond to questions, and more organisations are investing in robust Customer Data Platforms – serving as a single source of truth for customer information – to enable such proactive service.
Companies are also adopting an API-first approach to their communications systems: rather than adopting an entirely new platform, they are embedding specific communications capabilities (such as calling, contact information retrieval, or process automation) directly into their existing business applications.
This includes customer relationship management (CRM) systems, which have, over the recent years, evolved into comprehensive enterprise systems incorporating office applications, accounting and analytical tools, making the integration of communication functionality essential for a ‘single pane of glass’ view of customer interactions.
People can make the difference
Experience has shown that people remain the crucial element: while technology accounts for less than 10% of success in contact centres, the remaining 90% comes down to agent behaviour, emotion and motivation.
This means that while automation can handle transactional activities, human agents are crucial where empathy and complex problem-solving skills are required, and organisations will need to invest in upskilling agents to focus on these high-value tasks.
The future of business communications will be a continuous refinement of how humans and technologies combine, with organisations empowering their employees with intelligent tools that allow brands to communicate meaningfully with customers while still respecting their privacy and communication preferences.
It is an evolution rather than a revolution, and organisations can thrive by embracing AI to augment human capabilities, integrating their business systems to enable hyper-personalisation, and – perhaps most importantly – recognising that technology is just a tool, and that investing in people to handle high-value interactions is just as crucial for success.
