VoiceSage is a cloud communication platform offering a variety of different ways for businesses to communicate.
The Interactive Voice Messaging (IVM) solution helps contact centers with inbound calls, with additional capabilities including text-to-speech, voice recording, and transcriptions.
The VoiceSage Console itself features practical messaging tools for both SMS and email and comes with a drag-and-drop builder along with a range of helpful reports.
In other words: it’s the little details that allow VoiceSage to stand out from the competition.
Read on to find out more about this comprehensive platform.
VoiceSage Pros and Cons
Pros
- Manage both inbound and outbound comms
- Easy to learn with limited knowledge required
- Send messages directly to customers’ mobile devices
Cons
- No transparent pricing available for the platform
- Recording audio quality could be better
- Little in the way of real-time monitoring features
VoiceSage Features
Let’s take a deeper dive into the core features VoiceSage offers its users.
SMS Services
SMS services are a crucial part of VoiceSage’s platform and allow you to send notifications and alerts directly to customers’ mobile devices. Of course, this is a compelling way of reaching customers as people are never too far away from their mobiles, wherever they happen to be.
Essentially, you’ll be able to send marketing notifications and let customers respond to these messages with things like updates to appointment reminders or allowing them to reschedule payment requests.
Creating and then sending SMS messages is both quick and easy to do—you’ll be able to send active SMS messages and even email campaigns to customers within a few clicks. You can set up automated flows for later, which allow you to spend your time elsewhere and improve customer engagement.
We particularly like the drag-and-drop builder that allows you to use various tools, design elements, and ready-to-go templates to set up new campaigns. This functionality is not something every competitor on the market offers, so it’s a highlight.
Campaigns, therefore, can be set up quickly, but at the same time, they don’t lose their complexity in the process—the best of both worlds. We’ll look at the VoiceSage Console that allows you to do this in more detail a bit later.
SMS messages have an average read rate of 98%, and the usual response rate is around 90 seconds across all mobile devices. In other words, they are highly effective at reaching users. VoiceSage takes this to the next level with proactive chatbot functionality, two-way SMS allowing many conversations to be controlled per agent, and payment alerts.
We’re pleased to see that customers can opt out of further communications if they want to, ensuring you keep your business GDPR-compliant. You’ll be able to measure the perfect length of a given SMS message using the platform’s character monitoring tool too.
An increasingly popular way of using SMS services is to use them to gather customer feedback for marketing projects. You’ll be able to do this with VoiceSage, giving you insights into engagement data and shaping your strategy from there.
When it comes to SMS Services then, VoiceSage has a lot to offer users. You’ll find most of the functionality on other platforms, but there’s greater ease of use available here, and we think that’s a valuable thing indeed.
WhatsApp for Business
Having the ability to connect with customers via one of the most prevalent messages services on the planet is helpful, to say the least. You can create your business profile on WhatsApp Business and link it up to the VoiceSage platform, allowing customers and other businesses to reach out and find you without hassle.
If you didn’t know, WhatsApp Business is the business version of the mobile app primarily aimed at small companies. The app enables you to connect with customers, highlight services and products, and automate messages.
How does the link between the two messaging platforms occur? Well, through VoiceSage’s WhatsApp API. The API supports two-way conversations meaning customer service queries get solved in the app alone. It’s important to note that companies will need to ask their customers for consent to contact them first, but other than that, what we have here works well.
Key advantages of using WhatsApp include sending multimedia messages without fretting about the word limit and viewing analytics to measure critical metrics such as delivered and read messages. Creating automated rich media messages that make the customer experience more interactive is easy, and you’ll be able to start up conversations with custom QR codes—a helpful extra.
That’s not all though, VoiceSage can configure chatbots to use WhatsApp as their delivery channel, allowing customers to self-service on a popular and highly accessible platform. This functionality also has the effect of reducing inbound calls to contact centers. For most businesses that need to cut down to manage things better, this is vital.
Customers themselves can start the automated features by interacting with a business and their WhatsApp number. It works as simply as this: a customer sends the first message, whatever that may be, and the system starts up the automated journey—if successful, the chatbot will continue until the issue is solved. A live agent can come in on more complex issues if the chatbot can’t solve the problem.
Best of all is that you can integrate this functionality with CRM systems, sites, and other messaging channels such as SMS and Rich Media Messaging (RMM) for an effective multi-channel comms strategy.
WhatsApp Business can, of course, integrate with some of VoiceSage’s competitors in the space. Still, the integration here is robust and straightforward, allowing businesses to get ahead and reach more customers. It’s a significant part of the overall package.
Interactive Voice Messaging
VoiceSage offers an interactive voice message service (IVM) which allows contact centers to improve areas like first-time resolutions and contact center call avoidance. Essentially, by automating these transactions, customers can make payments, complete call-to-actions, answer surveys, and confirm their ID on their own. Similar to the WhatsApp capability, an agent can step in when required.
You’ll be able to design your routing how you want, developing how the call flows without extensive coding or technical experience, which some other platforms require. Multifaceted customer journeys are easy to set up, and you’ll decrease the number of inbound calls as a result.
Other key features of the interactive voice messaging system include text-to-speech—a simple way of creating personalized voice messages—and you can be sure you are GDPR-compliant by transcribing voice conversations to text. The Agent Whisper mode provides your agents with the appropriate call information before connecting to the customer.
You’ll be able to collect payments 24/7/365 days a year on a secure platform, too, and connect with third-party apps to create encoded payment journeys for customers. The latter isn’t hard to set up either and streamlines the process without the need for additional knowledge, making it ideal for those with limited skills.
It’s important to mention that existing phone systems will work with VoiceSage via the API, saving a great deal of time and effort. As for security concerns, the service uses advanced techniques to verify customers and present call information to cut down on fraud and other identity theft.
Routing calls to another department or agent is as simple as pressing a button, and customers can reschedule calls at a suitable time. You can also send customers automated account alerts, one-time password communications, practical dispatch and confirmation messages, and other notifications to prevent things like overspent accounts, fraudulent activity, fines, and more.
Providing automated appointment reminders via the platform allows people to confirm or reschedule when they need it, and you can complete customer validation and identification before interacting with your current booking system. The opportunity for customers to receive SMS confirmation is available as and when required.
It feels like VoiceSage has thought about various situations here and then offered a solution, which is more than welcome. The only thing we found disappointing was the quality of the voice recording, which at times sounded distant and muffled. These recording issues aren’t present every time, and VoiceSage is aware of them, so it may not be a problem in the future. Other than that, this is a strong area of the overall package.
VoiceSage Console
The VoiceSage Console is the platform’s hub and allows users to create their messaging campaigns in multiple different formats. The user management features enable you to create and manage all users with varying access levels from a single location.
On top of that, the campaign builder we mentioned earlier gets some time to shine; it couldn’t be easier to get started with new campaigns, and the range of templates and tools on offer don’t limit your options either.
For those that want reports on their campaigns, you’ll be able to monitor their success through the central dashboard. The data includes conversation reports, a detailed look at your customers’ actions, and other audience data, allowing you to adapt your marketing strategy as needed. That said, the real-time monitoring support is a bit basic.
We haven’t mentioned some other key features, from the support team that operates 24/7 to answer your inquiries via email and phone or the ability to schedule your messages in advance and adjust the running time of any campaign in progress. There’s also the inbox where you can easily create and organize your agent allocation and workflows.
You’ll be able to cater to customers in different languages and phone numbers depending on location. The VoiceSage platform also supports Secure Access Markup Language (SAML), supporting single sign-on for businesses.
VoiceSage’s Console is where the marketing magic happens, from the drag-and-drop campaign builder to the automated flows. We’re specifically impressed with how easy everything is to carry out. For those looking for a lot of power but with high ease of use, you’ll find it right here.
VoiceSage Pricing and Package Options
We like to see clear and transparent pricing, and unfortunately, this is an area where VoiceSage doesn’t have much to offer. In fact, VoiceSage provides users with no pricing information whatsoever—there are no pricing tiers, different package options, or other useful details.
Anyone interested in the platform will have to contact VoiceSage independently and get a custom quote based on their requests.
With that said, a free demo is available, which will take you through a variety of platform features, allowing you to see them in action. The free demo requires a simple sign-up, no credit card is required, and you can get started in minutes. That aside, there’s little else here.
Not all platforms on the market keep their prices private, so it might be best to look elsewhere if you like to see them upfront. Remember that custom quotes are relatively common, too, even if we prefer to see more transparent pricing.
VoiceSage Reputation
How does VoiceSage stack up with users across the web? Well, simply put, most users had a positive experience with the platform overall.
Users enjoy the ease of use of VoiceSage, with most believing there’s a good number of features to enhance their marketing campaigns. Those with limited technical experience are particularly happy. Others have stated that managing both outbound and inbound calls in one place is beyond valuable, saving them time and money.
Some users believe the customer support could be better; specifically, it could be faster to receive a response and that the answers offered weren’t always the best. Others have said they found the platform challenging to log into with minor problems when requesting passwords. Overall, though, it’s clear most users enjoy using VoiceSage and don’t regret signing up, which has granted the platform a credible reputation in return.
Summary
We definitely recommend VoiceSage. It’s a solid cloud communication platform that offers many ways for businesses to connect with their customers. With interactive voice messaging, the powerful VoiceSage console, and the ease of use, there’s going to be something here for the majority of users. While other platforms on the market offer similar functionality in several areas, it’s still more than worthy of your time and consideration.
