Enterprises dial up cost savings with WhatsApp calling

Over-the-top (OTT) communication platforms, such as Whatsapp, are set to eat into the enterprise voice revenues at telecom companies, after seizing a lion's share in business messaging that is now increasingly routed through apps instead of SMSes.

WhatsApp’s recent foray into voice calling for enterprises is set to challenge the traditional IVR telephony, which guided users through automated menus before human intervention – if the call went that far – would come. And coupled with AI agents, the development could well remodel India’s call centres from what they are today.

Enterprises such as Thomas Cook, Redcliffe Labs, HCG Hospitals and Sobha Realty have already gone live with WhatsApp Calling, which is scheduled for general availability beginning July 15.


For instance, Aditya Kandoi, CEO and founder, Redcliffe Labs expects WhatsApp voice to account for 30-40% of its voice interactions within the next 2-3 years, while traditional telephony will serve as a fallback and for specific use cases.

The development comes with India’s telcos having already seen an erosion of revenue from text messaging while its voice revenues have also come under tremendous pressure as more and more users have shifted to OTT communication apps to message and make calls.

And now, carriers could face a bigger threat to even their voice calling revenue from businesses, a crucial component of their enterprise business, which already accounts for over 20% of overall revenue, and growing at a fast pace, say experts.

Minutes Matter

Over the last 6-7 years, feature-rich OTT apps have already made headway into the $1 billion commercial messaging market once dominated by traditional SMSes. Gartner forecasts that out of the CPaaS (communication-platform-as-a-service) market expected at $3.2 billion by 2028, $1.6 billion will be dominated by OTT channels like WhatsApp and Google RCS.

The similar conquest is expected in voice services as well.

UK-based consulting firm GlobalData projects that India’s telecom voice services revenue will shrink at a compound annual rate of 2.49%, falling from $11.5 billion in 2024 to $10.1 billion by 2029.

“India has among the world’s lowest data prices – sometimes less than Rs5/GB, which makes OTT voice calls almost free, if they have any data plan,” said Srikanth Vaidya, telecom analyst at GlobalData, adding that WhatsApp is the default voice communication platform with more than half of the population using the WhatsApp. The Meta-company has over 600 million users in India.

Telecom companies referred to communication OTT players, or apps, as a “direct substitute” of telecom services which have long eroded the business of telcos by providing voice, video and messaging services without being regulated for issues like spam and fraud.

“We believe a level playing field should be created between licensed telcos and these unregulated app-based communication service providers by bringing them under the Service Authorization framework,” said S.P. Kochhar, director general, Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), representing the three large telcos – Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.

Meta, though, said that instead of competing, the US major is keen on collaborating with telecom companies.

“We partner closely with Telco Solution Partners who have enabled WhatsApp Business Calling API as part of their services and offerings,” Nikila Srinivasan, vice president (business messaging) at Meta told ET. “We see an opportunity to drive strong partnerships with our telco partners to enable this innovative new calling feature.”

Companies using the OTT platform say customer service calls on WhatsApp are more personalised, context-aware, enables exchange of interactive media like images, pdfs, and offers faster resolution at lower cost, say businesses.

Going Live

Thomas Cook, which introduced WhatsApp Calling for its forex prepaid card customers last month, has already shifted 14% of its toll-free queries to the platform within just 10 days. The move has helped the global travel firm reduce reliance on international telco partnerships by consolidating support through a single 24/7 WhatsApp account, said Deepesh Varma, Executive Vice-President – Foreign Exchange, Thomas Cook India. The app has transitioned into a revenue channel for the company, he said.

“Because of WhatsApp, we were able to reduce our call center cost by 25%, which we utilized for sales and made it a revenue center rather than a cost center,” he said, adding that the company processes 600 sales transactions on WhatsApp within a quarter.

Medical diagnosis firm Redcliffe Labs said that 5%-10% of the IVR calls have shifted to WhatsApp, particularly from digitally savvy and younger demographics as well as tier 2/3 cities. Wait times of calls have also reduced 25%.

“The ability to seamlessly switch to text, share images (e.g., of an invoice, a sample report format, or a blood test report), or even send links during a voice call (such as a payment link or a website link for package details) significantly enhances the resolution process,” said Kandoi of Redcliffe Labs.

Further, AI agents can now empathise, engage and resolve customer queries remarkably well without the need of any human agent or engineer in the loop, explained Imtiaz Bellary, MD and cofounder of Engati, enterprise customer services platform that serves clients like HCG Hospitals, Dr Agarwal’s Eye, Teach for India, UpGrad, Physics Wallah.

“Our BPO (call center) cost per minute is around Rs 15, including cost of employee, software and training. With WhatsApp + AI, this has come down to Rs 6-7 per minute. As we scale, we believe costs could settle at around Rs 3-4 per minute,” Bellary said.

Meta verified businesses with ‘green tick’ have also allayed the fear of scam calls, companies said.

Meta’s Srinivasan emphasised that WhatsApp does not allow any business to make service/marketing calls without seeking the user’s permission. “Every feature we release is done with the intention of keeping WhatsApp free from spam.”