Voice is one of the most used and most misread customer engagement channels in Indian business today.

Businesses know it matters, but many aren't sure they’re using it right. The decisions being made about voice are often based more on intuition than on evidence. 

We surveyed 1,000+ consumers and 500+ businesses across 17 cities to build The State of Business Calling 2026. The findings challenge widely held assumptions about where voice fits in the modern customer engagement stack. It gives businesses a data-backed picture of what's actually driving behavior on both sides of a call.

The report maps how voice adoption varies across industries, what customers actually need from a call to find it worthwhile, what's eroding connect rates, and where the channel is headed next.

Read on for the key highlights of the report.  Access the full report here: [LINK]

76% of Indian consumers still prefer a voice call from a business 

The data holds on the business side as well. Voice is the most widely adopted customer engagement channel across Indian enterprises, ahead of text messages and email. 

56% of Indian businesses have made voice their most adopted customer engagement channel. The adoption cuts across industries: BFSI at 52%, IT and tech at 60%, tourism and hospitality at 74%, and healthcare at 74%.

When businesses need to engage with customers on something that matters, they reach for the phone. 

When asked why they prefer voice, consumers point to the quality of the interaction – not convenience or speed. Voice delivers clarity and comfort when conversations feel impersonal, and resolution when needed. No other channel does all three at once. 

79% of businesses say customers avoid calls from unrecognized numbers 

These are the same consumers who say they prefer voice calls. But this is not a consumer behavior issue. It’s more of a recognition problem. 

When the phone rings, the customer makes a fast decision based on the one thing in front of them: the number. If they don't recognize it, they don't pick up, however legitimate or well-intentioned that call is.

Behind the scenes, business calling has become more structured than ever, with registration requirements standardizing how businesses reach customers. But the customer doesn't see the system working. They just see a number they don’t recognize. But recognition is what they respond to.  

When customers are asked what would make them more likely to take a business call, the answers all point to the moment before they pick up. 43% want to clearly see who's calling and the company behind it. 25% want to know why they're being called before they answer. 

The fix is to make the call recognisable while it’s still ringing. 

A call from a name the customer knows, for a reason that's clear, is a call worth answering. 

Voice outperforms every other channel on soft metrics that drive hard results

Trustworthiness leads at 47%. CSAT at 42%. Personal connection and emotional reassurance both rank well ahead of response rate and cost per interaction, which rank at the bottom at 31% and 30%, respectively. The metrics the business commonly tracks for voice are the ones that voice influences the least. 

Despite a higher cost per interaction, most business leaders recognize voice as a high-return channel. 

49% of consumers want the ability to schedule callbacks 

The single biggest improvement any business could make to voice calling is letting customers schedule a callback at a time that works for them. More than caller identity transparency, more than data privacy assurance, customers are asking for scheduling. 

But where businesses plan to invest over the next 12 months tells a different story: 

Businesses are building trust signals to make calls look more credible before they’re answered. But customers are asking for control over when those calls happen. 

38% of Gen Z say voice calls are important to them

Most businesses have written Gen Z off as a demographic that doesn't pick up calls. The data says otherwise. 

Younger consumers rely on voice for personal connection, not just issue resolution. Voice is the most human channel available, and that’s precisely why it works for them. 

Voice calls matter across all demographics. But how a business uses the channel should reflect the customer's age, occupation, and expectations of speed or clarity.

Voice, as a channel, carries many assumptions: that it's fading, that younger audiences don't want it, and that digital is always the smarter investment. The data tells a more complicated story.

The State of Business Calling 2026 provides businesses with an evidence-based picture of where voice stands in India today, along with a framework for using that information. 

The full report details how adoption and performance differ across industries, the regional gaps that a national strategy tends to miss, and the Voice Adoption Index, a benchmarking tool that measures how strategically a business is using voice. 

Access the full report here: https://bizconnect.truecaller.com/hubfs/Truecaller%20Business%20-%20The%20State%20of%20Calling%20Report%202026.pdf