Connect with us

Technology

Hear Me Out: Consumer Study Reveals Phone Still Reigns in Customer Service

Published

on

New data shows 86% of Gen Z ditches digital-first for phone support

NEW YORK and LONDON, Feb. 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — PolyAI, a global leader in voice AI solutions for customer experience and service, reveals that 65% of Americans prefer a phone call as their primary method of contacting customer service for retail and travel brands. Perhaps more surprising, 86% of Gen Z and younger Millennial participants prefer the voice channel for support, breaking the stereotype that young people don’t like to talk on the phone.

A recent survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, commissioned by PolyAI and conducted by Dynata,  indicated a general openness to engage conversational AI, as long as it offers accurate and efficient support, especially during high-demand periods. While 55% of respondents are likely to immediately ask for a representative if they hear a robotic IVR (interactive voice response), 71% of consumers are willing to speak to an intelligent voice assistant if it could accurately fulfill their customer service needs (process a return, perform a price match, answer questions, etc).

“The survey’s findings echo what we’re hearing from brands we work with: their customers don’t like being on hold nor do they trust the ability of old school IVRs to solve their issue. This sentiment was born from decades of stagnation in contact center technology, which has historically been about operational efficiency over the customer experience,” said Nikola Mrkšić, co-founder and CEO of PolyAI. “Now, people are not only embracing capable AI solutions, they’re demanding those solutions be available wherever they decide to contact a business. Two big findings from this survey: customers of all ages prefer the phone, and that accuracy, speed and convenience are the keys to winning loyalty.”

The results confirm Mrkšić’s observations, as 52% of consumers feel “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” using voice assistants to interact with customer service, specifically within retail and travel verticals. Surprisingly, 86% of Gen-Z and younger millennials surveyed named the phone as their preferred support channel, bucking the notion that nobody under 30 places calls anymore. (Sorry, Mom.)

During the 2024 holiday season, U.S. online spending rose 9%, influenced in part by the ubiquity of smartphones and how easy it is to make a purchase on them — with just a few taps, users can buy basically anything, even bypassing the need to input credit card info because of digital wallets. Shopping on a smartphone is quick, and when someone reaches out to customer service, they want response times to be quick, too. In fact, 58% of consumers would like to see faster response rates from retail and travel brands during the holiday season, and those retailers using voice AI solutions will be at an advantage over those that do not. Voice AI can efficiently and effectively handle inquiry surges by slashing hold times and exceeding customer expectations, even during record-breaking shopping periods.

To learn more about PolyAI, visit www.poly.ai.

About PolyAI
PolyAI specializes in creating the most lifelike conversational AI voice assistants in the world. With a focus on delivering exceptional customer service, PolyAI serves a wide range of high-call volume industries and is committed to revolutionizing the ways customers interact with brands through advanced, remarkably human voice AI solutions. PolyAI’s performance has earned spots in Forbes AI 50, Gartner Cool Vendors and Market Guide for Conversational AI Solutions, as well as a Gold Stevie Award for Contact Center Solutions in 2024. For more information, visit their website at www.poly.ai.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hear-me-out-consumer-study-reveals-phone-still-reigns-in-customer-service-302388709.html

SOURCE PolyAI

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

Bloomberg Introduces Spread-to-Benchmark Quoting for EUR and GBP Portfolio Trading Baskets

Published

on

By

LONDON, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Bloomberg today announced the launch of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting and trading for Euro (EUR) and Sterling (GBP) denominated portfolio trades through its Portfolio Trading Basket Builder (PTBB). The new functionality expands the range of quoting protocols available for European credit portfolio trading and reflects growing client demand for spread-based execution workflows, alongside increased dealer support for the convention across EUR and GBP markets.

Spread-to-Benchmark quoting is a well-established protocol for USD credit portfolio trades and is used by market participants to evaluate and execute portfolio trades. By extending this workflow to EUR and GBP portfolio trades, Bloomberg enables clients and dealers to transact using a familiar spread-based methodology across additional credit markets. 

The introduction of Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets reflects increased client interest in evaluating portfolio trades through a spread-based lens and the growing adoption of spread-based execution workflows in European credit markets. The workflow provides market participants with an additional framework for assessing the relationship between credit spread risk and underlying government bond yields when pricing and executing portfolio trades. 

Additional Workflow Flexibility 
The workflow complements Bloomberg’s existing portfolio trading capabilities, which support the full range of market-standard quoting conventions, including Price, Yield, Spread-to-Benchmark and Spread based workflows that reference Bloomberg’s evaluated pricing service (BVAL). This gives clients flexibility to compare and execute portfolio trades using the quoting methodology that best aligns with their investment objectives, execution preferences and internal risk management processes. 

“European credit clients continue to look for execution workflows that reflect how they evaluate risk and monitor portfolio trading outcomes,” said Harry Street, Global Head of Credit and Equities Trading Product at Bloomberg. “By expanding dealer support for Spread-to-Benchmark quoting for EUR and GBP baskets, Bloomberg is broadening the range of workflow options available to clients trading European credit portfolios.” 

“Portfolio trading workflows in fixed income continue to become more sophisticated as institutional investors look for ways to evaluate execution quality in changing market conditions,” said Kevin McPartland, Head of Market Structure & Technology Research at Crisil Coalition Greenwich. “Spread-based quoting helps market participants more clearly distinguish between the impacts of credit spread and underlying rates movements when determining how best to execute a portfolio trade.” 

Bloomberg’s Electronic Markets solutions are used by leading financial institutions to trade efficiently in over 175 markets around the world. More than 9,000 client firms use Bloomberg Electronic Markets to access industry-leading depth and breadth of liquidity across asset classes from over 800 dealers globally. Bloomberg Electronic Markets provides market participants with comprehensive solutions across the trading lifecycle, including robust price transparency, analytics, automation and execution, powered by Bloomberg’s high-quality, multi-asset class data and tools.

About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bloomberg-introduces-spread-to-benchmark-quoting-for-eur-and-gbp-portfolio-trading-baskets-302787922.html

SOURCE Bloomberg L.P.

Continue Reading

Technology

Dr. Sunho Kang, a senior battery-technology executive with leadership experience at major global battery and EV manufacturers, joins TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology

Published

on

By

SAN FRANCISCO, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — TeraWatt Technology Inc. (Headquartered in California, USA) is pleased to announce that Dr. Sunho Kang has joined the company as Head of Product and Technology.

Dr. Kang is a globally recognized battery-technology executive with more than 25 years of leadership experience spanning the United States, Asia, and Europe, and a distinguished track record of advancing innovations from laboratory research through gigafactory-scale production. He has held senior executive positions at world-leading organizations including Samsung SDI, Apple, and Volkswagen Group of America, and brings deep expertise in lithium-ion battery materials, cell engineering, and product industrialization across a broad range of applications, including electric vehicles and energy storage systems.

At TeraWatt, Dr. Kang will lead global product development and the commercialization of TeraWatt’s battery technology platform, aiming to accelerate the delivery of TeraWatt’s competitive products as well as the technology and commercialization roadmap including manufacturing scale-up.

Dr. Kang commented:

“I am thrilled to join TeraWatt Technology as Head of Product and Technology. TeraWatt’s innovative battery platform presents a tremendous opportunity to push the boundaries of lithium-ion technology, and I look forward to working with the team to accelerate product development and commercialization to deliver meaningful impact.”

TeraWatt Technology founder CEO Ken Ogata, Ph.D. commented:

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kang as our Head of Product and Technology. His deep expertise in battery materials, cell engineering, and productization will be instrumental in accelerating TeraWatt’s product roadmap and technology leadership. Together with Dr. Kang, we will continue to drive our mission forward.”

About TeraWatt Technology Inc.
TeraWatt Technology Inc. is a California-based company that produces lightweight, high-power, and safe next-generation lithium-ion batteries.

Company Overview
Name: TeraWatt Technology Inc.
Representative: Co-founder and CEO Ken Ogata
Headquarters: 28 Geary St, Suite 650, San Francisco, CA 94108, United States
Founded: January 2020
Established: December 2019
URL: https://www.terawatt-technology.com/

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dr-sunho-kang-a-senior-battery-technology-executive-with-leadership-experience-at-major-global-battery-and-ev-manufacturers-joins-terawatt-technology-as-head-of-product-and-technology-302786854.html

SOURCE TeraWatt Technology Inc.

Continue Reading

Technology

Tencent Cloud and Soniox Announce Strategic Partnership: Combining Advanced Speech-to-Text (STT) Technology with Global Real-Time Infrastructure

Published

on

By

HONG KONG, June 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of global technology company Tencent, today announced a strategic partnership with Soniox, a San Francisco-based speech AI company that specializes in developing high-accuracy, low-latency speech AI solutions. The collaboration integrates Soniox’s speech-to-text (STT) technology with Tencent Cloud’s Real-Time Communication (TRTC) enterprise-grade global infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build and deploy multilingual voice AI applications across 200+ countries and regions.

Elevating Enterprise Voice AI at a Global Scale

In enterprise voice AI deployments, latency directly affects user experience and application reliability. The integration of Soniox’s high-accuracy, low-latency STT with TRTC’s global transmission infrastructure reduces latency across the entire pipeline, creating a comprehensive end-to-end solution for enterprises deploying conversational AI applications worldwide.    

Soniox is the voice platform for every language. Unlike legacy speech AI, which was built primarily for English-speakers, Soniox delivers native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages. Its technology can handle mid-sentence language switching — a user can switch between English and Chinese in a single utterance, and Soniox will capture every word with complete accuracy. All of this works through a single API that works for both speech-to-text and text-to-speech.

By integrating TRTC, the partnership leverages an enterprise-grade real-time communication backbone featuring more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300 ms worldwide latency, and advanced capabilities such as AI noise suppression and weak-network resilience. These capabilities enable conversational AI applications to operate reliably across diverse network environments, including regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa.

With the roll out of this partnership, developers can integrate the Soniox STT API directly within the Tencent Cloud console. Whether targeting English-speaking markets or supporting languages such as Arabic, Hindi, and Malay, enterprises can build global voice applications — including intelligent customer service, voice assistants, real-time translation, and meeting transcription — to address the demands of expansion into emerging markets and multilingual scenarios.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, stated: “Tencent RTC has always been committed to providing reliable real-time communication infrastructure for global enterprises. Our partnership with Soniox brings together our strengths in enterprise-grade audio transmission and Soniox’s advanced speech recognition technology. Together, we are making it easier for businesses to deploy accurate, low-latency voice AI applications across any language and any market.”

Klemen Simonic, CEO at Soniox Inc., stated “At Soniox, our mission is to help businesses understand every word, in any language, with native speaker accuracy and exceptional speed. Partnering with Tencent Cloud combines our speech AI with world-class real-time infrastructure, enabling enterprises to build voice AI experiences that scale globally with low latency and reliability.”

About Tencent Cloud:

Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

About Tencent RTC:

Tencent RTC provides real-time communication solutions, including audio/video calling, live streaming, and in-game voice. With enterprise-grade security, AI-powered enhancements, and a global network of over 3,200 nodes, Tencent RTC powers mission-critical communication for customers worldwide.

About Soniox:

Soniox is a next-generation voice AI company bringing about the end of English-first speech AI. Most people on the planet did not grow up speaking English and often mix languages mid-sentence; and yet legacy speech AI was built for just English. Soniox is different: native-speaker accuracy across 60+ languages, true mid-sentence language switching, and flawless alphanumeric recognition that legacy providers still can’t match. For developers building global apps, Soniox is the only option. Try it for yourself at soniox.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/tencent-cloud-and-soniox-announce-strategic-partnership-combining-advanced-speech-to-text-stt-technology-with-global-real-time-infrastructure-302786832.html

SOURCE Tencent Cloud

Continue Reading

Trending