Cognizant of the cost of inaction, a majority of network carriers and companies studied by Hiya said they are planning to increase their investment in voice security in 2023

Hiya, the leading Voice Security Platform, has announced its annual study on the use of the voice call by businesses and consumers worldwide. Including input from thousands of consumers and companies, as well as network carriers, and taking into account data from over 243 billion phone calls, the 2023 State of the Call report from Hiya is the most comprehensive telecom industry report of its kind.

Hiya’s research determined that 10% of all 243.5 billion phone calls that passed through its network in 2022 were spam or fraud. The annual report, which sought to understand the various voice call-related challenges and opportunities facing businesses, consumers and regulators, identified a series of surprising trends and data points.

“Spam calls – including both illegal fraud calls as well as legal nuisance calls – are increasing in frequency,” said Kush Parikh, Hiya President. “Unwanted calls erode consumer trust in their favorite communication tool – the phone – and therefore make it harder for legitimate, trusted businesses to reach them by phone. As we examined in this report, that has very real consequences for sales, customer experience and other critical areas.”

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“Spam calls – including both illegal fraud calls as well as legal nuisance calls – are increasing in frequency”

Overall, Hiya’s report highlighted several key voice call-related trends:

Voice is still the go-to choice for the most important communications

Nearly half (47%) of consumers surveyed prefer phone calls when interacting with healthcare providers. Email is a distant second at 16% followed by text messaging (6%) and live chat (5%). Similarly, 37% of consumers prefer voice for banking and financial transactions compared with 23% who prefer email and 5% who preference text messaging.

Workers and consumers who rely on the phone are using it more than ever

48% of workers said their use of the phone increased over the last 12 months, and 42% expect the use to increase over the next year. Meanwhile, 42% of consumers said their use of the phone increased over the past 12 months, and 34% expect it to increase this year.

Businesses are being hurt by their inability to connect with customers via the phone

38% of workers reported that their business has been financially impacted by an inability to reach prospects and/or customers. While that’s a problem globally, it’s especially urgent in the US, UK and Spain, where more than half of professionals in each country reported a negative financial impact as a result of being unable to connect with prospects and customers by phone. 42% said they lost customers or a potential deal due to an inability to connect by phone.

Phone spam and fraud are problems in every major geographic market

In the US, spam accounted for 35% of all calls while fraud was only .9%. In the UK, 28% of calls were spam and 13% were fraud. In Canada, spam and fraud calls were 21% and 6%, respectively. In France, 43% of calls were spam and 2% fraud. In Germany, spam was 21% of all calls and fraud was .21%. In Spain, spam and fraud were 44% and 5%, respectively.

Spam and fraud calls cost consumers time and money

In the US, consumers lost an average of $431.26 last year due to phone spam or fraud. Among countries surveyed, Canada had the highest rate of loss in 2022 at $472.87 on average per consumer, while the average UK consumer lost $324.04. In France, Germany and Spain, consumers lost $360.62, $325.87 and $282.35, respectively, in 2022.

Consumers also reported a significant loss of time due to phone spam and fraud in 2022. In the US, consumers lost 31.87 minutes on average, the most of all the countries surveyed, followed by Spain (27.44 minutes), Canada (27.21 minutes), France (27.04 minutes) and the UK (23.34 minutes). Consumers in Germany lost the least amount of time – 22.47 minutes.

Businesses can improve the phone experience for customers by focusing on trust

The vast majority of consumers – 87% – across all surveyed markets think unidentified numbers may be fraudulent, and one in three consumers say that a spoofed/impersonated call made them suspicious of any calls coming from that business. This creates an opportunity for businesses and carriers: By investing in call trust and security, they can improve the overall customer experience, while eliminating undesirable effects like lost sales in the process. To wit, 63% of carriers said their investment in voice security and call protection will increase in 2023.

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