Replying with voice notes saves your support team hours, and hours are money

Most support replies are written twice: once in your head and once on the keyboard. The first is quick. The second, not so much.

On average, people speak at 130 to 150 words a minute. Typing on a computer, the average is around 40. Saying the same thing out loud takes roughly a third of the time.

Let's do the maths

An example with round numbers. Your team sends 40 replies a day, each about 120 words long:

• Typed, at 40 words a minute, that's 3 minutes per reply: 2 hours a day.
• Spoken, at 140 words a minute, it's under a minute per reply: about 35 minutes a day.

That's almost an hour and a half a day, around 30 hours a month. If an hour of your team's time costs €20, that's about €600 a month no longer spent typing. And that's before counting how heavy each reply feels when something needs a careful explanation.

These are rough numbers: not every reply is 120 words, and not every reply can be spoken. But the ratio holds. Every long reply that is said instead of typed gives time back to your team.

It's not only speed

It's easier to understand. A voice note carries tone. "Don't worry, we're looking into it now" said out loud reassures more than written down, especially a user who arrives upset.

Explaining is easier. What takes three paragraphs and a list in writing, you can say the way you'd tell someone sitting next to you.

It's less tiring. Typing twenty replies in a row wears you out. Talking, much less.

How it works in Helpeen

In the inbox, next to the reply box, there's a microphone. You record your reply (up to 10 minutes) and send it like any other message. It's on every plan.

On the Basic and Pro plans, Helpeen also transcribes the audio. You see the text before sending and can correct it. Your user gets the audio in the chat with its transcript underneath, so they can listen or read depending on where they are. If we notify them by email, the email carries the transcript.

If the user speaks another language and translation is on, they get the translated text of your note, in their language.

And it works both ways: your users can send you voice notes too, from the chat or from your public mailbox. With Basic and Pro you read them transcribed, without reaching for your headphones.

When writing is better

Voice doesn't solve everything. Keep writing when:

• the reply has exact details, like a link, a code or an amount;
• it's steps the user will follow while reading, better as a numbered list;
• it's a question you get every week. That calls for an FAQ, so you stop getting it.

For everything else, which is a lot, try replying out loud for a week and compare.