Can a Voice Assistant Replace traditional calling?

Recently, we ran a small project where we called school teachers to collect very basic information: how often they assign homework, how long corrections take, and how quickly results are published. Simple questions—but anyone who has tried calling Indian teachers during exam season knows, this is no small task.

Traditional Calling

We had one person making calls for 2 hours every day—about 10 hours a week. She had to:

• Pull phone numbers, names, and emails from the CRM,

• Dial manually from her phone (and of course listen to “the number you are trying to reach is currently busy” at least 5 times an hour),

• Return to the CRM to log call notes and update statuses like “connected,” “disconnected,” or “call me after lunch.”

While this process allowed for genuine human connection, multitasking was like juggling three tiffin boxes and two school bags in one hand.

Voice Assistant Advantages

Now imagine if we had used an AI voice bot:

• Calls run automatically, without anyone dialing numbers.

• Contacts and responses flow straight into the CRM, faster than a Swiggy delivery.

• Data entry, tagging, and statuses update instantly—no chai breaks needed.

• Scale goes through the roof—hundreds of calls in the time a human manages a handful.

• Huge cost savings, since repetitive tasks don’t consume human hours (or patience).

The Limitations

Of course, there’s a trade-off. Teachers might not feel entirely comfortable speaking to an AI voice. Humans bring empathy, flexibility, and that warmth of a “Namaste ma’am, how are you today?”—qualities an AI voice still struggles to fake or out of syllabus questions from teachers.

Striking a Balance

For factual, transactional data collection (like “How many homework assignments this week?”), AI voice assistants are a huge win. But for conversations requiring context, persuasion, or emotional connection (like convincing a strict Maths teacher why the syllabus is running late).

The smartest approach may be a hybrid: let AI handle the repetitive groundwork, while people invest their energy where genuine human presence matters.

After all, even the best AI cannot say “Beta, eat your tiffin first, then we’ll talk” in the way a real teacher can.

What are your thoughts??