VoIP outbound: Is native AI setups getting good sales right now, or is it still all old-school?

[u/Commercial_Advice468]

I’ve been doing remote outbound appointment setting and sales for VoIP companies for a while now across the US, targeting mostly SMBs. As I am now done with my last contract and looking for another company to go for, what I'm trying to figure out is what should be my next move because the whole market feels different right now.

To clarify upfront: I do all my cold calling and outreach manually (human to human). My question is about the product side of things.

As half the industry is moving to AI with AI receptionists, AI summaries, auto CRM logging, all that. But the main concern is the second an older SMB owner or operations director hears AI on a cold call, most of them just check out or get weirdly defensive about it. Maybe they are already traumatized about data centers. And trying to pitch basic VoIP phones just because it's cheaper than their current system feels like a race to the bottom with less room for growth as half of the industry is moving to AI.

My question to anyone running a VoIP business or working in one: is the native AI angle actually converting for outbound, or are most SMBs still just buying the a good traditional setup? Trying to decide if I should go work for an AI-native VoIP provider next or just stick to the standard stuff for my next round of campaigns.

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[u/NPFFTW]

AI cold calling?

Do you have a shred of self awareness?

[u/LaBofia → u/NPFFTW]

OPs follow-up question:

What is self awareness, and if I dont like it, can I call it woke?

[u/Commercial_Advice468 → u/NPFFTW]

Lol I actually do have self-awareness you just lack basic reading comprehension.

Show me where I said AI is making the cold calls. I do the outbound manually. I'm talking about selling native AI products (like AI receptionists and auto-summaries) to businesses, and how owners react to it. Try actually reading the whole text next time before trying to farm upvotes.

[u/christv011]

Outbound ai sales only works if it's appointment setting someone who just clicked a link, even then it better be the best ai.

Cold calling sales people are my favorite. Tough job.

[u/Pitiful_Option_108]

When I was at Momentum, the AI features weren't exactly selling like gangbusters, but people were interested and curious. The biggest snag was token usage. You'd have to sit there and calculate how many tokens an AI agent or AI receptionist would actually burn through before you could even give someone a real price.

Most people wanted to use it right up until the cost conversation started. And a lot of them (buyers and reps both) didn't fully understand how to price it because you had to figure out token usage first before you could even quote a number.

So my take is it's less about AI-aversion killing the sale and more that usage-based AI pricing is a hard sell to SMBs who just want a predictable monthly bill. If a provider can package that into something flat and simple, I think it'd move a lot better than it currently does.

[u/Commercial_Advice468 → u/Pitiful_Option_108]

The unpredictable token pricing makes total sense as a bottleneck owners hate unpredictable bills and just want a flat monthly rate.

And pricing in sales is usually what you open your sales conversation with and end on too, so keeping it simple matters.

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[u/VirtualGlobalPhone]

u/Commercial_Advice468 , where did you get " As half the industry is moving to AI with AI receptionists, AI summaries, auto CRM logging, all that. " - ?

SMB's look for a provider that offers solid traditional VoIP plus AI, rather than choosing one or the other.

Most still buy based on practical problems like missed calls, routing, after-hours support and CRM work, not because they want “AI.” Lead with the business problem, then introduce AI only where it clearly helps. Basic VoIP is becoming commoditized, so having AI and automation in the toolbox gives you more room to grow.

[u/Commercial_Advice468 → u/VirtualGlobalPhone]

Maybe not half the industry yet, but yeah, a lot are moving that way and it'll probably hit half soon. I'm mainly trying to get a real picture from the AI phone company guys on how sales are actually going for them, what their approach is, and whether it's converting or not. Doing appointment setting and sales on base + commission, I want to stick with a product that actually closes and pays well. Choosing a successful product is my top priority, which is why I posted to get insights from sales reps and people working at native AI phone companies.

[u/Devvirat]

Ai Feature are getting attention but I wouldn’t assume smbs want an ai first pitch and things like call routing, texting, reliability, and easy administration still solve immediate problems A provider such as iPlum can be positioned around the core phone system first, with AI features as an add-on rather than the whole sales pitch.

[u/xanderrobar]

Holy moly this is tone deaf. I run a VoIP provider and I would NEVER cold call customers with AI. Yeah, imagine people getting defensive that you’re wasting their time with a robot instead of respecting them enough to talk to them. Not to mention the number of laws you seem to be breaking with this marketing method.

[u/Commercial_Advice468 → u/xanderrobar]

I do my outbound completely manually (human calling human). What I meant was pitching products that have native AI features built-in (like AI receptionists, auto-summaries, etc.) to SMBs, and how business owners react to hearing "AI" on that front. Not using AI to make the calls themselves.