As audibene expanded across multiple countries, they encountered the limits of traditional telephony tools. They needed healthcare-grade compliance, deep data visibility, and a way to orchestrate high-volume outreach without asking consultants to juggle systems or sacrifice the personal touch.

Solution

audibene built a custom Power Dialer on Twilio Flex and integrated Programmable Voice, WhatsApp, RCS, and AI. This unified platform allowed them to orchestrate seamless, omnichannel communications that feel simple to consultants and personalized to customers.

"Twilio is at the core of our communications strategy. It lets us build exactly what we need—without being boxed in by the platform."

Kirill Petrovsky Director of Product and AI, audibene

audibene boosts sales with AI-powered, trusted conversations with Twilio

1.2 billion people worldwide suffer from hearing loss, remarkably only few seek help early. The average gap between experiencing hearing loss and getting a hearing aid is seven years. Unsolved hearing loss means a decline in the quantity of conversations and, consequently, weakens the quality of relationships.

audibene, a global leader in hearing care operating in eight countries (using Hear.com brand outside of Europe) with over 1,200 employees and 3,500+ partner audiologists, calls this the "Resistance Trilogy." First, there's psychological resistance: the stigma of aging, the denial that comes with gradual loss. Then financial resistance: hearing aids cost $1,000-$6,000 per pair, and insurance coverage is a maze. Finally, physical unease: the fitting process feels like an intimidating medical procedure.

The complexity of the customer journey, which includes dozens of touchpoints, means people need an active and trusted guide to help them through it.

"To help someone to hear and live well again, we need to establish a trusting relationship with them. And the best way to do this is to have conversations."

Kirill Petrovsky Director of Product and AI, audibene

Building the communication backbone

Twilio became the foundation for audibene's entire communication strategy with voice as the primary channel. The company runs over 30,000 calls weekly through Twilio infrastructure across US, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and South Africa.

The raw infrastructure wasn't enough. audibene needed a system where consultants could focus on people, not logistics. They built a custom Power Dialer on Twilio Flex, deeply integrated with Salesforce via OpenCTI.

"There's a joke in product management that the ideal interface is a single button," said Petrovsky. "But that's what we built. Consultants press Start, and the system surfaces the next most relevant customer: fresh lead, scheduled callback, post-appointment follow-up. The complexity lives in the backend."

The system we built with Twilio automates 90% of work item creation based on 30 different factors: time of day, previous contact attempts, business priority and so on. Consultants benefit from a unified interface that seamlessly integrates Twilio Flex, custom UI components, and backend orchestration services into a single, cohesive system.

Conversations that continue across channels

Hearing care is a relationship, and relationships don't live on a single channel. audibene treats calls as "episodes" and messaging as an "infinite thread." It is not like a series of transactions, but rather like a continuous conversation that picks up wherever the customer left off.

WhatsApp transformed how audibene explains complex topics to customers. Videos demonstrate hearing aid maintenance. Quick replies lower the friction of engagement. If a customer needs to send a photo of a document, they snap a picture and send it directly to their consultant on their preferred channel.

RCS extended that rich, verified experience to customers who don't use WhatsApp - particularly valuable in the US market. The verification badge increases trust, and the flat-price message format means audibene/Hear.com focuses on content rather than counting SMS segments. Within months, RCS became audibene's second most important channel after WhatsApp. For some customer segments, it reduced cost per conversion by 8-9x compared to SMS.

Today, 87% of audibene's messages go through RCS or WhatsApp rather than traditional SMS.

"RCS vs SMS changed the economics for us. Quick replies and rich media make it easier for customers to start and continue conversations. Our system intelligently adapts to the customer's platform; when using SMS, Twilio delivers a message optimized for text-only communication."

Kirill Petrovsky Director of Product and AI, audibene

Trust from the first ring

First impressions happen before anyone says hello. To improve answer rates, audibene uses Branded Calling - displaying the brand name, logo, and reason for the call.
“Branded Calling is a precise engagement booster for specific call categories. With Twilio, setup and testing were simple, so we could validate impact quickly,” Petrovsky said.

AI that expands access, not replaces humans

audibene processes 30,000 calls weekly through an AI pipeline built on Twilio, Deepgram, and AWS Bedrock. The system handles tedious work used to consume hours of consultant time: call quality scoring, extraction of specific hearing issues, and custom call summaries.

But the more ambitious use of AI isn't about efficiency, it's about reaching more people with hearing loss and helping them earlier in their journey. The philosophy isn't replacement but expansion: bots handle the routine and unreachable, freeing consultants for the conversations that require human judgment and empathy.

"For many companies, calls are a cost center. For us, voice is a growth driver. Voice agents let us help more people - available 24/7, responding faster, handling routine questions while our consultants focus on the complex cases that need a human touch."

Kirill Petrovsky Director of Product and AI, audibene

A Builder's approach

audibene builds what differentiates - dialers, AI workflows, consultant experiences - and relies on Twilio for global, secure communications infrastructure. Flex makes the dialer and CRM feel like one tool. Voice and messaging provide reliability and data fidelity. And when questions arise, Twilio Personalized Support acts as a proactive partner.

"We're builders at heart," said Petrovsky. "Healthcare compliance is stricter than most industries, and we're a dynamic company that needs solutions to evolve with the business. Off-the-shelf rarely fits. Our approach is to build solutions for our specific problems, but use proven platforms like Twilio so we're not reinventing infrastructure."

What's next

audibene started with off-the-shelf voice bot solutions to experiment and iterate quickly. As scale demands grew, they needed a proven platform. Twilio ConversationRelay is the next step - providing configurability and scalability, while integrating with the existing infrastructure and consultant-focused workflows.

"More conversations that matter - means more people hearing well and living well" said Petrovsky.