Answering the call: How Beckett Collectibles supercharged its customer support with AI Voice Agents

Some businesses scale at a slow, steady pace. Some take off exponentially. Beckett Collectibles was the latter. The collectibles industry is experiencing a huge resurgence, and that growth has created a very real challenge for Beckett: how do we make sure collectors get timely answers as submission and inquiry volume continues to grow? In an industry built around physical items, many of which carry significant financial or personal meaning, human expertise remains incredibly important. Beckett is actively working with Aircall’s AI Voice Agents to help answer routine questions more efficiently while creating more capacity for the conversations that need a person on the line.

The company

Beckett is one of the most recognized names in collectibles, with two core services: card grading and autograph authentication. Card grading evaluates a trading card’s authenticity, quality, and condition based on centering, corners, edges, and surface, all of which can contribute to its market value. Autograph authentication evaluates signed memorabilia to determine its authenticity.

The items that pass through Beckett are anything but ordinary. They can range from a shoe signed by Michael Jordan to a letter signed by George Washington, along with cards and collectibles that may hold tremendous financial value, personal meaning, or both for the collector who entrusted them to us.

As the collectibles category has grown, so has the volume of submissions and questions coming into Beckett. That growth has made improving the collector’s experience, particularly how quickly and accurately we can provide information, an ongoing priority.

The challenge: one door, a hundred people

Beckett’s customer service team supports collectors across both grading (BGS) and authentication (BAS). Before the team fully implemented Aircall, they fielded roughly 8,000 inquiries a week via email and phone, with phone volume alone reaching 400 to 500 calls per day, Monday through Friday.

The volume made it clear that the existing model needed to evolve.

“For us, this is deeply personal. When a collector sends something to Beckett, we’re not just holding an item. In many cases, we’re holding something they’ve spent years looking for, something that has real financial value, or something that simply means a great deal to them. They deserve to be able to get an answer when they need one. We’re actively working to make that experience better, and Aircall is helping us create more ways to get collectors the information they need while making sure our customer service team is available when a human conversation is needed.”

— Adrian Colón, Director of Growth and Collector Experience, Beckett

The issue wasn’t the customer service team’s effort. The challenge was creating a better way to manage the volume, resolve straightforward inquiries quickly, and preserve human capacity for the situations that require it.

“The challenge is making sure every collector has a path to the right answer. Some questions can be resolved quickly with the right information, while others absolutely need a person. We’re continuing to build the experience so those two paths work together rather than compete with each other.”

A significant portion of incoming calls are routine questions that can often be answered without requiring a live agent. Order status remains one of the biggest drivers, alongside first-time submission questions, service information, and appointment-related inquiries.

“The opportunity is to make information easier to access in the moment a collector needs it. If we can answer a straightforward question immediately, that creates a better experience for that collector and gives our customer service team more capacity to focus on the situations that truly require human support.”

The turning point

Beckett began exploring Aircall’s AI Voice Agents as another way to improve accessibility for collectors and better support the customer service team as inquiry volume continued to grow.

“We’re actively looking at where collectors are getting stuck, what questions they’re asking most often, and where technology can help us respond faster without losing the human element. This is not something we consider finished. It’s something we’re continuing to build and improve as we learn.”

The team began testing their AI Voice Agent, building out the knowledge base, and learning how the quality and depth of that information directly shaped the collector’s experience.

“What became clear pretty quickly is that the experience gets better as the knowledge behind it gets better. If the AI doesn’t know an answer, that’s okay. That tells us where we have a gap. Our responsibility is to learn from that interaction, strengthen the knowledge base, and make sure we’re better equipped to answer that question the next time.”

As the knowledge base developed, Beckett worked with Aircall to integrate their AI Voice Agent with the company’s CRM, HubSpot. The work continues today as both teams refine the experience, identify knowledge gaps, and expand what the Agent can support.

What their AI Voice Agent does now

Beckett’s AI Voice Agent is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It helps resolve routine inquiries and provides another layer of support before a conversation needs to reach a human agent.

The most valuable piece is order status, which is directly wired into HubSpot:

“Order status is a great example of where this can help. When a collector provides an invoice or order number, the Voice Agent can use the information available through HubSpot to help explain where that order is in the process. We’re continuing to refine the information behind those responses so they are as useful and accurate as possible.”

The AI Voice Agent can help address straightforward inquiries while allowing collectors with more complex needs to move toward human support. That creates additional capacity for the customer service team, but Beckett continues to work on the handoff itself to ensure agents are available when a collector needs one.

Maintaining a clear path to a person remains an important part of the experience. Beckett is actively refining how and when those handoffs occur so collectors who need human support can reach the customer service team as efficiently as possible.

“Creating capacity is only part of the equation. We also have to make sure that when the AI Voice Agent needs to hand a conversation to a person, we have the right process and enough available capacity for someone to respond. That is still a work in progress, but we’ve made meaningful strides, and the AI Voice Agent has been very supportive in helping us get there.”

Call recordings and AI-generated call summaries can flow back into HubSpot, helping give the customer service team additional context around collector interactions.

The results

Answer rate: 20% → 80%

One of the clearest early indicators has been the improvement in Beckett’s ability to answer incoming calls.

“We’ve seen our answer rate improve from roughly 20% to around 80%, which is meaningful progress. But we don’t look at that number and say the work is done. We’re continuing to focus on what happens after the call is answered, whether the collector gets the right information, and whether a human handoff happens successfully when one is needed.”

~25 second wait times, back inside SLA

“We’ve also seen wait times improve significantly, with pickup times during the measured period averaging around 25 seconds. That’s encouraging, and now the focus is on making sure speed is matched by the quality and consistency of the experience.”

20% of rep capacity returned

The implementation has also created additional capacity for Beckett’s customer service team.

“We’ve seen the AI Voice Agent return meaningful capacity to the team, with earlier measurements showing roughly 20% more available time for our reps. That matters, but capacity only helps if we use it well. We’re actively working to make sure that time translates into faster, better support for collectors who need a person.”

That additional capacity gives the customer service team more opportunity to focus on complex or sensitive situations that require human judgment and conversation, while Beckett continues to refine staffing, routing, and handoff processes.

Nights and weekends covered

The AI Voice Agent runs around the clock, giving collectors another way to access information outside Beckett’s staffed phone hours, including nights and weekends.

How customers have responded

Collector feedback continues to play an important role in how Beckett develops the experience.

“We know collectors are going to have different levels of comfort with AI, and we need to listen to that. The goal is not to force someone into an automated experience. It’s to give them another useful way to get an answer while continuing to improve access to our customer service team when they need a person.”

That responsibility continues to shape how Beckett approaches the technology.

“AI is a tool to support our people and our collectors. It is not a replacement for the human side of customer service. If anything, the goal is to use it in a way that gives our team more time and capacity to be there when a collector truly needs them.”

A surprising benefit

One of the most useful aspects of AI Voice Agent has been its ability to interpret how collectors naturally ask questions rather than relying only on rigid phrasing.

“What matters to me is not whether the technology sounds impressive. It’s whether it helps a collector get to the right answer. Every interaction gives us another opportunity to understand what people are asking, where our information may be unclear, and what we need to improve.”

Because collectors can ask the same question in many different ways, the ability to understand intent is an important part of the experience. Beckett continues to build the knowledge behind their AI Voice Agent so that its responses are grounded in the information collectors actually need.

What’s next?

There are currently two expansions under discussion. The first is Beckett’s customer relations function, which handles problematic orders (e.g., items damaged in transit or lost in production) through outbound calls, and a dedicated inbound line.

Additionally, this work includes evaluating how AI Voice Agents’ capabilities may support collectors across different markets and communication channels over time, while ensuring the experience fits how collectors in those markets actually prefer to communicate.

Advice to other CS leaders

For other customer service leaders considering an AI Voice Agent, Colón recommends starting with the problem rather than the technology.

“I wouldn’t start with AI just because AI is the thing everyone is talking about. Start with the collector problem you’re trying to solve. Understand where people are getting stuck, what your team is spending time on, and where technology can genuinely make the experience better. Then keep learning from it. For us, this is forever a work in progress, and that’s the point. We want to keep building it alongside Aircall as our collectors, our business, and the way people communicate continue to evolve.”

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