IVR solutions, or Interactive Voice Response, are some of the best-known components of most contact centre and customer service landscapes. In a world where thousands of customers can call a business in one day, no company could handle all those conversations at once. Interactive Voice Response is a telephony feature that uses an automated attendant to route calls.
IVR technology ensures that companies of any size can always provide a customer with a response when they call – even if it’s just a message letting you know when the office hours are.
Over the years, IVR solutions have emerged as a standard part of any CX and customer service strategy. Yet as technology continues to evolve and customer expectations change, IVR offerings are becoming more advanced too.
Today, the correct software can automatically respond to customer queries using artificial intelligence to enable self-service solutions. Your IVR can even support business compliance by getting permission to record a call before anyone reaches an agent.
Here’s how IVR is driving business growth today.
How IVR Systems Empower Companies
An Interactive Voice Response allows companies to interact with customers and prospects through technology. In the past, this technology was much clunkier than it is today. We’ve all had experiences where we’ve called a company and tried to explain our needs to a machine, only to be met with frustrating, repetitive responses.
Now, IVR solutions are becoming an intelligent and more seamless part of the path to customer support, sales, and service.
Many of the most impressive IVR offerings today come with AI-driven solutions and natural language processing to understand and respond to customer queries faster.
Implemented correctly, IVR solutions can understand keywords spoken by a customer to determine where a call needs to be routed to ensure quicker responses. IVR can also help with things like gathering feedback from clients, offering promotions, and even taking simple payments.
IVR technology has found a purpose in inbound and outbound sales, accounting, loyalty programs, managing bookings, and so much more. Here are some of the ways IVR tech drives business growth.
- Amazing customer service
The right IVR technology helps to keep customers happy by ensuring you can solve problems as quickly as possible. An intelligent system can automatically understand what your customer is asking about using natural language processing to detect keywords. The IVR can then send each call to the right agent based on the skills and experience required to solve the issue.
IVR systems can also handle various actions without the support of a human agent. Many customers today can use automated systems to make simple payments, renew subscriptions, check information, or book appointments. That means your customers get results faster, and you save your agents crucial time on dealing with repetitive queries.
- Saving time and money
Customers appreciate speed and efficiency when it comes to solving problems or getting answers to questions. It’s this demand for speed that has pushed the rapid increase in self-service solutions around the world. An IVR system with custom menus can expedite calls from your customers, answering questions with responses taken from an FAQ script. The same system can even offer customers call-back options, so they don’t have to sit around listening to hold music. The system will simply call the customer back when an agent is available.
Aside from helping to save time, your IVR system can also reduce costs. For instance, one study found than an IVR solution is one of the cheapest ways to improve customer satisfaction. You can also potentially save money with an IVR by sorting through the conversations which don’t need agent attention. This means that you can use your professional resources more effectively.
