Effective Auto Attendant Design for Cloud Contact Centers
Contributed by Ellen Cahill, Sr. VP Marketing, AireSpring,
ellen.cahill@airespring.com
Many contact centers are taking advantage of auto attendants to take some of the work load off agents or to provide customer support after hours. In some cases, companies can even use auto attendants to serve as a screen for all calls and automatically handle basic issues. The advantages of this approach are obvious; an auto attendant can work round the clock and can handle multiple calls at once without leaving customers waiting on hold. It is also significantly less expensive than having additional employees to answer these calls.
While an auto attendant can be a huge benefit to a contact center when implemented properly, it can also be a source of frustration for customers if designed poorly. VoIP and telecom technology company Software Advice has released a report on auto attendants, covering both how small businesses use them and how customers respond to them.
Despite the growth of omni-channel communications, a lot of customers still use the phone to reach out to businesses. Almost half, 48 percent, of the customers surveyed by Software Advice reported using the phone for their initial contact. That means the interaction with an auto attendant forms the first impression for a considerable number of customers. Furthermore, if that interaction is a bad experience, 42 percent of customers will take their business elsewhere.
With these high stakes in mind, how can contact centers ensure that they deliver a good experience via their auto attendants? The first step to answering this question is to identify what exactly results in a bad experience for customers. When customers were asked what their top pain points were when interacting with an auto attendant, 29 percent said long introductions and 28 percent said too many options. Additionally, 20 percent identified not receiving enough information to pick the correct option as their biggest problem and 13 percent said their challenge was that menu options weren’t properly ordered by importance.
From these numbers, it is clear that contact centers need to keep introductions and menu options brief, while still providing the appropriate information for callers to choose the right option. The majority of businesses surveyed, 58 percent, keep their auto attendant greeting at less than 3 seconds in length and 93 percent have menus less than one minute long.
The number of options in the menu will naturally change according to the size and complexity of a contact center. A combined 8 percent of the organizations surveyed reported only having one or two menu options. For most businesses, however, the sweet point is at 4 or 5 options. The limit appears to be at 8 options, as only 6 percent of businesses exceed that number. As for what these menu options are, the most common use is to list the different departments within a business. Rather than list individual extensions, a business can employ a dial-by-name directory to keep menus short while still providing access to each employee if needed.
One of the benefits of cloud contact center software is the ability to provide contact centers with an auto attendant to handle customer calls in an effective, cost efficient, and professional manner. By taking into account the information available, contact centers can design their auto attendants to deliver the best possible customer experience.