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IVR for Call Centers

by Charlie Smith, Plum Voice - March 31, 2014

IVR for Call Centers by Charlie Smith, Plum Voice

Interactive voice response (IVR) systems began life as auto-attendants answering and redirecting phone calls, but they’ve grown to so much more. One place they shine is in call centers.

Big organizations and service-oriented companies can receive thousands of calls every day. Their call centers are the lifeblood of their business.

Handling all those calls is a big investment in staff, which is a drain on the company profit margin. Automating is as big of a deal in call centers as it is anywhere else.

Back in the day, IVRs were robotic, slow-navigating and very limited. However, despite Citibank’s “big boy” commercial a few years ago with the guy on the phone trying to get to a call agent through a difficult automated system, IVRs are anything but robotic, slow and limited today.

In recent years, IVR technology has advanced as computer-processing speed has increased, enabling voice applications to bridge the gap between limited robot and actual human.

IVRs these days have much more natural speech patterns and far more capability. Before, they only offered specific choices to callers and only understood precise phrases. These days, callers can speak normally and converse with the IVR.

It’s not just: “Press one for billing…” And the caller presses one.

It’s: “What can I help you with today?” And the caller saying: “I want to check my account balance…”

IVRs can also handle a number of functions beyond question and answer, such as bill pay. They’ve progressed to the point where they can perform the functions of a call agent for all but the most involved issues. And they do it naturally, conversationally. (They even have names like Mary and Joe.)

Today’s call centers can reduce their staff to a handful of agents for the difficult calls. Their IVRs can handle the rest. For an unlimited number of lines, so customers don’t have to wait for an answer.

And customer satisfaction isn’t a concern as long as the call-flow is well-written. In fact, callers now prefer the ease and speed of a good IVR.

“I need this…” “Here it is, thank you.”


Author Information:
Charlie Smith, Plum Voice
E-mail: Lisa@plumgroup.com
Phone number: 303-433-3755

 
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