It’s a popular notion that most customers hate IVR (interactive voice response) because they actually do not serve any purpose and instead take callers through a series of steps and music. In most cases, callers end up trying to get in touch with a live agent to clear their doubts and solve their problems. However, sales, support, and service delivery can be improved by making proper use of IVR by contact centers.
IVR can be used as an effective tool for helping customers. In most cases, however, IVR is used to keep customers from getting in touch with the company directly owing to poor design, making them ineffective.
In such cases, IVR systems take customers through endless loops and several levels of a menu tree. Most often, there is no one available to take the call. Customers end up dialing too many numbers and repeating information over and over again.
DMG Consulting, an independent research, advisory, and consulting firm, and Connect First, a telecommunications company, have released a new report on how to improve customer experiences using IVR. DMG Consulting has been analyzing the cloud-based contact center infrastructure market since 2008.
The new report titled “Improving Customer Experience with IVR” highlights the technical capabilities of new IVR solutions that can serve the unique needs of contact centers. The major discussions in the report cover the five IVR enhancements that form part of most IVR solutions, namely visual IVR, voice biometrics, IVR analytics, simplified IVR development environments, and multichannel outbound IVR.
“This report provides valuable information on the new generation of IVR solutions coming to market,” said Dan Candee, Connect First COO. “Love or hate IVRs, a better understanding of them can increase the effectiveness of your sales, service, and collections departments.”
Connect First, a SaaS (News-Alert) telecommunications and cloud contact center software provider, strives to deliver customized hosted solutions that help improve customer satisfaction. Its offerings include cloud routing, inbound ACD, outbound dialing, call tracking, voice broadcast, disaster recovery, predictive dialer, real-time telemetry, and more.