Business Guide to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems

IVR telecommunication systems take your company's phone operations to a more professional level. These types of automated systems allow you to design a phone response that is tailored to the caller. An IVR system can ensure that your phones are always answered, respond to customers in multiple languages, and provide basic answers to common questions with a recorded response. Engaging your customers in a system they can navigate prevents the frustration customers often feel when they call your business and receive a busy tone. IVR systems can also help control the costs of employing live phone operators, improving your company's bottom line.

Benefits

An IVR system is a simple way to automate telephone customer service. According to research from ContactBabel, about 56 percent of businesses use IVR as a first point of phone contact for their customers.

Increased customer satisfaction

This type of system can answer calls in multiple languages, so customers can choose to use the language with which they are most comfortable. You can also set up an IVR system to address known callers by name. Some systems also have speech recognition capability, so customers can have their needs addressed entirely by the IVR system. Your customers will also never encounter a tired or cranky call center employee if you have your IVR system installed.

24-hour access

Unlike human phone operators, an IVR system never takes a break. This allows you to handle customer service calls at any time of day or night, making you available to customers from all time zones. Customers don’t always need to talk to a live person. An IVR system can help with simple tasks during the times when no human is available to take customer calls.

Reduced costs

Using an IVR system saves you the cost of employing a bank of human operators to take calls. The human operators you do have can handle priority calls or special circumstances that the IVR system cannot assist with. Because the system can also pick up the phone on the first ring, it also maximizes the number of calls you can take.

Scalability

You can use an IVR system no matter how large or small your company is. In fact, using one can make your small business seem much larger than it really is. You can set up separate voice mailboxes and lines so that customers don’t realize the business only has one or two employees. As your company grows, you can scale up your IVR system to handle internal communications as well.

Pitfalls

Your telecommunications system can benefit greatly from IVR. With the correct system structure, IVR can route your customer support phone calls to the right person or department and provide enough automated information to handle certain simple requests for information. However, there are a number of pitfalls you should try to avoid when implementing this system for your business.

Inability to skip to a live person

One of the most significant issues is designing a system that forces the customer to sit through multiple menus before receiving an option to speak to a live person. IVR systems are marketed based on the ability to manage your customers, but some customers simply want to speak to a person. Preventing your customers from bypassing the system can have a greater impact on your profitability than the cost incurred by giving the customers direct access.

Complicated menus

One of the problems with some IVR systems is the way the menus are designed. Some systems have menus with too many options. Other systems place too many menus between the customer and a live representative. You should make your menu system as simple as possible. Many customers forget the earlier options if the menu list is too long. Certain customers will hang up in frustration if the menu system keeps giving new selections. Careful system architecture is needed if you want to implement a system that does not frustrate your customers.

Inability to respond early

Another pitfall to avoid when implementing an IVR system is not allowing the system to accept key entries except at the end of a menu. Repeat customers are often familiar enough with menu selections to press the required key immediately. If your system forces customers to sit through the entire menu before making a selection, it may lead to frustration. Some customers may end up in the wrong place by enabling this functionality, but the decrease in overall frustration should make the option worthwhile.

Pricing

IVR is one manner of communication used by many telecommunications agencies. There are close to 11,000 companies that make up the telecommunications industry in the United States, according to FirstResearch.com.

IVR transactions can cost your company up to 80 percent less than if you were to use live operators. According to BuyerZone.com, an IVR system may cost between $1,500 and $2,500 per port. However, some advanced programs can cost $10,000 or more. If you need to upgrade or buy more advanced equipment later on, these costs will increase. Each time you add an employee, you will also need to take the cost of the port into consideration.

Conclusion

An IVR telecommunications system is an investment in advanced customer management. With this type of system, you can make a small business seem as professional as a major corporation. IVR systems engage customers and efficiently route them to the person or department they need. Even when your business is closed, the IVR system can answer calls and provide basic recorded information, which can help customers feel like they accomplished something. These sorts of systems can frustrate some customers, however, especially if you prevent them from immediately reaching a live person or make them navigate complicated menus to achieve their goals. A good way to decrease the level of frustration is to ensure that customers can enter a menu response early to skip through the recordings.