How Does the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system Work?
Having your own Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system
has become a prime necessity in today’s competitive business scenario. Not only
it gives your business an edge, but it also reflects that providing a quality
customer service is your top priority. But to utilize this service to the best
of its abilities you need to be fully aware of what it offers and how you can
integrate its capabilities into your business. Below is a detailed description
of what is IVR, how it works and why should your business adopt this solution
in your business.
What
is Interactive Voice Response (IVR)?
IVR in simple terms is a technology that automates the
telephony system. It responds to the incoming calls automatically and interacts
with the callers through automated voice messages. This communication takes
place with the help of numeric inputs entered by the caller.
How
does Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System Work?
At
Caller’s End
When a customer calls on the business phone number, IVR
system greets the caller by playing an automated welcome This greeting message
includes the name of the company, along with a list of IVR menu options.
These IVR options are customized as per company’s
customer service needs. However, in most of the cases, the IVR options are
divided by departments, geography or the service/product company offers. These
options are self-explanatory which makes the navigation and query resolution
easier for the caller. The two major kinds of IVR options used by companies are
self-help option and connect with a customer service representative option. For
example,
In
the above example, first three options as mentioned below are self-help
options.
1. Press 1 for Billing Related Queries
2. Press 2 for Product Enquiries
3. Press 3 for Sales Related Issues
These
options help the customers to resolve queries without intervention of a live
agent.
However,
the option with a description “Press 3 to Talk with our Sales Representative”
connects you with a live customer representative directly.
After
listening to the options thoroughly, a caller can numerically input their
desired response depending upon the type of query they want to inquire.
According
to their requirement, the callers can proceed forward with self-help IVR option
or can connect to the customer service representative of the desired
department.
At
Backend
While the process seems simple at the front end, the
backend involves combination of technologies to facilitate the smooth
functioning of IVR. These systems use Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) technology
to computerize their calls, i.e., instead of calls being received on a
traditional landline set, the calls are received, forwarded or dialed on
computers. This technology eases the whole communication process by providing
many additional features other than dialing or receiving a call. Below is the
list of actions which process in the backend.
When
the caller calls on the business phone number, the automated message is played
to welcome the caller. This automated message is either a recorded audio or a
customized text-to-speech.
After
listening to the options thoroughly, a caller can numerically input their
desired response depending upon the type of query they want to inquire.
Further,
numeric response of the customer is interpreted by the DTMF technology where
every frequency of numeric input tone generated by keys is used to decode the
response. A computer needs special hardware known as telephony card to
understand this DTMF response.
If
a caller opts for a self-help option, then the answer to the query is retrieved
from a database or a pre-recorded script.
However,
if the caller opts to talk with the agent then features such as call forwarding
or routing is used to direct the caller to the desired customer service
representative.
And
with the help of CTI technology, the calls are displayed on agent’s desktop.
Hardware devices such as softphones are further used to answer the incoming
call and proceed with the conversation.
What
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Offers?
Apart from easing up the process of query resolution
for customers, IVR system widely helps businesses to streamline their everyday
processes by replacing manual tasks with automated processes. Below are few of
the advantages which makes IVR a promising solution for business.
1. Process Automation: Adopting IVR solution automates many of the
mundane day-to-day tasks, be it answering thousands of calls with an
auto-receptionist feature or using the call forwarding feature to route the
calls to the right department. These number of reduced manual tasks optimizes
the overall efficiency of the agents and smoothens the overall customer
experience.
2. Cost Reduction: As many of the manual tasks get eliminated in the
process, the cost of overall process gets reduced to a large extent. Moreover,
by using cloud-hosted IVR services Provider, a business saves a lot on their capital
expenditure as now one needs lesser infrastructure as well as human resources.
Scaling up or down also becomes very cost-efficient with cloud-hosted IVR.
3. Customer Data & Analysis: IVR comes with an added feature of call recording. This
information proves to be of great help to the business as it provides them with
insights of conversation. Businesses can use this information to understand the
approaching customers and their concerns. This further helps the business to
refine their services by adjusting it according to the customer’s requirement.
4. Enhanced Productivity: Self-help options resolve many customer queries without
the need of contacting a customer service agent. IVR system segments the
incoming calls into different departments which allows the agent to address the
query of their expertise. This reduces the number of calls and queries received
per agent and helps them to deliver quality customer service.
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