Imagine this – a few weeks ago; you purchased a product online that should have arrived today. Hoping to receive an update on the delivery time, you call the organisation’s business number. You are greeted with a welcome message.
You have just encountered an IVR.
An IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is an automated phone system feature that allows incoming callers to be routed to their required department or speak with a specific agent using menu options via a touch-tone keypad.
IVRs can improve the customer experience, enable self-service and reduce the cost of ownership. This article will uncover what benefits an IVR can bring to your organisation.
What are the benefits of an IVR?
An effective IVR solution can offer several advantages to businesses operating a call centre or contact centre, including:
- Achieve self-service: IVRs can be integrated into third-party applications such as a CRM to help businesses achieve customer self-service. These solutions are known as ‘Intelligent IVRs’. If a customer requests an update on their account balance or would like an update on their estimated delivery time, this data can be pulled from the CRM to the customer without needing an agent. The call can be directed to a specialised agent if they require further assistance.
- Lower costs: An Intelligent IVR solution can help to cut operational costs by reducing the number of agents you need to allocate to the contact centre, as simple enquiries are resolved through the IVR.
- Improving CX: Skills-based routing is a feature in the IVR that ensures your customer enquiries are handled by the most appropriate agent for that particular enquiry, helping to reach a faster resolution.
- Obtain customer feedback: An IVR solution can obtain valuable customer feedback through post-call surveys integrated into the IVR workflow, enabling businesses to collect customer satisfaction data or NPS scores quickly.
- Increase customer satisfaction: An effective IVR system can boost customer satisfaction. IVR features, such as ‘Maintain Position in Queue’, helps the caller avoid the need to wait on hold when a contact centre is experiencing high call volumes, and there are no agents available to handle their call. Instead, it allows them to request a call-back, hang up the phone, and receive a call when they reach the front of the queue.
If you’d like to discover how ipSCAPE can help you better serve your customers, improve customer experience, and reduce operational costs with the ipSCAPE intelligent IVR, check out our powerful cloud-based IVR solutions or get in touch to find out how ipSCAPE’s award-winning software can help your contact centre operate more efficiently and effectively. ipSCAPE can help you implement IVR features such as ‘Maintain Position in Queue’ and skills-based routing.
ipSCAPE is a cloud communication technology solution that is feature-rich, scalable and has advanced integration capabilities. We help businesses connect with their customers through multi-channel communications, including Voice, Web Chat, Email, SMS, IVR, and other emerging channels.