SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




Boost the Customer Experience with Stellar IVR
IVR Featured Article

Boost the Customer Experience with Stellar IVR

 
December 04, 2013

Share
Tweet
  By Mae Kowalke, TMCnet Contributor
 


Interactive voice response (IVR) has the opportunity to wow your callers—or create a wall between them and your agents, effectively angering your callers before they even reach you.

Designing an IVR system that improves the customer experience instead of hindering it starts with a basic orientation toward the customer and not just the business. IVR exists to make the call experience easier, not to stand as a wall between the caller and the company. While it may be tempting to reduce agent time by directing callers through an IVR system, in many cases that will hurt the business more than it will help it.


It is vital that the business sees IVR as an extension of the customer service experience, not as a gatekeeper.

Right up there with using IVR appropriately is the second most important rule of IVR: Keep it simple! While a good IVR system can create deeply nested menu systems, avoid the temptation! The best IVR systems are relatively flat and relatively intuitive. Don’t have more than a few options per menu screen, and make sure no menu system is more than four levels deep. Callers shouldn’t get lost in your IVR system.

Another way to boost the customer experience with IVR is to tie real-time information into the system. If you get a customer account number, leverage that knowledge later in the call or when the caller reaches an agent. This can impress the caller and make them feel like your business has its act together.

A good rule of thumb also is to make sure that the IVR system has both primary and secondary phone numbers for the account holder, so the system will have every opportunity to recognize the caller and add additional personalization.

If there is important news that is relevant to most callers, an IVR system also can be effectively used for communicating this information at the beginning of a call. But make sure to keep it short! If the message is too long, it will feel like a penalty for callers—and an annoyance!

While short updates are okay, though, marketing is not. Even though it may be tempting to include a marketing message in your IVR system, resist the urge because a call is not the time to slip in advertisements. Callers reach out to a company for a specific reason, not because they are looking for advertising. So recognize this and keep your customers happy by not forcing marketing messages on them.

If you follow these tips, you are sure to improve your customer’s perception of your company.



IVR Homepage ›





Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

General comments: [email protected].
Comments about this site: [email protected].

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2024 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy