Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services allow businesses to operate many of the features of call centers without dedicating call center staff toward these tasks full-time. However, many companies are scared off of IVR based on two major factors: an unwillingness to spend large overhead to replace a perfectly functioning call center, and the fear that an IVR will never match up to the capabilities of a human operator.

However, according to a report on contact-centres.com, these fears are unsubstantiated because a recent study showed that IVR systems cost as little as one sixth as much as a call agent, and that IVR menus are very well suited to fit the needs for callers using mobile devices. The key ingredient to lowering costs while also increasing efficiency revolves around using IVR to handle simple customer requests whenever possible, while retaining call agents for more complicated tasks.

The report on the study, authored by Steve Morell, notes that “We’re seeing that businesses and solution providers are looking to build strong links between automated and live service options to support seamless transitions as required.” Users on smartphones, for example, are able to use visual representations of IVR menus, which they were found to navigate four to five times faster than on an audio IVR system. The study also found that while the average cost of a live agent answering a question through a call, email or chat session ran upwards of five dollars, the cost of an IVR call would usually register at just over one dollar

Morell added: “Self-service can truly be ‘win-win’ for customers as well as businesses. In the past, most self-service has been about cutting businesses’ costs, but the joined-up thinking now being shown and the increasing acceptance that it’s now an omnichannel world, is creating a coherent strategy that has the customer experience as well as cost management in mind.”