IVR has been a staple of contact centers for many years and while there are many competitors in the market, it’s still going strong. As technology continues to evolve, IVR is turning into an intelligent digital assistant making it more conversational, personalized, and strictly focused on customer success. Technological advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning in the last few years will continue to drive change for IVR systems and make them even more powerful.
In that case, it becomes pertinent that we understand how this can add value to your business now and in the coming years.
Helps Improve Your Brand Image
IVRs are being used by startups and smaller companies to make their companies look bigger than they actually are. If you are a smaller company with fewer employees, you can configure IVR prompts to allow callers to talk to the most relevant department such as sales, support, or marketing. Depending upon the department the caller chooses, they will be routed directly to the person designated to answer the calls in the selected department. With the right representative and all the information provided by the caller to the IVR prompt, the representative would be in a better position to resolve the issue. Customers get really frustrated when they are transferred from one department to another and they have to repeat everything over and over again. A well-integrated IVR would make sure that the customers are never routed to the wrong department or to an agent who cannot solve their problems. Being able to shine through in these tough situations builds trust in your brand.
Delivers 24x7 support service
You never know when or in which part of the world your customer is going to face an issue. Under such circumstances, customers can make use of the IVR systems at any time of the day as it can perform its task 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While office hours, holidays, and breaks dictate and limit an employee’s availability, IVR systems are always at a customer’s disposal.
Implementing a great IVR system means your customer can avail of your customer service whenever they need it.
Increases the efficiency in handling customer needs
Deploying IVR solutions in your business helps the rapid solution to their queries, something that customers want more than anything else. It’s a great tool in the hands of your customer service team. By putting the right employee in front of the customer’s requests and queries, IVR helps boost customer confidence in your service. Not just that it also boosts the morale of the agent handling the query as they will feel more confident and perform at their best when the IVR matches the roles that fit their skill.
The more advanced your IVR system, the more the customer delight. For example, call back requests, using SMS follow up confirmations, integrating predictive intent makes your system even more efficient.
The efficiency of IVR technology improves the service experience for both customers and agents alike. When customers are routed to the most qualified agents, productivity increases, allowing agents to resolve cases more quickly and assist more customers as needed.
Reduced Cost
One of the main objectives of deploying IVR in your business is to reduce the volume of calls. Fewer calls would mean agents can spend less time on the expensive voice channel and instead focus on customers that need more assistance. IVR solution is also easy to scale-up without any significant increase in the cost. Thus, IVRs are a cost-effective way of improving operational efficiency and agent productivity along with achieving high ROI.
