IVRS, MANAGING FROM CORPORATE LEADS TO ELECTIONS
IVRS, MANAGING FROM CORPORATE LEADS TO ELECTIONS
Being a part of the B2C domain, IVRS is a system that you must have heard about and if you are expanding and reaching a point where you brand requires a system to same tits customers, well, IVRS and proper infrastructure for the same is an essential.
This blog is for you to get an insight what it actually does and how this first touch point in a brand's customer service cycle can increase you r number of happy customers.
IVR is the short form for the term Interactive Voice Response (IVR) that has been contributing to various industries with its services.
The automated telephony system is designed to interact with the callers which can be the potential clients or the existing clients to gather the useful information or to deliver a message that is needed to be delivered along with routing calls to the appropriate recipients.
A simple example is when one calls the customer service number of a online shopping platform and they get different options to connect with different segments of the brand, say for order enquiry, for returns and for other options.
IVR system (IVRS) are beautifully crafted structures that blends two technologies named voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and by incorporating those offers appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, call-back, email and other contact methods.
The essentials in an IVR system include telephony equipment, software applications, a database and a supporting infrastructure. If you are brand incorporating IVRS in house, you will require a purchasing the software and hardware required, or it can opt to go through an IVR hosting service that charges a monthly fee.
Well, every IVR application provides the callers with a pre-recorded message for different situations. As discussed, a caller gets different options and via the keypad signal logic and the IVRS with the access to relevant data offers relevant options. It potentially has the ability to record voice input for later use.
The computer telephony integration (CTI) allows the IVR systems to hand off a call to a human being who can view data related to the caller on a display and offer the required support.
It can also use the dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signals as a line of communication between a phone and a computer. The computer uses a telephony board or card to understand DTMF signals.
IVRS have many uses. They can be specifically divided into two segments i.e to automate inbound and outbound calls and to route calls.
What happens in the outbound calls is that the IVR system eliminates the need for a switchboard operator to answer incoming calls, presenting a caller with a menu of options.
It increase efficiency as it removes the human interaction and uses an updated database to present the caller with a list of the latest available movie times. This will ultimately lead to eliminate call wait times and leading to greater customer satisfaction.
From bank and stock account balances and transfers; to office call routing; call center forwarding; simple order entry transactions; to selective information lookup, IVRS are used to perform all these options.
Apart from this, The IVRS can be incorporated by various departments in the firm to interact with the clients which is where they are used in more complicated ways to simplify processes in other departments.
In Sales: IVR systems allow communication between consumers and salesperson. It enables customers to fill out sales order forms with a phone keypad which followed up by IVRS sending the completed form to a salesperson.
In Marketing: Getting customers feedback gets easy as the marketers can use IVR systems to send out surveys to measure interest in a product or service.
In Medical records: In healthcare, well the data management is a tedious and important task. The doctors can use an IVR system to transcribe notes and patient records. They can also have a copy of the transcribed records sent to the office.
IVR technology has with its pre-recorded voice prompts and menus to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses has been transforming to the voice recognition era as it continues to transform.
Be it a small business or large businesses, incorporating the same is essential and it can be done in the following ways.
It is offering exactly what brands are looking for today in the their business i.e. efficiency and cost reduction and with IVRS, they are assisted in managing their Inbound and Outbound call centers to reduce the cost of common sales, service, collections, inquiry and support calls to and from their company.
Saves time and money: From a grand's point of view, well this technology can replace humans to answer frequently asked questions or to provide commonly requested information. Exactly what is needed in situations like required directions, hours of operation, etc which do not require critical thinking skills.
Greater customer satisfaction: Well, a IVRS can designed to ensure that customers do not have to wait to get information they can looking for. In the organised system, well one can what they are looking for without waiting and it eliminates wait times by responding to a caller immediately.
24/7 service: The primary function of IVRS is to ensure that in this digitalised era, no one has to wait for a specific period of time until the office opens and they can get solutions they are looking for. Since it is pre-recorded, the IVR technology can operate without any interruptions and is available to provide information to callers without any time constraints
This automation of operations allows various benefits to organisations, but they might be disadvantages that one has to be careful about.
IVR systems are pre-recorded so they might not have the personal touch which is not exactly what a caller looks for if they are looking for help. It can be too impersonal and act as a barrier between customers and live agents, and for taking jobs away from call center agents.
The IVRS is limited to the type of questions they can provide answers. What it eventually does is creating a situation of leaving callers frustrated and confused especially when IVR menus are too long. However, innovation in this industry has been working towards managing the same.
The industry has benefitted many businesses and with an IVRS system in place, every brand can avail the benefits of
Automating the customer identification process with voice prompts
Predicting why customers are calling to speed up service
Collecting important information from the customer during wait time
Prioritizing calls based on value
Personalizing messages and prompts
Handling high call volume and surges efficiently
Ensuring customers are routed to the best agent for their issue
Tracking and report customer issues to improve future service
Reducing overhead costs, including staffing
Presently a large amount of data is usually found in cloud. The cloud IVRS is a perfect option for the small and mid-sized businesses whose goal is to avoid costly and unwieldy infrastructure.
This technology is constantly evolving to make agent's and customer's lives easier and simpler. As IVR systems continue to play a vital role in future, there is so much scope for scalability and innovation.
As customers continue to present issues, with IVRS in place, the brands can direct the most common customer problems, the ones that don't necessarily require an agent to tackle like the account balance, to be tackled with an automated response.
If the customer problems are unique, the future of IVRS is expected to tackle the problems with the solutions like transferring the call to the agents who can address the problems better and the customers can be routed in tighter, more efficient systems that improve response times and customer satisfaction by providing self-service options.
All of us have listened, "Hello" in his voice on our phones and for a moment believed that it was a real call from someone, until we find out that it was designed by IVR system.
Recently as the Delhi elections are just round the corner and as we see, in every election, political parties are using different mediums to reach the potential voters. If you are a Delhite, you must be receiving a call from the current Delhi's CM, Arvind Kejriwal, asking you to vote in a unique way.
While some were how the IVR sounded real as it had pauses, it has proved how the IVR is not only used for tele-marketing in not only the corporate but also in politics.
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