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May 01, 2020 Thomas Cannon

How Does Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Improve Customer Experience?

woman on phone and laptop

If you have read any of our previous blogs, you’ll know just how important the customer experience (CX) is. In fact, in today’s market CX can really be the differentiator between a successful company and a struggling one. 

Unfortunately, successful CX strategies are not easy to implement. They take expert knowledge, huge resources and access to innovative technologies that most companies can simply not afford to buy in-house. That’s why many companies are outsourcing their customer service departments to next-generation nearshore call centers

Through the use of a world-class contact center, your company will have access to the technologies that are needed to offer a frictionless customer service.. 

One such technology that’s changing the customer experience game is interactive voice response (IVR). 

 

What is interactive voice response?

Interactive voice response is a back-end telephone system that automates interactions with customers when they phone into your customer service line.

Through the use of this technology, customers are able to select from a menu of automated prompts, either through the use of their dialpad or speech recognition, so that their call is routed to the most appropriate call center representative to resolve their issue.

By routing customers to the correct customer service agent, your company will save valuable time for both its representatives and its customers. This leads to improved customer satisfaction, greater cost savings and better efficiencies within your organization’s customer service strategy. 

 

How does IVR work?

To give you a better idea of exactly how IVR works, Advantage Communications has created a simple five-step guide that shows clearly how the entire process works:

Step 1: The customer places a call to your customer service department, which is then rerouted to the call center.

Step 2: The IVR technology answers the call, using innovative call center artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing to understand language, and reply to them, exactly as a human would. 

Step 3: The customer is presented with a menu of prompts, which they can respond to either using the numbers on their dialpad or through speech recognition technology.

Step 4: The IVR connects your customers with the most appropriate call center agent to resolve their issue. 

Step 5: The contact center representative resolves their issue in an efficient, enjoyable and frictionless manner. 

 

What are the benefits of IVR?

Interactive voice response will bring a range of benefits for your business, here are just a few key advantages you will realize when using an IVR in conjunction with a world-class outsourced contact center:

Efficient customer service: By routing calls to the correct customer service agents, IVR provides a far smoother and significantly more efficient customer service experience. Issues sent to the right agent will be resolved quickly and correctly, improving first-call resolution (FCR) metrics and boosting customer satisfaction. 

Improved personalization: The information that customers supply to IVR systems also allows for a more personalized customer experience, helping to create better relationships with customers. Not only that, but IVR systems can also be programmed with personalized greetings for known callers based on their caller ID information. 

24/7 customer access: Customers want to be able to resolve issues at all times of the day, not just when it’s convenient for your office. IVR is always at the customers disposal, even if it’s a nationwide holiday. IVR can provide service to customers whenever they need it, helping them to resolve their issues (through self-service) even when an agent is unavailable.  


All these benefits add up to create a superior customer experience. Are you looking for more information on how an outsourced contact center can revolutionize your customer service strategy? Contact our team of experts today. We would love to answer any questions you have.

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Published by Thomas Cannon May 1, 2020