What Is Interactive Voice Response (IVR) In A Call Center?

What Is Interactive Voice Response (IVR) In A Call Center?

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What Is Interactive Voice Response (IVR) In A Call Center?

What is IVR?

The customer service sector is evolving continuously every day. It often seems like a new communication platform is introduced daily which your representatives should use to stay updated by communicating with your clients and ensuring customer satisfaction. One thing that has remained constant for a long time is that users still prefer to solve their queries on a phone call rather than choosing any other medium and that’s where Interactive Voice Response comes in.

What if there are high call volumes of your customers? 

In this case, a company hires a call center outsourcing company that uses an interactive voice response (IVR) technology to turn frustrated customers into happy buyers quickly. Suppose, a shopper is trying to contact your support team member and they immediately hear a robotic voice that greets them and carries on the rest of the conversation. With the help of this voice, they manage to solve their concern by choosing from the list of options or that voice connects them to the most appropriate agent. 

This feature of interactive voice response allows callers to interact with the brand without getting connected to an agent. The call center that you choose for your business plays a crucial role in building your customer service because the experience that they get by calling your brand tells a lot about them like if they are going to be interacting with you in the future or not. 

If you are using an easy communication method by constantly adding value to the service, then you will successfully grow your customer base and create a delightful customer experience. IVR in call center acts as both a cost-effective and time-efficient tool for delivering customer support to your clients. 

Not sure if an IVR system is right for your business? In this article, we have covered in-depth knowledge on IVR which will help you know if it is the right fit for your business. 

What Is An Interactive Voice Response (IVR)?

Interactive voice response (IVR) is a phone system software technology used in contact centers that allow employees and customers to interact using a computer system through automatic voice or touch-tone dialing menus. 

It offers self-service to customers for faster first-call resolution practices. IVR call center systems perform various tasks such as announcing menu options to callers, playing a pre-recorded greeting to the user, transferring the call to the queue, and connecting the call of the customer to the most qualified representative. 

It also gives them self-service options such as letting them know the operating hours and balances of their account or sharing billing information. 

On the other hand, the callers respond to this IVR system either by speaking to the responses or by pressing the buttons on the keypad of their mobile phones. This intelligent routing system improves the customer experience and the overall service quality and efficiency of the contact center. 

For example – Once the call center IVR is connected to the other systems, it automatically gathers customer data and information which later helps in showing “Screen-pops” to the operators so that they can interact with the user having prior information about them. 

Additionally, IVR in call center can handle thousands of dialed numbers and offer menu options and unique greetings to each caller. The proper functioning of these features of the IVR call center is not possible without the intervention of human agents. 

IVR call centers are designed in a way that reduces the amount of time spent by agents on small tasks so that skilled agents can focus on solving the concerns of customers quickly. IVR provides features such as queue callback options, script designing, specific group calling, identifying the words of callers through automatic speech recognition, and routing calls to the most appropriate agent of the call center. 

Benefits Of Using Interactive Voice Response For Customer Support 

Benefits Of Using Interactive Voice Response For Customer Support

Adopting an IVR in call center can bring various benefits to a business. Here’s what you can expect by implementing this system:

1. Deliver a better customer service and experience 

How Ivr can deliver excellent customer experience

No business can live without customers and therefore, it becomes imperative to provide better customer service and experience. A study shows that 48% of customers are looking for better customer service after the pandemic. IVR call center system ensures that if a customer asks the normal question, then there always be a quick response available for it. 

If agents are using a well-equipped IVR system, then it will meet the specific needs of each customer and it will eventually turn them into happy buyers. An IVR system provides time-efficient replies to customers, guide them to the right menu system, and connects them to the proper department that can carefully listen to your users

This as a result cut down the call volumes and saves time for both clients and agents. There are various customizable options that you can choose to personalize your interactions such as languages used, matching the information of the callers with their account numbers, and creating a successful customer lifecycle management

With a hassle-free and simple calling system, you can establish a ground for a better customer experience so that they can stick with your business for a longer period.

2. Offers self-service to customers

IVR lets you serve your people even when your representatives are not available. If users are calling outside of regular business hours, then they can get some basic information with an IVR menu. If you have a well-crafted IVR menu, then it can be used for all the basic customer queries and will help customers in finding the answers to their problems so that agents can focus on more complex requests. 

An advanced IVR system has biometric capabilities that reduce customer churn by recognizing customers’ data and information with their numbers and providing them answers accordingly. It can schedule an appointment or meeting with a client and also wish the callers their birthday. 

Various self-service tasks performed by an IVR include checking the balances of the user’s accounts, tracking shipping and order information, booking a meeting with an agent, and so on.

3. Personalized service to customers

IVR call centers provide great scope for personalization to build better relationships with clients and enhance real-time customer support. Each interactive voice response system is programmed to provide personalized greetings to users. It is possible with a CRM software integration that tracks the caller ID and their information. 

Besides addressing the name of each caller, it also offers various language options to tailor to the specific needs of callers. A personalized greeting and responding to the client’s language is essential if you are operating your business globally. 

4. Reduces the chances of errors

When IVR performs its tasks, it transfers the call to the most suitable agent of the call center department which is why it becomes less prone to errors. Inbound call center services of a contact center have a high call volume every day which can sometimes result in mental strain, long waiting times, and misrouting users. 

With manual call handling, there are high chances that calls can be distributed to the wrong operators. IVR in call center follows some logical sequence that makes a better judgment on call handling and transfers the call with an automatic call distribution system to the right agent. 

5. Improves first-call resolution practices

Customer wants solution quickly as they get irritated when their calls are transferred to different departments or when they need to talk to different agents. With call center IVR, their calls can be routed to an appropriate agent which improves the first call resolution rate of your customer service. To maintain this FCR rate, you can adjust the IVR Software as per the needs of shoppers. 

For example – If they have a question related to an invoice, then they can simply dial the numbers as being guided by an IVR menu system and get the answer in the first call itself. Or if you have launched a new product, then you can adjust the queries related to it accordingly in the system. 

6. Boosts the morale and performance of agents

IVR is not the replacement of your agents but it is developed to make the working life of agents much easier. An automated IVR is used to solve normal queries so that you can efficiently measure your call center performance

Agents can sometimes get frustrated and overwhelmed by the high call volumes due to which they won’t be able to quickly resolve the concerns of customers. This frustration can lead to unproductive and depressed employees. Thus, the interactive voice response system reduces the initial call handling of the operators. 

7. Gathers valuable data of customers

To obtain success in your business, you need to collect valuable data from customers for future use. The data collected by IVR call centers related to clients’ inquiries will help to improve your IVR setup and upgrade your business strategies. 

IVR call center systems reduce your operational costs, allows you to perform market research, and limit the need of hiring more agents. When a call is received by IVR software, it collects all the customer’s data or uses previous data to solve the needs of callers. 

8. 24/7 availability

A key aspect of every customer service is to provide round-the-clock support to users but employees are not always available for 24/7 support. In this situation, an IVR phone system will take care of all the needs when no one is available in the contact center. 

This builds trust and credibility in customers and there are high chances that they will return to your business. Even if they call you in the middle of the night, an IVR will greet them and perform all the simple transactions and functions to satisfy the customers. 

How To Adopt An IVR Technology?

Before adopting an IVR system, let’s have a critical understanding of its impact on your call center system. 

1. Understand your caller’s experience

To obtain deeper knowledge about the customer service offered by your call center, you must first understand the journey of your buyers. To have an IVR in call center, you must first put yourself in the caller’s place. For this, you can:

  • Know how the calls are routed to the agents
  • How much time does it take to route the call
  • Perform an IVR call testing and examine the way it interacts with the users
  • Identify how choosing multiple options from your IVR menu enhances the experience a buyer gets from your call center services 

2. Evaluate your current system of routing calls

Now that you know how your customers are getting experience from your IVR menu, it becomes crucial for you to monitor your current call routing system to follow the call center quality monitoring best practices. 

For this, you can fill in all your recordings and additional details in a customized form to compare the results of different calls at varied times. With this, you can identify weaknesses in different areas which can later help you to improve customer service. 

3. Measure all your call center metrics

Several call center metrics are important to measure in the call center IVR system. Some of the vital metrics include Average Handling Time (AHT), Call Abandonment Rate, and Call Containment Rate. Apart from this, you can also measure customer churn rate and retention rate. 

If all your measures are showing high performance and great results, then you are imparting a great customer experience and if any of these measures are showing low scores, then you can work on improving those measures. 

4. Track the results of changes in the IVR system 

If you are making modifications to your current IVR system or implementing a new one, then you should track the results of those changes. After this, you will be able to analyze how those changes can impact the overall functions. Your main motive should be to resolve the customer query without putting them on hold as according to a study almost 60% of consumers hang up the call if they are put on a hold for 1 or more minutes.

5. Gather feedback from your support staff

After checking the performance, you would want to know the changes in the operations from your representatives in your IVR call centers. 90% of buyers need an immediate response when they look for customer support from a company. 

You should always take feedback and discuss issues from your frontline support agents on your current IVR phone systems to identify all the loopholes. This will let you understand all your call center operations so that you can resolve all the hitches.

Interactive Voice Response: The Bottom Line

High-quality voice recognition is a key function of an interactive voice response system in the call center if your system does not support too many questions or doesn’t have proper voice recognition, then your customers may get frustrated. IVR call center offers a high level of personalization and self-service options to customers. 

With an IVR system, operators can respond to a large number of inbound calls of your business, reducing agents’ workloads to some extent. An IVR technology allows users to input their problems so that they can route them to the most suitable agent or department. 

It works according to the specific needs of clients and provides high-level menu options for different customer choices to improve the overall customer experience. You can also check out our blog on 10 expert tips for cold calling in 2022 to know more about call center services.