IVR to the rescue!

The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the transition that many organizations were already making from traditional sales teams handling all revenue transactions to leveraging e-commerce or online stores for transactional and lower-dollar deals. Not only have sales organizations determined they must focus higher-cost resources on larger revenue clients, but they have also realized that buyers and customers prefer to use self-service options.

We have all heard the standard advice on communicating with your customers. It would include, don’t keep people on hold too long, make a good first impression, speak to your customers like real people, don’t use scripted language, be willing to apologize, take responsibility when something goes wrong, and make sure to end conversations effectively. Technology is now playing a big role in customer service. AI-fueled chatbots, interactive voice response systems (IVRs) and other technologies are rapidly growing in popularity.

However, we can’t ignore the basics, and the common thread between them is the human-to-human interaction. While there is plenty of room for technology to be a part of those interactions, we cannot lose sight of what many of today’s customers still want, which is to communicate with a person. That doesn’t mean that some customers don’t prefer purely digital solutions. While some appear to always want to talk to a human, there are ways of integrating technology that will give your customers the service they expect and prefer, while still giving them a human experience.

As technology is evolving, the customer service we provide also needs to evolve. You need to know your audience and what will resonate with them. Deliver a modern, convenient experience that still keeps your customers feeling like they are connected to people, and not a computer. When customers are queuing for an IVR, offer them an option to chat with an agent. Customers will receive a link via SMS and can click on the link to start a chat with an agent. Pass on IVR data to the chat agent, allowing customers to restart the conversation where they left off.

Sometimes people just want a quick quote on price, or they are having login issues. Whatever the reason, it’s always a good idea to be able to answer a customer’s question on the spot. When customers call, your ability to quickly respond to them is directly related to their impression of your business — and their likelihood to purchase (or repurchase). More than 70% of customers believe that respect for their time is paramount when it comes to service. So, attracting and keeping clients requires timely, top-notch communication.

However, traditional phone services can tie you to your desk or storefront. Further, many businesses are moving away from landlines. For instance, among employees and SMBs, 62% use smartphones for work purposes. Mobile phones offer added flexibility but are still not ideal. You have to use the same device for personal and business calls, or you have to carry two devices. Here’s where IVR comes handy. An IVR or “auto-attendant” can make dealing with after-hours calls easier. Based on the time of day, you can choose to redirect calls to a specific team member or set an internal after-hours response schedule to share responsibility among team members.

Technology is driving new ways to engage customers. Whether you’re making a customer service experience more convenient with auto-callback facility, expanding your presence with social customer care, or using memes or humor to infuse some fun and personality into your business, you need to maintain a balance between evolving technology and good old-fashioned customer service.

IVR at TMP

Here at TMP, the IVR is integrated with our CRM, and is a client-specific, complete solution. It is designed to engage the customer, capture customer data and provide information on orders, transactions and shipping status, besides pre-sales Q&A, lead generation and renewal processing. The number recognition facility makes sure the live agent has all the relevant information even before talking to the customer.

The edge that TMP has is the facility to record IVR calls and listen to it within five minutes on a platform, to monitor customer satisfaction on a daily basis. We also have ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) facility, which greatly improves the customer experience, besides reducing the cost.

Though we have both IVR and live agents, we make sure the customer experience is never compromised and we exceed our KPIs every time to guarantee customer satisfaction. We provide the full range of services to make sure we have happy clients. After all, it’s our customers who make us who we are!