Contextual Strategy Group - CGI Logo CREATING BETTER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

The main task of call centers is the delivery of customer service. Call center agents aim to fulfill callers’ requests and create satisfied customers. In order to handle a large number of telephone calls, many companies use automated solutions for call centers. These automated systems often involve complicated phone trees and recorded statements that leave anxious callers frustrated.

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As a result, the company’s customer service is compromised. Callers become stressed and angry before ever reaching a human being. This puts an agent in a bad position from the start, making it nearly impossible to deliver a high level of service. Customers become increasingly irritated when they are switched over too many times, navigated back through the same automated menus, or subjected to repetitive recordings they didn’t want to hear in the first place. They need to have easier access to human agents and should not be left waiting for a long time. Efficient IVR technology is the answer to improving customer experience and customer relations in call centers.

What is an IVR?

The abbreviation IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response, a technology that allows computer systems to interact with people. The IVR systems use automated speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) software to enable human interaction. ASR interprets the user response to voice prompts while TTS generates synthesized speech from entered (non-robotic) text.

The company’s system can use this technology to improve customer interaction by gathering information and routing calls to the appropriate recipients without the need for complicated menus. The customer can use a combination of voice commands and touch-tone keypads to input directions. The computer then interprets and responds to the given directions with proper pre-recorded human statements.

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IVR allows the telephony system to give the appropriate response in various situations, access relevant customer data stored in memory, and potentially record the customers’ voice responses for further business processing or system analysis. Complete IVR systems will include the telephony equipment, necessary software applications, a database, and the supporting infrastructure of the company network. These systems are commonly used for credit card services, travel agencies, tele-voting, and financial transactions.

The IVR technology is customer-friendly and easy to navigate. For instance, a caller wishing to apply a gift card to an online retail account calls a given number on their mobile phone, answers a brief series of questions with a spoken “yes”, “no”, or a single key-press to narrow down their purpose for calling. After verbalizing the PIN number or other account identifier allowing the computer to retrieve the account info, the caller speaks or enters the card’s unique numeric code. The card amount is then automatically applied to the user account, and the IVR system finishes the transaction with a friendly spoken statement notifying the caller of success and giving them the option to use other services or terminate the call.

Using an Efficient IVS System

In call centers that provide customer service, a caller first interacts with an IVR system which screens the call as to the caller’s intent, and is then transferred to a human agent upon request or if the matter cannot be effectively handled by the existing system.

Purpose

There are many potential purposes behind incoming phone calls. The IVR system can guide the customer to an agent that is specialized in handling a specific aspect of the business process. One advantage of IVR is that it can continue to effectively handle routine customer needs 24/7, even when there are is no overnight live service to field calls.

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IVR systems are typically purposed to reduce demands on human staff in high-volume service centers, thus reducing costs and improving the customer experience. Most tele-services are not designed for handling large call spikes. With IVR systems, the customer can hang up and wait for a call back rather than remaining on hold until the next agent becomes available.

To illustrate, a person calling their auto insurance company to make changes to a policy may hear the following voice statement: “All customer service representatives are busy with other customers. Say ‘Yes’ if you would like to terminate the call and receive a call back from the next available agent.” The system ends the call with an appropriate “goodbye” statement and the callback request goes to the agent queue.

Benefits

Efficient Interactive Voice Response systems benefit companies’ call centers by providing an automated system that not only fields every call and reduces the burden on human staff, but also creates a more user-friendly environment for customers. Customers can easily interact with the computer and find the services they require without having to wait for the next available human agent.

An interface of spoken prompts and suggestions avoids the use of complex menus and provides the human element that callers find more satisfying. A modern IVR system can handle a significant portion of callers, so that human agents are less stressed, more able to provide a better customer experience and more willing to create new opportunities to engage and upsell customers. Ultimately, the IVR system’s benefits to the company and its customers make it a very promising return on investment.

Our Solution

We help you make your phone systems easy to navigate and more customer friendly by implementing our IVR system. The software integration allows us to serve all your locations through one IVR application. In addition, we perform comprehensive evaluations of your existing IVR system to assess its efficiency and quality. You will be offered professional scripts that make the telephony process faster and simpler.

Our IVR solutions reduce your cost-per-call by letting customers select the type of service they are looking for, whether they are using automated self-service or communicating with a live agent. Also, our systems can automatically call back customers who do not have time to wait. Your customers will find quick resolution to common issues so that your agents have more time to focus on complex problems. Our IVR systems present a win-win situation by ensuring reduced call abandonment, lower costs, and better customer satisfaction – all contributing to increased revenue.