IVR Corner

Doesn't interactive voice recognition just annoy people?

  

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Many people I talk to tell me they hate automated systems. I thought I did as well, until I found a few that worked for me. Having the ability to have a call answered on the first ring, and then being able to get the information i need quickly, is to me much better than waiting on hold for long periods of time, waiting until normal business hours, or talking to "Rudy" in Pakistan!  Voice recognition menus can be worked with in a hands free driving application. The basic premise of a modern speech recognition system is to handle 60 - 70 percent of the routine calls, which it can often do as well, if not more efficiently than live people, and to get the exceptions to a live operator as quickly as possible. Here is a check list of things that can improve customer satisfaction in an IVR system.

• Plan system for a finite list of tasks, make sure obvious to users
• Have context sensitive help available in all menus
• Use Global system commands to avoid large number of menu trees
• have voice recognition menus fall back to touch tone when call is noisy and a live agent is not available
• Use Artificial Intelligence backed up by human approval as well as (partially automated) customer feedback to improve satisfaction going forward

Using the above best practices can save money by automating the more common customer service tasks, while improving customer satisfaction.