I have many experiences with my clients or people whom I had interacted during their commissioning of IVR system, that they give least importance to the scripting as well as voice prompt. Most of the times, they discuss and emphasis on number of simultaneous calls, integration of the IVR with some CRM ( customer resource management) system or some other interesting IVR feature as well as its future expansion as well as maintenance. Nothing wrong for emphasizing on these aspects of IVR system, but after commissioning of the IVR, they have started changing the script as well as voice prompts many times over!

Many of clients have started out with TTS ( Text To Speech ) generated voice prompts and later ended up recording voice prompts by different artists in a studio! I have also seen some call center owner as well as some companies deploying voice recorded in office by some female staff using a PC and MIC, and putting the IVR into production. Invariably, they changed the voice prompts to studio recorded voice prompts from professional artists after one month or so!

While in some cases use of TTS ( Text To Speech) is inevitable or a must ( like retrieving dynamic data from database and playing them out), but there is no reason to use TTS or TTS generated voice prompts fixed menus, numerals as well as fixed names!

I would always advise people to use professionally recorded voice prompts in any IVR in production environment. While use of TTS generated voice prompts during testing and development phase makes sense, but in production, TTS should be avoided. Here are few reasons why one must use professionally recorded voice prompts only :-

1. Voice prompt is the only interface to the caller

In IVR system, voice prompts are the only direct interface with the telephone caller and telephone caller has no means to know about other aspects of the IVR system. A caller to an IVR system is not bothered about the technology behind the IVR system, or use of API ( Application Programming Interface) based on latest web technologies to fetch the required information for the caller at the back end. The caller is just bother about his required information and how quickly he could access it and how easily he could listen and understand without having to press any key to listen again!

2. Professional Voice Prompts gives seriousness to the IVR system

For many call center as well as customer service and support, IVR is the one which picks calls from every caller including the irate and fed-up callers! Professional, clear and pleasant voice ( I avoid using the word female) may have good effect on the caller and it may give indication to him what he may expect from the call! Unprofessional and difficult to understand voice prompts may scare away the caller or make him more non-cooperating irate customer!

3. Voice Prompts may make IVR caller experience pleasant

A clear and pleasant voice with understandable accent as well as pronunciation will surely increase user experience as well as satisfaction of the caller! A person may call to the IVR from a noisy background area and that will compound his problems in understanding IVR voice prompts or menu options if TTS generated machine prompts are used.

A professional voice prompt provider will always make the voice prompt in proper volume, speed, pitch as well as pronunciation which are a must for any production grade IVR system.

So, in order to improve usability and caller satisfaction, one should use services from a professional voice prompt provider, or at least use voice prompts recorded in studio by professional voice over artist.

It may not be easy to define a successful IVR ( Interactive voice response) System. In single line, one IVR system could be termed successful when it has lowest abandon rate by both genuine new and old callers. When an IVR system is designed to perform some specific task for a caller, if the caller completes those tasks using the IVR easily at the shortest time possible, then the IVR will have very less abandonment rate and the IVR could be termed successful IVR.

For example, if one IVR system retrieves outstanding bill for telephone number, the caller should be able to hear his/her outstanding bill at the shortest possible time, without failure with having to choose minimum options, either using DTMF/Key-press or voice command. If the caller disconnects the call before he hears his outstanding bill amount, then it would be ‘abandon of IVR call’. But if the caller listens to his outstanding bill amount, and then disconnects the call, it is ‘successful IVR call’.

So, apart from technical challenge (developing the IVR software, integrating with PBX/ IP-PBX etc.), the major consideration for IVR or any voice application for matter, remains making the most user-friendly IVR call flow or Voice User Interface (VUI) design. So, success of IVR will depend on majorly on the VUI design! The callers who are the users of IVR system, will care little about the technology involved for developing the IVR system and will care about only the information they want. If they do not find it easy to get the information they want, IVR system is useless for them. ( One may check #ivr #ivrs trending in twitter.com to find how people hate about IVRS, everywhere in the world!)

There are two types of caller, new caller and old or regular callers to any IVR system. One of the most common complaint by regular caller is the change of menu options! In any customer care IVR system, normally, regular caller outnumber new callers, if call flow is changed, suddenly, there is no longer any old or regular caller for the IVR as everybody becomes new caller. Everybody will have to listen to all menu options as long as the prompts play! This increases not only abandon calls, but also increase time spent on the IVR system by callers! Normally, IVR system should aim to complete its ‘task’ at the shortest time, to server more caller with fixed number of lines.

Recently, I have experienced increase in demand from IVR users who wanted to have options to change the call flow using some visual tools, I always wanted to discourage them! Though visual tool is an excellent way for developing IVR application, it should not be used to keep changing the call flow quickly or just for the sake of changing it and just because one has a easy visual tool to change it! Else the very purpose of installing IVR system would be defeated and one will own a failed IVR system with high call abandon rate!

Designing IVR call flow is very important for success of an IVR deployment, and sticking to the same call flow is also equally important. Call flow should be changed only when it is a must, other wise IVR call flow should not be changed. One is sure to see spike in abandoned calls when call flow is changed.

Recently, I came to know that Airtel ( Mobile Service provider in India with largest number of mobile subscribers, around 135 millions) charges caller to its mobile subscribers at the Rs. 0.5 per 3 minutes when they call their helpline number ( customer care) and speak to

AIRTEL Charges for speaking customer care

I think the logic behind Airtel charging customer for ‘talking’ human agent/customer care executive is to discourage subscribers speaking to human agent and encourage using the ‘self help’ or ‘Do It Yourself’ IVR right from booking any complaints to find out any information about Airtel. This will surely help them reduce ‘human agents’ in their call centers and bringing down cost of operation further. Also, there may have been many spam calls and this kind of charging may help them reduce these spam calls.

But, few questions remain:-
1. Have Airtel/Other mobile operators done any usability tests on their ‘self help IVR System’ ?
2. Have they done any bench marking of IVR abandon within calls ?
3. Is their IVR system can solve any kind of problems faced by their customers ? How about genuine customers who face some genuine and ‘new problems’ IVR does not have menu option for it ?

Though most of the times, the complaints or problems faced by customers are similar and can surely be automated using a well designed IVR which can fetch all data related to the caller, but thinking IVR is sufficient enough to solve all kinds of problems is quite ambitious!

It is true that Indian masses are not educated enough to use IVR for lodging complaints as well as intelligent enough to navigate through the menus provided in any customer care IVR, but in order to force them use of IVR by charging when they opt to speak to human agent too does not look a logical step. Instead of charging customers, Airtel could to usability test on their IVR and find out reasons for abandoning IVR and then try to improve its usability!

Servicing its huge subscribers of more than 135 millions using IVR would have made a good case studies and bench marking of IVR usability. Airtel also provides large number of value added services apart from its basic telephony services, so one can expect its customer care IVR to be quite complex. Apart from this, add 22 languages in 23 circles it operates, to its difficulty!

So, one can expect customer care IVR of Airtel to be quite complex browsing through complex menu options starting with language selection to service selection. But in India, being home to 300 million ( almost equivalent of total population of USA) of illiterate people, it may not be possible to expect them to know their service names which would be announced in IVR menus to choose.

Though I would rate IVR in Airtel customer care to be fairly good, but still, charging customers for speaking to customer care executive is beyond my comprehension. There might be some spam calls though and charging may deter and decrease this kind of spam calls, but it also penalizes the genuine calls/callers.

I have sent an email to Airtel asking about their usability test/benchmarking of IVR. When I get answer, I will update this post.

UPDATE : I got call from Airtel PR department and they had explained that this decision of charging callers for speaking human agent was taken collectively by COAI ( Cellular Operators Association of India ) and approved by TRAI. The charging has started from Feb 2010 only and according to them, all other operators have also started charging and if they have not done so far, then they would do soon.
As for the IVR usability issue, they did not have any data about IVR abandonment and I assume they do not have much idea about IVR usability.
According to them, any further communication regarding this ‘charging for talking to customer care executive’ and IVR usability, COAI is the right organisation and forum to discuss.

VUI ( Voice User Interface) is the call flow of IVR system. Usability of IVR is dependent on the VUI. So it is desirable that considerable amount of time be devoted in designing, testing and documenting VUI of IVR system before actually developing IVR system.

Here are few simple VUI design guidelines of tips I have thought of :

1. Identify specific purpose of IVR system
First step towards designing VUI should be the question, why would a caller call the IVR system and how quickly efficiently IVR should reply to his “why”. If the purpose of an IVR system is to record customer complaint, allow customer to lodge their complaint in the first menu itself. IVR should not try to act very smart or human by asking intelligent questions and get the caller answer before it actually is able to lodge the complaint. The other way is to allow the caller lodge the complaint, provide him complaint ticket and then ask few polite questions about details of the his complaint an which is completely optional. IVR system should stick to its specific purpose in its operation.

2. Maximum 3 Levels of menu
Stick to maximum 3 levels of menus before caller gets his desired information after calling a IVR system. A caller should not be “interviewed” or put through “set of question answer session” till he gets the desired information. In many IVR system, it is observed that, trying to be smart, caller is put through set of questions, many irrelevant options before actually providing the information required by the caller. So, golden rule should be, provide maximum 3 levels of menu, before a caller is answered or provided the final information.

3. Provide Shortcuts as per usage
IVR system should have in-built MIS (Management Information System) to enable finding out the most used menus and information. Depending on the usage, shortcut should be provided to access the widely used menus quickly. Many repeat caller will not like to go through the same menu and having to choose same options before his desired menu options. Even a first time caller may like to use the shortcut once the shortcut is explained.

4. Top Level Menu options
By top Level Menu options, I mean the menu options provided to caller as soon as his call is answered. This is the menu which is to be designed very carefully and success of IVR system may depend on this menu to a large extent. This menu should not be long list of options, but few main specific purposes of the IVR system. And this menu should be changed as per usage statistics. For example, if the 4th option here has less usage than 3rd option of the second level option of 1st top level option, than most probably, it is time to bring the second level option to top level menu. If the IVR system is a call center and human agent is available, then I strongly suggest that option should be given to caller in Top Level menu to speak to a human agent.

5. Voice prompts
Voice scripts should be simple English or the language the IVR is using. The language should be really simple and easy to understand, without any grammatical errors. It should be spoken as if you are speaking in daily conversation with regular pauses. A good menu design may look totally ridiculous if proper scripting and voice prompts are not used.

There are five VUI design tips I have been using in all my IVR works. VUI is a must for IVR usability.