Recently, I have come across many IVRs which asks multiple choice questions and press a key to answer the correct options. For every correct answer, the caller gets a point and these points are accumulated. If I remember correctly, this kind of quiz on IVR has been popular in voice portal services in India where some contest was organised and top 10 scorers were given prizes.

Normally, this kind of quiz contest on IVR used to work following way :-

1. Voice Portal had hundreds of questions ( some easy, some difficult).
2. The questions were asked randomly.
3. A caller can call many times till the end of the contest period.
4. The caller never gets a question twice whose correct answer has been already given by him. But wrongly answered questions may be asked again.
5. With every correct answer, his/her points keep increasing.

This kind of quiz contest were popular some 5/6 years ago when there was not IPhone or other smart phones! Now a days, I hardly come across such contests. May be VAS ( Value Added Service) providers have run out questions or people are no longer interested in playing such contest on phone.

But, similar IVR applications seem to have come back again! But this time, this is not a contest, but few specific questionnaire on a product or service!

While interacting with few people, who are using such questionnaire on IVR, I have come to know about interesting benefits:-

They normally schedule such questionnaire to a person who has stayed in their hotel. While many people enter a phone number in their guest register, but there is no option to verify that number. So, as soon as the guest is checked out, IVR calls up that number and asks few questions about quality of room, services etc. I solves two purposes, it verifies that number and it gets some feedback for their services too which is very important for quality purpose.

In order to sweeten the IVR call, they offer some cash discount on their next stay in the hotel if the complete the questionnaire! They also get a report about these feedback properly which is useful for various analytical purposes.

Another questionnaire is used for screening candidates applying for a job. The IVR calls up the prospective candidate and asks related questions for the position where candidate is given multiple option to choose. The IVR gives giving points as per the option chosen by the candidate!

This IVR questionnaire act as an first line of screening and it also helps gauge if the candidate really want the job or not!

This is complete automated system where one gets back score of each candidate, hang up in between etc. It saves cost by reducing foot falls in the recruiters office as well as save time.

So, I think, quiz on IVR is back again and this time it has different applications and different usage! I also think, questionnaire on IVR could be applied in different industries where some processes could be automated!

Admission Process in any institute or university/college is always seasonal and almost routine process. Admission department in universities are seen very busy during admission season which may occur once or twice depending on the university or college.

IVR for Univeristy Admission Process

Websites of any university now days have a dedicated section for providing all required information about admissions to the university to students as well as parents. Apart from website, a dedicated IVR portal can also be used to provide admission related information on phone. One of the main advantage of using a phone for providing admission related information is, it is instant and convenient and high penetration of phones.

How IVR can be used to deliver information to students on time:-

1. Incoming IVR
An incoming IVR can be set up where anyone will be able to dial and listen to any recent update about admission to different courses, scheduled admission or coming a academic year.

Incoming IVR should also be capable of connecting to concerned admission official for any further assistance on demand.

The IVR should maintain all call records. These call records can be analised to know information like which courses are getting more caller. From the caller ID, one can find information about geographic locations of the caller.

These information will improve designing courses.

2. Outbound IVR

Outbound IVR can be used to alert students abut dispatching admit card for written test, sudden change of schedule for admission.

Outbound calls can also be made for promotional activities during admission season.

What IVR technologies or IVR applications would be hit in the year 2011 ? Here is a list of few IVR applications or IVR technologies that might see high usage as well wide acceptance among people!-

What IVR technology or Application will rule in year 2011 ?

1. IVVR ( Interactive Voice And Video Response)

With introduction of 3G technology in worlds most populous countries, India and China, IVVR should see wide application and deployment. I think, IVVR would be used in VAS ( Value Added Service) industry, customer care, virtual tour in hotel industry.

IVVR would also be used Tele-medicine in India as well as e-governance.

2. IVR in Payment

IVR would be increasingly used in phone banking as well as payment using phones. Recently, RBI ( Reserve Bank of India has introduced OTP ( one time password) valid for just one transaction for 30 minutes to 24 hours. So, the public confidence in payment using IVR might will increase. Many payment gateway providers are now trying to provide payment option using IVR with just a telephone call on the move.

3. Speaker Recognition

With increasing payment using IVR, speaker recognition technology will be used more and more. Most probably, this technology would be further developed.

4. Speech Recognition

With increasing usage of IVR in customer care as well as ‘self-help’ complaint management system, speech recognition usage as well as accuracy may increase in 2011!

5. IVR Hosting

Since many visual as well as online web-based tools are now available for IVR call flow designing, I think, IVR hosting will see increase in 2011. Presently, Click To Call is one service which is a hosted IVR service used by many people. Many people are also opting for hosted IVR solution in order to reduce initial capital investment as well as support.

6. Bulk Voice Call

Bulk Voice Call should see increase as well as competition in terms of per call pricing in 2011, specially in India. Reminder Service using voice call will also be used more and more.

These are the IVR applications which I think will be deployed and used by many people in the year 2011! I would like to hear from you too, so kindly leave a comment with your opinion!

Like any other computer software, IVR too work inputs of responses provided by the user. Though, a computer application software has widely used input devices like keyboard, mouse, voice, even hand movement, IVR applications have limited, only two types of inputs or responses. One is telephone keypad which has 12 keys and automatic speech recognition!

Another specific difference between a normal computer application software and a IVR software is, IVR can provide the options sequentially in voice while computer application software can software options in various menus, buttons, drop down menu, quick links using related graphics etc. So IVR provides its options or tasks it can perform to a caller in series of voice announcement along with key option to press or word, phrase to speak for choosing the tasks. This is known as IVR menu.

With advent of hosted IVR services, IVR application has become designing of this menu system only, while the integration of CTI hardware with various PBX systems have become standard modules provided by hosted IVR service provider.

Irrespective of direction of call of the IVR ( inbound IVR or outbound IVR), menu starts as soon as the call is picked up. Normally, IVR starts with a “welcome prompt” typically welcoming the caller with greetings and quick short brief about the service, organisation behind the IVR.

IVR menus can be divided into two types depending on how user give commands to IVR application or how user responds to its menu options, DTMF(DualTone Multiple Frequency) or Telephone driven and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) driven. Both have advantage and disadvantages and are widely used. ( Click here for more about DTMF driven menu or ASR driven menu)

Apart from above two types of IVR menus, it can also be divided another two types depending on how menu options are generated.

1. Menu options can be recorded using a voice artist in studio and played back.
2. Menu options can be generated using TTS (Text to Speech) converters.

Again, choices in a menu, may be static or dynamic. When the choices in a menu are fixed for the IVR system, than the menu can be called as static menu while if the menu options changes dynamically depending on caller id, time of the day etc., than the menu can be called dynamic. For example:-

In a call center IVR, if a registered customer dials, he may be given different options while an unregistered customer would be presented a different options in the IVR menu.

Many people do not like TTS generated menus as one can make out the difference between human voice and TTS generated voice, specially in India, it has mainly to do with accent of the voice. TTS can be very useful in dynamic menu as well as presenting data retrieved from database where playing recorded voice may not be possible all the time.

Usability of an IVR depends mainly on the design of IVR menu. For more about usability one may check this : Usability of IVR systems.

An IVR user is interacts with IVR through it menu only. So it is very important to design IVR menu which is easily understandable to first time callers. Previously people used Visio like tools to design IVR menu. But now a days, almost all IVR development tools come with powerful, feature rich visual IVR menu designer giving DYI(Do It Yourself) feature for IVR customers.

The most essential requirement of an IVRS is that it has to work 24 hours a day, 364 days a year! It is not an application like your MS Word or Outlook Express that you run them when you need! Also IVRS does not have any User Interface. The reason for not having User Interface is obvious! It interacts with human through voice and telephone instrument keypad. (These are actually DTMF Digits. I will explain about DTMF, Pulse dialing in another post.) So, a typical IVR application does not require to be executed manually, it starts as a service in Windows Operating System as soon as it boots up. ( Or same way in Linux)
So, in order build an IVRS Application, the following are essential

1. How many channels to be used? How many calls it should handle simultaneously?
2. How should it be connected to PSTN Lines? Connection may be in two modes, analog and digital.
3. Type of Hardware used. It requires two kind of hardware – a. A PC or a Server b. CTI hardware.
4. Voice prompts Recording or TTS (text-To-Speech) Engine.
5. IVRS Software.
6. Power supply and wiring arrangement.

Number of channels greatly depends on number of calls the user is expecting. For example, if it is public utility (Like 100, 101, Railway enquiry etc), the number of calls will be high. If it has to handle large number of calls (more than 16 numbers), it should be connected using DIGITAL technology. And you will have to use a digital CTI cards too. Digital Cards are more expensive than analog CTI cards and they start with minimum channel count of 30. If you are going to use a Digital card, use a Server. There are many CTI cards, both analog and digital, available in various configurations.

Then the voice prompts! These are voices you hear as soon as you dial the IVRS telephone numbers! These are pre-recorded voices which are played as soon as your call is established. Normally one should get recorded the voice prompts and for any dynamic content or data, TTS may be used. But the voice quality of TTS is still poor specially it may be difficult to understand to people whose mother tongue is not English.

Once you finalized the above, it is time to develop your IVRS Software or find a IVRS Software development company! There are many IVRS Software development companies in the world. Many IVRS Software are developed on various platforms, using different languages. The best IVRS (in terms of robustness, features, easy to configure and maintain) are the IVRS software which are developed in C++. If you intend to develop a IVRS Software on your own, buy the CTI hardware, and read the APIs. Also you need to have thorough knowledge of PSTN exchange. Specially to configure DIGITAL CTI card using SS7, MTP3 ISUP, R2MF, ISDN PRI etc are time consuming and let me warn you, they are not easy! Also you have to have these infrastructure to your testing purpose! ( How many of you have an exhange with SS7 ?) So, best advice is, attempt build your own IVRS if you have to use analog CTI cards, and for DIGITAL CTI Cards, better contact some IVR Companies!

Keep reading this for CTI cards, IVR Software, IVR Companies and most importantly, how you can make money through IVR! It’s a hot thing