What is IVVR ?
IVVR ( Interactive Voice and Video Response) system can be thought of next generation of IVR system which includes ‘video’ apart from only voice in a typical IVR system. In an IVVR system, a caller will use a video call, will be able to choose options from his mobile phone screen, view information required by him in video format. Since now, in an IVR, caller could only listen his information in voice and select any option either by DTMF or speech recognition! With IVVR, caller would be able to give command to IVR system through user-friendly way by choosing menu options as if browsing a website!

How tourism industry can benefit from IVVR ?

Tourism industry majorly thrive on ‘showcasing’ their attraction to prospective visitors! So, IVVR could be cheap, highly interactive, accessible anywhere tool for any hotel or online travel companies! Till, now travel companies may have been promoting their hotel, destination through either costly TV advertisements, CD/DVD distribution, or plain old news paper/ magazine advertisements without any interaction at all. Website is a good medium, but then an web visitor needs a laptop or PC, internet connection etc. to check the hotel or the destination.

With introduction of 3G in many countries in the world, also availability of low cost 3G enabled mobile phones and falling bandwidth cost are likely to propel use of IVVR of hotels and other tourist attractions!

1. Providing video footage of hotel rooms

Hotel would be able to provide complete video presentation of their property, rooms, amenities, lobby etc. This will not only attract more and more travelers, but also increase confidence in the property.

2. Interactive booking

After reviewing a property, a traveler would be able to book by interacting directly with booking agent. Visual interaction gives more confidence for first time traveler than mere email exchange or telephonic conversation.

3. Live promotional video

Hotels or other travel marketing companies would be able to provide live promotional video to prospective traveler or clients. This would be really interesting for a traveler to check out the room he or she would be staying in near future!

So, most probably, IVVR offers some exciting application for hotel and traveling industry. Has any hotel or travel company implemented any IVVR for their properties ? I would be very interested to know and explore more about this.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) System is a tool which can serve hospitality industry in many ways. Most probably, not many people in hotel industry or IVR industry may have thought about it or implemented some really smart, useful, productive IVR application for it. Well, recently, I was advising one company how IVR is useful in hotel industry, I realised IVR can be deployed in hospitality industry right from hotel bookings to room service, from providing voicemail service to bill payment!

Here is how:-

1. Advertising and Hotel booking
Hotel booking can be completely automated and can be made very enthralling experience for the caller or prospective guest! For example, if the caller is an foreign national, she can be greeted in his native language ( using Caller ID, IVR can greet her in her native language, a pleasant surprise, right ?)! And she would be able to browse through various room types, tariff, availability in her own language. She would be even able to make payment and get confirmation code on voice for any room booking! And caller gets all information of the hotels, its amenities, facilities including weather of the city where the hotel is located. Yes, IVR will be able to offer information on must visit places of the area. Never forget, it can alert booking clerk of the booking immediately on SMS and he can view the report and transaction.

If the caller had stayed back before in the hotel, she could be greeted with her personalised name ( again using caller id, if she uses same phone number). She can be treated separately than first time callers too, by the intelligen IVR.

IVR can make outgoing calls for birth day wishes, anniversary wishes automatically from the hotel they stayed before. If IVR is some how integrated with location based system ( LBS) and finds out that a guest is in the same city where the hotel is, IVR can make an outgoing call and play an welcome message to the city!
So, IVR can book rooms, get payments, confirm booking to customer, store records and identity with credit card numbers, advertise hotel facilities, inform availability of rooms to caller, automatically identify nationality and speak in the same language!
Pray, why were you missing this piece of intelligent equipment and still in hospitality industry?

2. Room Service and in house service
IVR can automate many services in a hotel. Consider, you lift the phone and hear list of services offered by the hotel. On top of the menu, it is a complimentary bottle of wine! ( I would find that hotel and stay there!) All normal services like food, outgoing call, laundry, room cleaning etc. could be availed without having to speak to anyone! Also imagine, in a foreign land, you are ordering food in your own language! Yes, IVR can have option to switch to language as per nationality of the occupant in that room!

IVR can also offer host of other services like, wake up call, voicemail, do not disturb etc. One would be even able to check what is the current bill as on that day/time!

Did I say it works 24 hours a day, without tiring, always with pleasant voice and efficient way! Most probably, if you are not using intelligent IVR for your hotel or travel company, you have not deployed one of most useful equipment for generating more revenue for you, do marketing and promotion!

IVRS has application now in almost all industries! With the advent of telecommunication, IVRS has become almost an essential application to automate various business activities. Travel Industry has too IVRS application, which can help in a big way in customer service to any size of tour and travel company. In fact, any travel and toour companies get a lot of calls with routine enquiries which can be best attended by IVRS more efficiently and quickly! Remember, many people prefer getting information from IVRS than human!

Here are the few usage of IVRS in Travel Industry:

1. Quick response to a caller as well as to provide precise information.

2. It can search and retrieve from large database built over the years efficiently through IVR Application and provide the information to the caller quickly.

3. It can gather caller information by caller id as well as record and voice message.

4. It works 24 hours a day never goes on leave.

5. It can have many langauge choice to the caller and have intelligence to greet in local language as per the caller id and calling country! For example, if some one calls from France and he is greetd in French Langauge, I hope you will get a deal for sure!

6. It can generate automatic enquiry number as well as connect to human executive on requirement basis!

7. Minimum Human intervention for mundane questions will increase efficiency of executives and produce more result.

Here is a call flow for  a typical travel company

1. Caller is greeted ina language as per caller id.

2. Choice for Language.

3. Announce list of information available by the Travel Company.

4. Caller chooses an option, and it retrievs the required information from database and announce to the caller.

5. It can also connect to human executive during working hours or record the voice enquiry in audio file format.

6. MIS reporting of callers as per date and time and enquiry number.

The above call flow would definitely be customised from one Travel Company to other.