NTS ( Niche Tech Services Private Limited), Udaipur, India based IVR company has launched an interesting IVR portal for Christ Gen Media, a Trivendrum ( Kerala, India) based which broadcast Bible on IVR in both English and Malayalam on 1st Aug 2010. The solutions is hosted in NTS IVR Environment in Udaipur and the application has been commissioned in less than 6 weeks time, as per web post in NTS website.

The “IVR Bible Portal” works on two modes, callers dial the Bible Number and gets connected to the IVR portal and in the other mode, caller dials the IVR number, gets disconnected, and then IVR calls him/her back! The call back is quite unique feature where caller may listen to IVR Bible Portal free of cost.

The Bible IVR portal has many options:-

1. Caller can hear the complete Bible, Old and New Testament by book number and chapter wise.

2. Caller can listen to Christian Devotional Songs, both in English and Malayalam.

3. Caller can listen to daily devotional song, daily sermon, daily Bible lesson which are updated daily.

As per NTS sources, the IVR Bible Portal has generated more than 2000 calls in 3 days and more than 12 thousand minutes of usage with as many calls. Christ Gen Media sources informs that, they will be introducing six more languages options in this Bible Portal including Hindi, Tamil very soon.

Most probably, this is an unique usage of IVR.

About NTS :
NTS specialise in Hosted out of Box IVR based Applications

About Christ Gen Media :

Christ Gen Media is Christian Media Ministry

What is IVR short code ?
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) short code can be defined as special telephone number which has ‘less’ digits in it than traditional full length telephone number. This kind of special ‘short code’ are mainly used for special purposes like customer care for telephone/mobile subscribers, VAS ( Value Added Service) access either SMS/MMS ( Short Messaging Service/Multimedia Messaging Service) or IVR based, public utility services etc.
With recent ‘VAS boom’ all around the world in telephone and mobile industry, short-code has become quite well known and many people want to ‘have’ it! While, short code is nothing but telephone number with less number of digits in it, it has become very special special as it is always associated with some special service as well as special charging for calling to it! For any VAS short code, it is charged premium while for any customer care service, it is free of charge for the caller.

Different countries have different policies about short code used for IVR access or SMS/MMS access. Normally any short-code has length of 5 digits and can have customisable suffix for specific service.

Advantages of a short-code

Short codes work as just like any telephone/mobile number. But the main advantage is, it is short so it is easy to remember.
Customer Care numbers are widely publicised by telephone companies and these short codes grow to become brand for any telecom company. Likewise, value added service providers also build their brand around the short-code for the services they provide and try to make them popular. For example, 56969 is SMS as well as IVR shortcode for Rajasthan Patrika Pvt. Ltd. in India which offers many value added SMS and IVR services through this short-code.

Apart from being short, these short-code also tend to be vanity number. For example 58888, 56969, 54321 which have some interesting pattern and easy to remember.

Sine it is short number, it is faster to dial or send SMS. Apart from advantages of being short and faster to dial, I could not think of any other advantages. Many people may think short code as vanity number and associate it with pride.

Disadvantages of Short Code

The main disadvantage of short-codes is it is completely telecom company dependent. Shortcodes are accessible within the home network only. In order to make the short-code accessible in all operators across the country, the short code needs to be configured in all the operators. For example, the short code 56969, it is registered by Rajasthan Patrika Pvt. Ltd. in all mobile operators in India in every circle. That is why it is available in all networks in India. This activity of registering the shortcode in all operators ( in India, we have more than 12 mobile operators) and the allocating software as well as hardware resources to for connectivity to each of them is quite cumbersome and time consuming affair. Most of the time, mobile operators may not allocate the desired short code or simply refuse to allocate one.

But a long code or traditional phone number is accessible by all telecom subscribers without having to register with multiple telecom operators.

Revenue Sharing
Normally, apart from the short codes used for customer care services, all other short codes are used for value added services and so charged premium. The revenue generated are shared by telecom operator and the value added service providers.

Short code for IVR
Short codes are being used IVR portals ( popularly known as voice portal) which provide many value added services or utility services. Popular TV reality shows, Contests generate lot of revenues from this kind of IVR short codes from participants. But this kind of short-code would be accessible across country and all telecom networks only when the short-code is registered with all telecom operators. This need huge initial investment in terms of hardware and software as well as recurring expenses.
So, those who do not want to invest more initially and start any IVR service quickly, they may opt for long code or normal telephone number with E1 connectivity form single operator. It may not be possible to charge callers premium and work like a VAS to generate revenue.

E-com portal needs no introduction for anyone who uses internet. E-com has at least revolutionised the way we buy tickets to traveling, if not our groceries!

Now, with advent of 3G services by telecom operators and affordability of 3G enabled phone with dual camera, we can hope to see IVVR portal for e-com portal! It will be an one step ahead of IVR E-com portal I wrote in my recent post. IVVR portal takes care of all drawbacks one faces in using normal web based e-com portal and IVR based e-com portal! Still, IVR e-com portal will score over everything for those people with visual disabilities though!

IVVR(Interactive Voice and Video Response) e-com portal could be accessed by any 3G enabled mobile phone, they can surf any products, be a T-shirt or latest sports car! He can even do test drive a car virtually! It will revolutionize the way one buys a cinema ticket! It has already done, I hope where SpeechStorm has implemented IVVR for movie ticketing in Etisalat. First watching trailers of the available movies and then deciding to book tickets from comfort of home with family or even in office cafeteria with friends, sounds very interesting and appealing to me!

How about buying your favorite shirt on IVVR E-com portal where you check out many shirts as per your choice ? How about entering your size, colour, prints, budget etc. find your desired shirts quickly and smartly? Best part is you can do this from comfort of your drawing room, without any fear from those suicide bombing at malls.

Everything looks awesome about IVVR based e-com portal where one can browse through products quickly and buy instantly. One may not go to mall, spend hours in browsing through products. Though spending time in malls with family and friend may be good leisure, but it may not remain so, specially with shrinking family time as well as security concern. Through IVVR e-com portal, one will be able to ‘try’ the products which a web based e-com portal was unable to provide!

But, the major problem with IVVR is its dependency on 3G networks. Though 3G networks are present in many countries including India, but it has not penetrated to the mass yet. But we can surely hope, it will penetrate soon. Because of this, no one can guess how telecom operator will charge 3G usage. Because, most probably, everyone would be using various IM for making voice calls instead of making ‘plain old voice cal’ in the age of 3G. But if telecom operators offer some unlimited scheme per month, there should be some interest in setting up and usage of IVVR e-com portal. Otherwise it will remain just a hobby of tech savvy people, not a mass consumer item!

But IVVR as technology and IVVR E-Com portal as application surely look exciting!

I have posted one article how IVR can be used to generate revenue, mainly from caller paying to use the IVR services through a voice portal in collaboration with a telecom operator. No doubt, it is a lucrative Voice VAS(Value Added Service) for many M-VAS companies as well as telecom operators, but there are other ways too where one can use IVR to generate revenue, even without any collaboration with any telecom operator.

Also, one of the negative side of collaborating with telecom operator is, they take away majority of the revenue generated while IVR service provider does all the investment as well as majority of the promotions for the IVR services.

There comes in IVR E-Com portal! One may actually generate revenue by establishing an IVR e-com portal! IVR e-com portal can be thought of as corresponding voice portal for an e-com ( e-commerce) web portal. While an e-com portal is accessed using a web browser on a PC/Laptop or mobile phone, IVR e-com portal is accessible by any phone or mobile phone. A successful IVR e-com portal can be even hosted on a toll free number where caller will not be charged anything!

An IVR e-com portal would be capable of selling products like music album after listening to music trailers, can buy movie tickets after hearing some famous dialogues of the movie etc.

Credit card can be charged securely on IVR e-com portal for making payment. Delivery of products would be just like e-com portal, by using courier or postal service.

There are few advantages of IVR e-com portal. For example :-

1. Easy browsing
User will be focused on browsing category wise and will not be distracted by many colorful links as in a e-com web portal. Browsing of products are quick and to the point.

2. Selling Adult products
Many people, specially in India, are unable to buy many products like condom from a chemist shop. There have been many advertisements by governments and other NGOs encouraging people to buy condoms from chemist shops boldly. Using IVR e-com portal, everybody would be able to buy condom or other adult products without any inhibition.
3. Listen trailer
For products like musical album, children CD, etc. could be heard on IVR e-com portal by browsing through them. They can also listen user feedback in original voice form by celebrity users or common users. It will increase authenticity of testimonial of the products.

4. Good option for certain disabilities
IVR e-com portal is a solution for people with visual disabilities. Presently, I am not aware if there is any shop or e-com portal for people with visual disabilities. IVR e-com portal can serve them better with many options.

Challenges in running IVR e-com portal
There are some disadvantages of IVR e-com portal. Many products would be difficult to sell on IVR e-com portal. For example, shirts, pants etc.
Also, not many people may want to dial an IVR and pay for the outgoing call. Also many people may not like the idea of pressing keys on phone many times while browsing through products. Clicking on keys are easier than pressing buttons on phones.

Apart from few ticketing IVR service for airlines, IVR e-com portal has not really picked up or even started. Most probably, not many people are thinking in this direction. If you are thinking now to start IVR e-com portal abd make Ebay in IVR, remember me too that I also had this idea. . Jokes apart, in my next articles I would try to list the services which could be sold or how IVR e-com portal could be monetized.