The award winning , powerful IVR Toolkit Pronexus VBVoice is now rated as Avaya Compliant, as per recent press release by the Ontario based company, Pronexus. “Utilities OnCall, a VBVoice IVR application built by Vocantas, was successfully compliance tested with Avaya Aura® Communication Manager 6.0.1 and Avaya Aura® Session Manager 6.1 by Avaya’s DevConnect Technical Team and officially accepted as compliant.”

Pronexus VBVoice is now Avaya Compliant

With this compliant certification by Avaya, VBVoice customers can be sure of their applications built using VBVoice toolkit would work in Avaya environment, the press release says.

Here is the complete Release :-
Pronexus VBVoice Now Rated “Avaya Compliant”
IVR toolkit VBVoice now a powerful solution for developers working inside Avaya environment

OTTAWA, ON, Feb. 2, 2012 – Pronexus, the developer of the leading Interactive Voice Response (IVR) toolkit Pronexus VBVoice™, announced today that they are compliant with telephony solutions from Avaya, a global leader in business communications. With the Avaya certification, Pronexus customers can be sure their VBVoice applications that use HMP drivers and SIP protocol are going to work inside the Avaya environment.

Pronexus flagship product, VBVoice IVR software enables developing feature-rich inbound and outbound IVR solutions. Utilities OnCall, a VBVoice IVR application built by Vocantas, was successfully compliance tested with Avaya Aura® Communication Manager 6.0.1 and Avaya Aura® Session Manager 6.1 by Avaya’s DevConnect Technical Team and officially accepted as compliant.

The Avaya DevConnect program promotes the development, compliance-testing and co-marketing of innovative third-party products that are compatible with standards-based Avaya solutions. Member organizations have expertise in a broad range of technologies – including IP telephony, contact centers and mobility applications – helping companies extend the value of multivendor networks and transform voice into an intelligent business application that delivers true value to the bottom line.

“We are very pleased to have our award-winning IVR software, VBVoice, compliance tested by Avaya and to announce that VBVoice now integrates seamlessly with all Avaya products,” said Valentin Doroga, Chief Architect of Pronexus. “As more developers turn to VBVoice to build their IVR applications, it has become more important than ever to integrate with large players like Avaya to ensure our users have access to the most cutting edge technologies.”

About Avaya
Avaya is a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, providing unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services to companies of all sizes around the world. For more information please visit www.avaya.com. For more information on the Avaya DevConnect program, visit www.avaya.com/devconnect.

About Pronexus

Since 1994, Pronexus has delivered proven voice applications and IVR development tools that developers rely on to help them integrate voice with business systems, including unified communications, customer relationship management and field service automation systems. http://www.pronexus.com.

Recently I have traveled North and Eastern part India and met many people who are either using IVR systems or are dealing with call centres. While interacting with them, one thing I realised that, people are now warming up to the concept of hosted IVR in India. Most interesting part is, even bigger companies are now a days receptive to the idea of hosted IVR, which few years ago was a complete no, no.

I think, there are two major factors which have helped people warming up to the hosted IVR services :-

1. Reliable Internet connectivity
2. Cost Benefit : Pay as per usage model

1. Reliable Internet Connectivity
In the last few years, quality of internet connectivity has gone up manifold and downtime is no longer frequent unlike few years ago in India. Reliable and dedicated internet connectivity was also costly and not available easily, specially outskirts of cities, where industries tend to exist!

This kind of internet connectivity has helped integration information available at the premises of an organization with of IVR system hosted some where else using internet connectivity. One can say, “IVR in cloud” is now possible, works reliably thanks to good internet connectivity.

2. Cost Benefit : Pay as per usage model
I think, I would give credit to hosted IVR providers in India, who have been able to convince IVR users about the cost benefit of using hosted IVR over on-premise IVR. It is not only about initial investment in hardware and software, but also keeping updated with latest CTI hardware and IVR tools.
Most of the people I have interacted with, have had clear idea about how hosted IVR can reduce initial investment an reduce time to live with IVR. Many of them were also happy with accessing IVR logs online by just visiting a website and logging in.

Apart from above two major factors, I think many business houses become focused on their core competence while outsourcing business processes to professionals. Many people were more comfortable with one time capital expenditure than recurring operational expenditures. But, in IVR, there is always an fixed or variable operational expenditure in the form of telephone rental and outbound call cost. So, many have started opting for just operational expense without any major capital expense and hosted IVR just fits in between.

Most probably, with slowing of economy world wide, even bigger companies might be finding it easier to go with “pay per usage” hosted IVR system to server their customers.

I would be happy to know feedback from others how they feel about hosted IVR in India.

There are many benefits of using IVR (Interactive Voice Response) System in automating information distribution, but there is one benefit which I would like to discuss here.

There are many business activities where information keep changing and it is imperative to keep the updated information available to any customer, or caller. Some examples are :-

IVR Benefit : Updated Information always

1. Current trading price of a stock price of a company,
2. Current bill of consumer like mobile phone or electricity
3. Confirmation of payment made in Credit Card
4. Online tracking of courier dispatch
Many more!

IVR system can perform faster, better than human agent in such scenario where data update rate is quite high and accurate information is ‘perishable item’ as in vegetable. In a traditional system where there is no IVR, this updated information would be searched by human agent using a computer and then inform the caller.

Most of the time, the human agent may not be willing to search for the price of the same stock market again and again, and may inform the old price which may result in direct financial loss to the caller. An IVR would always retrieve the latest price automatically and provide the latest information.

Normally, only those people call up to an IVR for any information who actually need it. It is impossible to know who need the information at a given time, so, it is not desirable to send out information to all registered users anytime some changes take place in a stock price. IVR can always fetch the updated information for the caller anytime. Any unwanted information is a spam and this has resulted in NDNC ( National Do Not Call ) registry in any countries where ‘tele-caller’ companies are fined heavily if they make calls to NDNC registered phone numbers.

Since IVR application will always connect to a centralised database for retrieving the latest information, we have one more ‘check’ how IVR is being used by callers. If the IVR is retrieving the data, we can be sure that the caller had successfullt navigated to the menu where s/he gets the information. This can work as a measure of success of the IVR.

So, if you are a service providers where you need to provide updated information to your customers, IVR system is very useful to automate such calls/enquiries. IVR Application will automatically retrive from your updated data while providing information to caller eliminating your worry ‘how to provide customers with updated information’.

Among the many applications available with IVR Hosting providers, which could be leveraged by any start-up companies or smaller companies, Virtual Receptionist is one of the most useful whose benefit is measurable and very evident.

While many traditional PBX systems too offer facility of virtual receptionist, concept of virtual receptionist is nothing new in telecom domain, when a ‘Virtual Receptionist’ is implemented using IVR system at the background integrated with SMS (Short Messaging Service), E-mail, Call Whisper etc. apart from intelligent call routing, the whole concept becomes very interesting an useful!

So, how IVR based hosted Virtual Receptionist is different from traditonal virtual receptionist available in PBX systems ?

First of all, choosing an hosted IVR has its own advantages like very small or no initial investment in hardware as well as time to set up the system! PBX based virtual receptionist has limitations in terms of configuring complex and intelligent routing, integration with third party business logic etc.

Being majorly software driven, hosted IVR based virtual receptionist can have any type of computation capability, easy integration with third party systems like SMS, CRM etc.

Few smart features which makes IVR based Hosted Virtual Receptionist interesting and a must have for many companies :-

1. Hosted virtual Receptionist would work 24 hours a day, play different greetings at different time. It can even use multiple languages depending on the caller ID. For example, it will greet ‘Good Morning’ in morning, ‘Good Afternoon’ in the afternoon. If it detects caller ID from Spain, it can greet in Spanish, like “Buenos días, bienvenidos a nuestra empresa” ( Good Morning, welcome to our company ) even if your company is in China!

2. Virtual receptionist can send you immediate alert for any incoming call either by SMS or E-email. This SMS or Email can information like Caller ID, time of call. And if the caller has recorded a voice mail, the recorded audio file can also be attached in the email as WAV file. WAV file can be played back on BlackBerry, IPhone or Android phones. So, one never has to miss any important update!

3. Call whisper is one important feature where hosted virtual receptionist can speak out the caller ID and ask for an key press option either to receive the call or transfer to someone else or to voice mail! This kind of call screening is specially useful for calls from irritating tele-callers or banks asking for loan returns. (Ok, the later part was a joke.)

4. Hosted IVR service providers would have record of each and every call, their status ( either forwarded, voice mail, or out office hour, holidays etc.). This is very useful for marketing and sales lead generation point of view as it provides real time, online report using which one can measure lead captures, converted etc.

Few practical and pressing reason why you should opt for hosted Virtual Receptionist ?

If you are small company and have to travel out of office during office hour or out-station, hosted virtual receptionist is the service for you!

Hosted virtual receptionist provider like Niche Tech Services Private Limited can provide you with 10 digit mobile number owned by you! So even if you change IVR service provider, the number remains with you!

With online and accurate MIS, accessible from net anywhere, your office people can no longer avoid or lie about any inquiries on phones to the office! One can fix responsibility if any one does not attend a call during office hour!

So, with hosted virtual receptionist, you no longer need to be afraid of high initial and recurring investment to have your own smart receptionist!

Interactions Corporation announced results of a study on consumer perceptions of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems on 23rd June 2011. Interactions Corporation commissioned Liel Leibovitz, New York University Assistant Professor of Communications, who conducted the study on consumer satisfaction on IVR.

The consumer research was completed in two parts. In the first part, 408 respondents completed an 11-question survey about general attitudes towards IVRs and other service options. In the second part, an additional 21 respondents were interviewed in person and in depth to provide greater insight regarding these customer service options.

“The study concluded that there is continued overwhelming dissatisfaction with Interactive Voice Response Systems, despite the increased investment in, and recent growth of, the IVR industry. Consumers still view them as difficult to use and less desirable than any other service option.

According to consumers, a key shortcoming of IVR systems is that they are difficult to use. On an ease-of-use scale, IVR systems scored lower than any of the other service options and was the only option perceived as difficult to use. In addition, IVR was the least preferred service option with only 15% of consumers choosing IVR as their preferred option. ” Press Release by Interactions, Inc

So, according to the study, they main shortcoming in any IVR system is, it is difficult to use! So, in order to make IVR easier to use by callers, one has to make the IVR very, very simple!

Over the years, I have seen that majority of the IVR systems uses one number to call and then it tries to solve multiple problems, offer multiple services or tries to do multiple tasks. This result in lengthy and boring menus or instructions!

So, the solutions for making IVR very easy to use for callers may be using “One Phone Number One Task IVR” policy! In this policy, an IVR would provide only one service. For example, in a mobile service provider, 1110 will provide prepaid balance of the caller, 1111 will lodge a complaint of the caller for X reason, 1112 will lodge a complaint of the caller for Y reason etc.

Now this will require the IVR user to remember many numbers for his services required! So he can either remember IVR numbers for corresponding services or he may choose to listen to menus!

So, I think the complaint of IVR being difficult to use will keep coming and IVR service providers will have to continuously monitor call abandon and keep trying to make it easier for callers to use!

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.

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.

MLM ( Multi Level Marketing) can be defined as a marketing strategy where its sales force earns from their selling as well as from those sales generated by people whom they recruit to sell. So, essentially if a sales person creates many successful sales person under him, he generates enough revenue without himself involving in any direct sales! Amway is one of the most famous MLM companies in the world with many products which they sell through their members only.

MLM is also known as Networking Marketing as well as referral marketing, there are many MLM companies in India now a days.

IVR in Multi Level Marketing Companies

The reach of MLM companies is now not confined to city or town areas in India where internet penetration is high, but also to villages where there is almost no penetration of internet and computer, but mobile phones have reached. So, providing updated account information as well as other MLM activities like adding new recruit, lodge any complaints using an IVR may not only add provide added facility to MLM company, but also increase its service area.

What IVR for MLM Companies can do ?

Here are few tasks an IVR can perform for MLM Companies 24 hours a day, without any break and any manual intervention :-

1. It can register any enquiry of new member which could be immediately alerted to any existing member in the same area from where one has made the call.

2. IVR can be used to retrieve member account information like commissions earned by his sales as well as his down-line distributors or any new member additions to his network. These instant and updated information keep a member motivated all the time.

3. IVR can be configured to act as an outbound IVR that can be used to blast mass voice message to all its members any important news, new scheme, discount or any service disruptions etc.

4. IVR can be used to play back recorded voice message of the managing director or owner of the MLM company which builds confidence in its members. This can also be used to gauge member enthusiasm about the MLM company.

So, if you own an MLM company and not using IVR, most probably, you are missing a tool which can not only increase efficiency of your MLM company, but also increase its profitability as well as reputation.

5. IVR can be used as complete automated complaint management system for its members. IVR based complaint management system offers many benefits like lodging complaints using just a phone call without any human intervention by the MLM company.

Apart from these, IVR could b beneficial to automate many mundane and routine tasks performed manually which can result in decrease in operational cost, increase efficiency resulting in increased profitability.

In India, not many courier companies have tracking system on IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) system, though almost everyone has web-based online tracking system. Majority of the courier companies have their offices or franchisees in many smaller cities for larger coverage as well as networks in India. Most websites of the courier companies list the phone numbers of these offices for local tracking of the shipments.

Recently, I have observed that, few employees are almost busy all the time answering telephone calls in these offices and tracking the shipment according to the consignment number. On top of that, these employees majorly check the status manually on their computer and inform status of the shipment to the caller.

All these processed could be automated completely using IVR hosting service at any location in India. It is possible since the tracking system is already cumputerised as well as accessible online. Courier tracking on IVR is being widely used in western countries like United States of America, Europe etc.

In any shipment, it has few finite status, for example, it will have the following statuses :-

1. Shipment in transit : This will state that, the shipment is on transit but it has not reached the destination. It can also announce the current city where the shipment has reached apart from expected delivery date.

2. Shipment at Destination : Shipment has reached the destination town or city, could be collected in person, but delivery will be made next day only.

3. Shipment out for delivery : Shipment is in destination city/town, and shipment is taken out for delivery. Most probably, many people would enquire during this status!

4. Shipment Delivered : Shipment has been delivered on time and date.

In hosted IVR enthronement, it should be quite easy to retrieve the status of any shipment by its consignment number. Courier

Since online tracking is already available on web, courier companies can easily provide an HTTP based API ( Application Programming Interface) to retrieve the shipment status to hosted IVR system.

Here is tentative steps, how hosted IVR service for shipment tracking can work :-

1. Caller calls the IVR number and IVR greets him in his local language as per caller id.
2. Caller dials the consignment number.
3. Hosted IVR uses Web service API to retrieve the current status and announce that.

So, hosted IVR can easily provide telephone based shipment tracking system in easy and simple ways using the local languages. Hosted IVR for shipment tracking system can be very useful as it is quick to go live and does not require any big initial investment.

While web based shipment tracking is very useful, but it can be used by many illiterate people as well as those people who do not have internet access. But now a days, majority people have access to mobile phone or public telephone booth, using which one can track shipment status on IVR. Another main advantage of IVR is use of local language which is not possible in case of websites.

Hosted IVR based tracking system can reduce burden of employees of courier companies, provide useful and time tracking system to its clients.

Internet offers many services which are useful in our day to day life. There are many web portals which providing directory services which list traders, shops, local business houses, various service providers etc. along with with easy ‘search and find’ option.

Web Directory Service IVR

There are few challenges for maintaining a directory service portal with accurate information. For example :-

1. Many directory service web portals still list phone numbers which are no longer in service or disconnected for may business houses. These phone numbers need to be periodically checked and verified. Or before listing them, one needs to verify it. When outdated phone number is listed against any shop or service providers ina directory listing website, it loses confidence in web visitors.

2. Address verification is another tedious and manual process which takes a lot of resources of the web portal. By providing accurate address, a directory web portal increases reputation among web visitors and gain popularity.

3. Many directory services allow web visitors or local business establishments to list themselves on the web portal. The phone numbers, addresses provided by them needs to be verified before publishing them. It is tedious and time consuming process.

IVR ( Interactive Voice Response) System can automate all the above verification process and can easily verify all the data.

How IVR can help directory services ?

1. IVR can make automatic outbound calls against any phone number listed against any address or business establishment. It can dial out the number and report back if the number is not reachable. If it is land-line number and does not ring, gets disconnected immediately or does not get busy tone after trying three times, it can safely assume that, the number does not work or exist and stop it getting published on the website.
When the phone number rings and picked up, then it can announce purpose of calling and then verify his address by asking him to press few keys!

This process can be completely automatic and can be done periodically to keep phone numbers updated and accurate.

2. In order to verify correct information or address, IVR can dial out the phone number, read out address using TTS ( Text To Speech) and then ask the called party to press a key to verify. IVR can also transfer the call to some human agent in case further assistance is required. With accurate address, the web portal can increase its credibility and respect by web visitors.

3. For user submitted data ( where web visitors are allowed to submit their shop, services to be listed in the web directory), IVR can be used quite effectively to validate phone numbers, verify address without manual intervention. While user submitted data can help a web directory portal grow, but these kind of data seem to be most inaccurate. With use of IVR, the accuracy of user submitted data can be improved.

Apart from IVR for verifying data, another important IVR application, Click To Call can be used to track leads generated by its listing, as well as allow added facility for web visitors to speak to these listings free of cost!

If you own a web directory service, yellow pages, it is time to augment your effort using IVR system!