I recently spent some vacation time in Washington D.C. which naturally involved squeezing in as much of the Smithsonian as possible in a short period of time. While I was there, reading about the different exhibits, one thing I saw at quite a few locations really jumped out at me: cell phone audio tours.

Quite a few exhibits had signs or placards up with a phone number and “extension” that you could call from your cell phone to listen to more information about that particular display. These signs everywhere from inside the different Smithsonian buildings to the National Botanic Garden. With my nerdy side shining through, I couldn’t help but think, “What a wonderful application for an interactive voice response system!” Everyone these days carries a cell phone with them, and these call-in numbers give anyone who is interested the opportunity to hear more about the displays that interest them straight from the source, whether it is a recording made by the artist or the curator or gardener.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) has a way of sounding very complicated, and that is largely because it is such a powerful and dynamic technology that the possibilities alone can be a bit daunting. It is a little bit easier to grasp if we break it down to some of the unique applications that IVR can be used for. In this case, the museum is in essence putting together an information line.
Visitors call the information line, input the number displayed for their current location, and the appropriate audio is played back to them. In other cases, it can be used as an answering attendant to direct incoming phone calls to different extensions, collecting data in an automated telephone survey, or a variety of other tasks.

So while part of me hates to admit that work followed me on my vacation in the form of IVM interactive voice response software, another part of me really got a kick out of seeing this great application for an IVR system at the museum. It’s something to keep in mind if you are looking for a solution to help you share information or your expertise without having to always be available in person.

We’ve all been stuck on the phone trying to get information from an automated telephone system in a battle against the machine that sometimes seems to be designed specifically to prevent us from finding what we’re looking for. While that almost certainly wasn’t the intent of the automated phone system, poor execution can leave a multitude of customers with a bad taste in their mouth.

A well designed IVR (Interactive Voice Response) phone system can be a valuable resource, but a poorly designed system will only reflect poorly on your organization’s communication and customer service. With that being said, here are a few pointers to help make sure you are designing a good call flow for your automated IVR system:

• Outline the Call Flow for Your IVR
  A flow chart or an outline is the perfect place to start. You really need to take the time to plan out how someone is going to interact with your phone system long before you start creating the actual IVR in your software. Taking the time to plan it all through at the beginning will help you keep the big picture in mind and to avoid creating a long trail of prompts.

• Think Like Your Customers
  Always keep your customers in mind. Why will they be calling the system? Put the options for the most frequently used items at the beginning so they can be accessed quickly and easily. At every step along the way think about how the message will come across from a customer’s point of view.

• Keep It Simple
  Don’t try to do everything. Less is more. With an automated phone system you want to keep the number of key presses to minimum. Trying to do too many things just gives the callers more places that they can get lost along the way. Really think about what options should be available and who is calling in. For example, if you need to offer different services to customers and vendors it might be better to have two different systems rather thane on that does everything, keeping each line simplified and tailored to its purpose instead of trying to do everything on one line.

• Keep Menu Prompts Clear and Concise
  The longer your message, the harder it is going to be for a caller to remember everything that is being said and what they need to do to interact with the system. Be sure to use the same language as your customers, avoiding industry slang and terminology callers might not be familiar with.

• Offer Universal Commands
  Options like pressing the star key (*) to return to the main menu at any point during a call, or an option to repeat a prompt will make it much easier for callers to navigate the IVR system.

• Give the Option to Talk to Someone or Leave a Voice Message
  The goal of an IVR system may be in part to reduce the number of calls that your staff needs to handle, but there will be times when the system does not fulfill a customer’s needs. You need to offer these callers the alternative to either talk to a live person or leave a message for someone to call them back.

• Test, Test, Test, and Test Some More
  Test the call flow every step along the way test the flow. Think of as many possible scenarios as you can and go through the process yourself. Get other people to try it out, too. Never think of your system as being completely done. You need to monitor how well it is working, and make sure that you are offering the right options at the right time. Get feedback from your staff and customers. Designing a good IVR call system should be an ongoing process.

These are just a few of the tips to help you get started on the right foot when you are implementing an interactive voice response system. Taking the time to thoroughly plan out a new IVR call flow, before you even start working with an application like IVM interactive voice response software, can make a significant difference in the final result and is well worth the time and effort.

All great products are great service to man kind. Or all great product becomes services to be availed by everyone!

IVRS or commonly known as Hosted IVRS is also a such product!

Apart from the analog low density IVR Applications, the digital and high quality IVRS has always been costly for small sized companies and they were trading quick and efficient service for cost. No longer now!

With growing acceptability as availability of quality service providers, Hosted IVR has become a reality and came in very much in the range of small companies!
Angel.com, a subsidiary of MicroStrategy, is the world leader in this!

So, you thought IVRS is some Computer Telephony Integration Hardware and a piece of Software, installed and running 24 hours a day on a Personal Computer to play recorded voice as soon as a caller calls the IVRS Number?
You have completely under-estimated IVRS. But then don’t loose your heart, you belong to the majority! And it’s perfectly fine to underestimate.

But then imagine the following scenarios:-

1. You call your telephone company customer service number. You are welcome to Customer Care service. Then some music. Then it starts giving out long list of options to choose. Some options are for pressing a key and some require you to speak one word or some words. But then its not what you were looking, so you want to speak to an customer care executive. Normally its by pressing 9. So, dutifully you press 9. Another melody. Then you get to hear, “Your Call is Important to us”, please wait while we are transferring your call. Another melody! Already 2 minutes gone, Your call is important to us, again, cool, they are making your call important by making you talking to a machine! 4 minutes gone by then, and finally you get to hear, All our customer care executives are busy. Your call is important to us. Please wait while we are trying to connect you to our customer care executive. The approximate time for connection is 4 minutes. Kindly hold the line or please call later. You take the advice. You hang up and call after 10 minutes. The same procedure follows! What you do? Utter some profanities/expletives and slam the phone down?
2. You call large enterprise customer support number. Welcome prompts! Then a list of teeth breaking technical sounding department list. You somehow manage to remember the option for your department and press the right key or speak the right word and IVRS could understand! Then the next prompt comes! This particular division is closed now! Thank you for calling. And then you hear a busy tone! Did they shut the door in front of your face ? What you can do? Slam the phone. Stamp your feet on your floor?

There are many more similar situations! You scratch your head and wonder what made them call themselves Customer Care Service? Where you did not even get the care, let alone the service you were looking?

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The answer is lack of knowledge of usability of IVRS by the design engineer or the company!

Make no mistake, like any other software, IVRS is also normally designed and developed by some software engineers without much input from either marketing or customer service people. And they will concentrate more on software features like call flow, database integration, TTS Integration, smart speech recognitions and many more.

What are the consequences of IVRS with poor usability? They are:-
1. Frustrated and Angry customers ( you will hear lot of expletives and profanities you record your IVRS calls and dare to listen them)
2. High call duration but no satisfactory service to the customer. Poor usage of IVRS
3. High hang ups.
4. Increased cost as it will transfer more calls to customer care executives.
5. Decline in customer satisfaction affecting brand value of the company.

But then you need not worry, I have a collection of tips to increase usability of IVRS. To be posted shortly.