Which Companies Would Benefit From Using an Interactive Voice System

By Michiel Van Kets

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) has seen many advances in its technology since it first came onto the market and these days it is one of the most sophisticated and commonly used types of call centre software existing. Facilitated by all kinds of companies throughout the world, the main purpose of the system is to deal with the large numbers of calls that some organizations of a particular nature can experience and is humanly impossible to handle. A sophisticated IVR system will minimize a company’s costs and help it to make the customers experience pleasanter and the employees’ job easier and less stressful.

IVR systems are able to differentiate between commands, whether they are input via the dial pad or as a voice command. The system recognizes the input and working through a flow chart either proceeds by asking another question or redirects you to the correct department. IVR systems are most suitable for any task whereby the instruction can be separated and put into a simple menu option. In telecommunications they prove very capable and dependable in handling large numbers of phone calls.

Interactive Voice Response systems can save an organization a lot of valuable time and expense as well as staff resources.IVR appliances are generally used in telephone banking industries, for credit card transactions and televoting, a company that utilizes such a system can extend its business hours to round the clock if necessary. Organizations that are inclined to receive thousands of calls every day, such as call centres, need to have a way of dealing with all these calls so customers are not waiting for lengthy periods of time to talk to customer service. This will only make them frustrated and angry, something no company wants. This could be an embassy where the customer requires passport and visa information for a particular destination or a bank where the caller just needs to check their balance and have no particular need to talk to anyone, they just need the information. Automated systems can be enormously useful in dealing with these kinds of enquiries and save the organization and the customer a lot of time. Considering the choice between an employed staff to deal with the calls, or an automated system, the latter is more cost-effective.

IVR systems can vary greatly in the way they work and this depends mainly on the cost, the cheaper the system the more basic functions you can expect and vise versa. In a basic model expect simple commands such as to say the number of the option required or press 1 for.press 2 for.dial pad command. The more advanced systems ask for names, dates of birth and your address and recognize the answers, so speeding the whole process up greatly. These kinds of systems are appropriate for information only situations where the same information is needed over and over again and can provide it a lot faster than if the phones would be manually answered.

Call centres are the main users of IVR systems and use them to identify and redirect the user to the correct department where their enquiry can then be dealt with. The capacity to categorize their customers means that the organization can then change their services in order to suit clients’ needs and requirements.

IVR systems can be used to handle the millions of people calling in to vote for TV game shows, the most popular being Pop Idol and Big Brother. IVRs are also useful for mobile users who are calling to register a new ringtone or logo for their phone, anyone calling to ask about the weather forecast for the following day or their stars for that week will come across an automated system.

IVR systems are installed in-house and taken care of by the IVR provider who incorporates the system through the client’s network.

Anyone looking for call centre software for their organization using voice recognition and any other advanced applications that use speech recognition and voice biometrics should research online for professional services.

Michiel Van Kets writes articles for VeCommerce, a company delivering world-class solutions for companies so they can operate at maximum efficiency and effectiveness in order to grow. Services and products such as IVR and IVR software are offered. For information on software systems, visit the website.

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Topics: Software | Comments Off

Tags: Interactive Voice Response systems, Software, Voice recognition, voice recognition software

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