By Edwin Margulies
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Systems have been serving-up automated self-service since the late seventies and the subject of running pop culture jokes on shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons ever since. Now the “Systems We Love to Hate” have a new lease on life.
Pay the Devil His Due
IVR Systems do a lot of heavy lifting. From multiple data dips to grab customer account info or order status, to screen pops for agents to speech recognition input from callers. All that infrastructure and professional services to build-out a good IVR app comes at a heavy cost. Continue reading
On the other hand, the enterprise is able to more evenly spread its demand throughout the day. Agent productivity and service levels are improved by shifting calls from busy periods to the slowest periods. Idle time in the call center is reduced. Callbacks also reduce the number of abandoned calls which can increase sales and revenue..jpg)
I don’t know too many people that enjoy “taking a survey” at the end of a call center transaction or even in a pop-up window on a web site. Yet more and more, people nonetheless want to broadcast their sentiment. Take all the tweets and Facebook posts on brands and products. Those are “democratic” or at least “free market” forms of feedback. And social feedback is on your customers’ terms.