Since deploying IVR technology can help to reduce costs and streamline business operations, it’s easy to assume that it mostly helps business owners. Managers will certainly get plenty out of IVR-based services, but they actually help consumers the most. Customers who call a hotline equipped with this system can trust that they’ll always get an answer no matter what time of day.
General Application Programming Interfaces
Perhaps the biggest reason for this is the fact that sophisticated APIs make setting up voice menus a breeze. Clients who call a human-staffed line might not always get through. If they do, then there may not be the right type of staffer on the line at the time. Being told to place another phone call at some later date is one of the most frustrating things for those who’ve been dealing with some problem. This is particularly true of customers who have to deal with billing-related issues.
When somebody calls a company’s support line that’s connected to a high-end IVR API, they’re given a list of options to pick from, no matter what time of day it is. Financial difficulties, such as those associated with billing or ordering, might be taken care of automatically. Wireless carriers have long let people refill their minutes at the end of the month simply by following along with a series of voice prompts.
Small business owners can apply this paradigm to almost any kind of commercial operation. Growing companies that lack sufficient numbers of staff to deal with a sudden influx of calls may even find that this technology leads to greater customer satisfaction levels.
Communicating with Customers Nationwide
Due to differences in time zones, it was traditionally impossible for operators to be on the line at the same time all over the country. IVR technology makes this dream a reality, but unfortunately, the artificial sound of synthesized voices was hard to listen to. Advances in the way that computer voices sound, coupled with an increased amount of prerecorded messages made by humans, have given managers the freedom to communicate a much greater variety of different types of information in this way.
Some customers have gotten fed up with the variety of text messages that they get bombarded with on a daily basis. One common complaint is that if they add their phone number to a do-not-disturb list so that they don’t get nuisance messages, they miss out on important details. A creative solution to this problem has been to sign up for such a list and tell every company that they do business with to use an IVR menu system that actually places regular long-distance calls. Users can then block out problematic SMS content without losing any of the updates they need. When orders or packages are ready, these consumers will receive phone calls instantly to keep them in the loop. An increasingly large percentage of people are demanding the ability to opt out of certain types of messaging, which is why this kind of solution has become so popular in such a short period of time.
Giving Customers More Control Over Marketing Messaging
Automatic opt-out choices can be baked into an IVR menu, which makes them somewhat unique among the ways to reach customers. This helps to illustrate just how helpful these actually are, especially in an era when people are becoming resistant to certain types of marketing. Customers value the ability to opt out of messages, and they’ll, therefore, be much more receptive to the ones they elect to receive.
Some firms have found that their customers become twice as likely to actually order the moment that they’re given an additional degree of control over marketing messages. Financial and real estate brands might benefit the most in this respect since their customers tend to be more focused on privacy considerations than the general public.
No matter what sized company you’re talking about, IVR menus can help both that firm itself and the consumers who do business with it. Engineers who deploy these solutions with extra care will enjoy greater levels of customer interaction due to their discernment.
