The ever-decreasing human attention span leaves you with no more than a few seconds to win your callers over before they hang up. Still, there is a way to obtain a significant advantage in the never-ending hunt for customers: Interactive Voice Response (IVR). The most profitable conversations no longer start with a cheerful greeting from a sales rep but rather a human-like modern IVR system voice leading callers to a suitable sales agent or solving their request on the spot.

Interactive Voice Response is not merely one of the bells and whistles you can impress with—it is vital for the quality of service your callers expect. IVR can scale your business, improve the customer journey, and grow your bottom line.

• Phonexa’s IVR conversion tool uses the caller’s voice responses and keypad selections to collect useful information on the caller—the purpose of the call, the caller’s age, ZIP code, etc.—to guide them to an appropriate sales rep and equip the latter with the most essential customer data. Integrated with other Phonexa’s proprietary technologies—Call Logic, Cloud PBX, LMS Sync, and E-Delivery—IVR contributes to a unique ecosystem of lead management accounting for every click and call.

Read on to learn more about IVR and how leveraging it can grow your bottom line.

What Is IVR?

By no means is IVR technology new. From the first attempts to produce synthetic speech in the 1930s to more or less cost-effective solutions in the 1960s to the cutting-edge voice recognition and processing system in the 2020s, it took almost a century for the technology to win its place in call-reliant businesses.

• In a nutshell, an IVR system asks callers questions while providing answers to choose from. As the caller picks among the suggested choices—either through voice recognition or keypad selections—they are guided to a relevant sales agent or get their issues resolved on the spot.

Your business benefits from IVR as you process more calls, enhancing the customer journey and conversion rates. However, when implementing IVR systems, businesses must ensure compliance with TCPA consent requirements to avoid legal issues and protect consumers’ privacy rights.

AI-Powered IVRs

Any IVR system can collect information on callers, but the methods for collecting data are different. For example, AI-powered IVRs can recognize voice requests—even those made in the caller’s native language—and provide appropriate answers. Depending on the phone tree integrated with IVR, it can process an increasing number of callers simultaneously by routing them where they need to go, as shown in the scheme below.

Depending on your business’s scale and specificities, your IVR system can have up to a dozen routing options or sometimes even more.

Voice Recognition in IVR

Responding to an IVR’s questions by speaking is more convenient than using buttons. Voice recognition effectively speeds up IVR-caller interaction and increases customer satisfaction rates.

Types of Voice Recognition

It is essential to use high-quality voice recognition software, as otherwise—in case of connection issues or a strong accent—IVR may not be able to translate the speech correctly, leading to mistakes and more callers requiring the assistance of live agents.

How Can a Multi-Level IVR Improve Your Business?

As over-the-phone conversations remain the top conversion tool—15 times more effective than web interactions—it’s paramount to accurately and timely address your customers’ needs and wants, which a well-thought-out IVR does effectively. But it can do even more!

Here are the benefits of integrating a modern IVR system into your call processing system:

Enhancing the Customer Journey

• Over 60% of callers will hang up if waiting too long in a call queue.
• 59% of customers will react to an offer based on their previous interactions.
• 81% of customers will seek the solution independently before reaching out to a live agent.

As the caller dials up your business, they want to get their requests addressed instantly and correctly rather than familiarize the live agent with the issue at hand. IVR is essential to speed up the customer journey while making it comfortable for the caller. After all, happy customers are easier to convert.

Improving the Performance of Your Sales Reps

 IVR equips sales agents with everything they need to address the caller’s pain points and problems most effectively and with no delay. Top-notch customer service yields way more conversions than when your agents speak to unfamiliar customers.

Likewise, you can score the conversion potential of your callers before directing them to live agents. The qualifying questions your IVR asks may give you an understanding of what your callers want and how likely they are to convert. Based on your call lead scoring system, you can implement appropriate risk-management strategies—for example, direct high-intent callers to your best agents to secure a purchase.

Retaining More Customers

 Timely notifications are paramount to keep your customers in the loop. IVR can notify your clients about the order status, important events, or anything else you want them to know. That reduces the number of confirmation and follow-up calls.

Scaling Your Business

 No matter how many sales reps you have, there’s always a limit to the number of inbound calls you can process at the same time. Conversely, a modern IVR system can handle any number of callers simultaneously and—most importantly—shorten live conversations by informing your agents of the caller’s persona beforehand.

Besides, with IVR, you can leverage cold calls. Unsolicited calls are questionable, but IVR can make hundreds until someone answers. This may pose certain reputational risks, but it won’t cost you a dime.

Making Your Business Available Round-the-Clock

 Most businesses can’t remain live around the clock, but IVR solves this problem by ensuring a 24/7 client-business connection. This uninterrupted availability is crucial for international business with clientele from all over the world.

Branding Your Business

 Modern IVR constructors contain myriads of voice professionals to represent your brand. That helps you imprint an excellent first impression and create a unique voice for your brand. Most IVRs will allow you to modify your IVR script and touch-tone options.

Protecting Against Fraud

 IVR effectively protects against call fraud, revealing bots and unscrupulous callers to save you time and money that would otherwise be spent on unprofitable and malicious callers.

The best modern IVR system is not a standalone solution but is a part of complex lead management systems. Call tracking, distribution, and analytics implemented within a single lead management ecosystem grant a top-notch customer journey and higher conversion rates.

What Businesses Can Benefit From IVR the Most?

• Insurance. From homeowners to life to auto insurance, IVR helps insurers manage heterogeneous callers properly, directing them to relevant sales reps. Moreover, some requests—for example, filing a claim—can be solved by IVR independently of live agents.
• Real estate. Real estate begs for spotless inbound call management when you can connect your callers to an appropriate leasing or sales agent or a customer support representative. Also, IVR can provide timely information about the company’s listings round-the-clock.
• Financial institutions. Banks, broking firms, mortgage companies, credit unions, savings and loan associations, and other departmentalized financial institutions use IVR systems (and you can check by calling your bank) to manage hundreds of thousands of calls they receive daily. The more categories of callers, the more complex the routing options.
• Internet providers. Handling an immense number of calls daily, internet providers use IVR to:
  • Direct calls to relevant call centre representatives, choosing the most suitable agent based on the pre-established criteria.
  • Make users aware of the customer support team’s working hours and help them with minor issues round-the-clock.
  • Automatically notify callers of breakdowns and the expected troubleshooting time.
  • Schedule a callback if no suitable agents are available.
  • Improve the first call resolution rate, eliminating the need for follow-up calls.

• Hotels. Have you ever had an unpleasant wait in the lobby while the hotel manager handled issues over the phone? To prevent such avoidable situations, hotels are implementing modern IVR systems to allow callers to make reservations, submit complaints, and gather information about services. IVR can redirect callers to a relevant hotel department, such as the front desk, room service, housekeeping, etc.

How Much Does It Cost to Install IVR?

The cost of IVR depends on the quality of the software, integrations, and services in use. Some companies include IVR as part of a bigger platform encompassing many other call logic solutions. In this case, IVR may even be provided at no additional cost.

Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Up Your IVR

An IVR system may scale and expedite inbound calls, but it must be properly installed and maintained.

Avoid these mistakes when setting up your IVR:

• Poor integration. IVR is usually not used alone but as part of a bigger call tracking system, distribution, and analytics. The quality of integration determines the depth of data exchange and analysis, affecting how well you structure your call routing and perform call marketing.
• Exhausting customer journey. The complexity of the customer journey determines how many callers will switch to a live agent or abandon you altogether. Do not compel callers to navigate lengthy menus of options—you will lose most of them. Remember, IVR is made to facilitate things for your callers, not confuse them.
• Untimely updates. You can’t set up your IVR once and for all without updating it to fit the needs of your business. As you develop new services, your IVR must display those in the menu. An outdated or irrelevant IVR menu—for example, the one with no longer available options—would provide a horrible user experience.
• Lack of feedback metrics. Simple responses such as “Yes” or “No” may not be sufficient to convey the caller’s needs and desires. A much better method would be to allow callers to use a rating scale, such as 0 to 5.
• Over-automation. Most attempts to fully replace your customer support and sales teams will lead to failure, as neither IVR technologies nor callers are ready for it. You still must have a real person on the other end ready to solve complex problems—a locked IVR without the ability to reach out to a live person or ask for a callback will make a significant share of callers abandon the call.

The Customer Journey From A to Z and the Role of IVR in IT

The modern IVR system collects as much information on the caller as possible and delivers it to the best sales agent. But the question is, how does it fit into the cycle? Let’s break down the call lead path from the moment when a prospect sees your phone number to the purchase.

1. The prospect calls one of these numbers from your website or any other marketing channel:

• Local numbers—used for local campaigns aimed at the customers located nearby your shops.
• International numbers (800 numbers) are used for international campaigns aimed at customers from different countries. International numbers can be toll-free (free for callers), vanity (for example, 844-PHONEXA), and toll-free vanity. 

2. Your IVR greets the caller and provides them with a list of options—including reaching out to a customer service representative or sales agent—while collecting the caller’s personal information and sharing it with the live agent that may receive the call.

3. If the caller chooses to call, the sales rep will likely be able to address the caller’s problems more effectively by using the information provided by the IVR and call tracking software.

Without a doubt, a modern IVR system strategically built into your call management will take your business to the next level, boosting the customer satisfaction rate and growing your ROI. Whether you already feel the lack of call automation or are just about to launch your call-reliant business, utilizing an IVR system is absolutely essential.

nandbox App Builder

For companies wishing to include technologies, such as contemporary IVR systems, into their operations, nandbox App Builder is the ideal choice. You can easily integrate interactive voice response capabilities into your unique, feature-rich apps with nandbox’s no-code platform. By providing effective call routing, automated replies, and real-time data collection straight from within their apps, this enables companies to improve customer journeys. The nandbox app builder gives you a flexible platform to create customised solutions that meet your objectives and incorporate state-of-the-art IVR systems, whether your goal is to grow your company, enhance customer pleasure, or streamline communication.