Route customers for a better experience with IVR

As an integral part of almost every cloud phone system and contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS), an interactive voice response or IVR helps organizations streamline inbound call routing and quickly connect callers with the agents who can best resolve their issues. The interactive voice response, better known as IVR software, is what powers the routing process and customer journey.

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Route customers for a better experience with IVR
What is IVR?

What is IVR?

Once thought of as a phone tree, IVR is automated technology that integrates with telephony and CCaaS systems to automate the caller experience. IVR systems use touch-tone keypad inputs and voice prompts along with conversational AI to direct callers to the appropriate agent or pre-recorded information. 

With IVR in place, callers can access a variety of automated options for services such as checking account balances, setting and changing PIN numbers, transferring between departments, or speaking to a representative. Giving customers the ability to self-serve without a live agent or decide when to engage with one delivers a personalized customer experience that reduces waittimes and closes tickets faster. 

How does an IVR work?

In the past, IVR software resided on a separate platform that could be a costly investment, even when adding just a few features to your call center queue. Today, you’ll find that IVR is one of the most important capabilities of a cloud contact center solution and has become the user experience expectation. Cloud-based contact centers like Zoom Contact Center include IVR technology in their platforms, making it easy to manage and support the communications infrastructure, and improve IT operational efficiency. 

A typical IVR flow may look like this for a voice interaction:

  • Once a call comes in, the IVR system presents the caller with the phone ‘tree” or menu of options.
  • The caller then uses a touch-tone keypad or voice to select the menu option(s) .
  • Automatic Call Distributors (ACD) route callers to a designated customer service agent using skills-based routing.
How does an IVR work?

What are the benefits of IVR?

IVR software simplifies and enhances the customer service experience, but also provides multiple advantages to an organization. Here are a few of the biggest IVR benefits:

  • Cost-effective

    Cost-effective

    Because it’s part of a cloud contact center platform, IVR removes the need for a separate expensive platform. Even better, IVR software is scalable to grow as your needs evolve. 

  • Better customer service

    Better customer service

    Skills-based routing categorizes and routes calls to specially-trained agents who are equipped to resolve certain queries or issues. With this in place, customers can choose to self-serve or escalate the call to a live agent, which ultimately decreases call abandonment and errors.

  • Higher employee engagement

    Higher employee engagement

    IVR complements – rather than replaces – the contact center agent’s duties. Instead of wasting time with simple tasks that are better left to self-service, agents can communicate in meaningful customer conversations that build long-term relationships and increase brand loyalty. As a result, employees feel more successful and engaged in their roles, which leads to higher retention.

  • Clearer insights

    Clearer insights

    In a call center, IVR provides key insights by measuring call hangups, transfer times, customer satisfaction, dropped calls, and resolution time to provide management with valuable data and analytics.

  • Flexibility

    Flexibility

    In peak times, IVR menu options can be quickly and easily modified to relay temporary messages to customers such as high call volumes or outages. Menus can be custom-built to give callers choices that directly reflect the business’s immediate needs.

Using IVR

Lead generation and scoring

Lead generation and scoring

IVR programmable menus can complement an marketing campaigns by surveying callers to capture their interest or buying intent. Further, inbound call centers can customize the IVR menu to score leads if callers answer a few questions before they are passed on to sales.

Learn more about Zoom Contact Center

Zoom Contact Center’s intuitive IVR flow designer makes it easy to design your customer journeys across all your channels. It looks at your agent skills and proficiency levels to determine where to route your customers. It can also integrate with your CRM applications and look-up a customer based on their phone number and make an intelligent decision on where to best route that customer. Built in the cloud and optimized for video, Zoom Contact Center brings all of your unified communications and contact center needs into one simple, reliable, and secure platform. 

Learn more about Zoom Contact Center

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