Call Center Management Featured Article
How the Smartphone is Poised to Save IVR
What kind of experience do you offer customers? Is it the kind of experience that keeps them coming back for more or one that earns you almost satisfactory results on your customer service survey? Is that enough to ensure that call center management is focused on the right tools and can deliver an experience that’s better than the competition?
This is an important question to ask as 80 percent of consumers would stop doing business with a company if they had a bad experience. This was according to a 2012 poll cited in a recent Monet Software (News - Alert) blog. The call center management solution company highlighted one key fact: there are a number of consumers in the market who can’t imagine an interaction with the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) that doesn’t end in frustration.
This is not where the call center wants to land in the overall customer experience.
The IVR is put in place to streamline operations and allow for the easy handling of common questions. When it frustrates the caller and they have to hit zero each time to get to a live operator, it defeats the purpose. Before implementation, call center management should consider the steps necessary to make the IVR more appealing and design the self-service process as one that adds value for both the company and the customer.
As Monet Software points out, part of the frustration stems from the slow nature of the IVR. You have to wait for it to get through the prompts to the one you want. There is no visual component and we’re too accustomed to getting information instantly to truly wait. Compounding the problem is the fact that not all menu options are designed according to how users interact with the IVR, but instead how the company wants the IVR to function – an approach that’s doomed from the start.
The proliferation of the smartphone is offering new hope, however. Using a smartphone to call in to their favorite company provides consumers with a visual option. The best part is they don’t seem to mind the process. Consumers have definitely become accustomed to clicking links online to get the answers they need. The same is true on a smartphone – they’re used to scrolling through, selecting the menu options they want and going to a next screen to narrow their choices.
If the consumer still needs to get to a live agent at some point, any delay in the connection can be filled with visual information or videos that not only entertain, but also inform. Plus, such technology isn’t expensive to implement and it provides a better way for consumers to interact. If you’ve reached your limit on the number of frustrated customers you want to encounter in a given shift, it may be time to look at the potential in a mobile solution.