Visit the Louvre Via an IVR System

Over 8.5 million people visit the Louvre in Paris every year. Many of those take the self-guided tours. What if an IVR system could handle those tours?

Rather than following a guide through a museum, self-guided tours enable museum-goers to take tours at their own pace, listening to information as they go. Self-guided tours are more convenient for many people, although they still require physically visiting the museum and renting audio equipment.

IVR systems are changing this, however. With an IVR system, a museum can set up a phone number that museum-goers can call on their cell phones and access a much larger library of information than available in typical audio tours. Museums can also offer general information and info on upcoming exhibits and events, and the system can transfer calls to museum staff or ticket box offices.

A system like this can save the museum the cost of audio equipment every year while providing more information (from what could be an essentially limitless database). And it can do it while making visits more convenient for visitors.

In fact, it can make visits unbelievably convenient considering visitors don’t have to physically visit the museum. Just like a virtual tour on the Internet, people can call a museum’s IVR system and listen to a tour or dialogue from art historians, art critics, curators or the artists themselves as they leisurely flip through an art book or look at pictures online…at home.

IVR systems can run 24/7, making the most accessible tour system imaginable. For people who can’t physically visit all of the world’s great museums—the majority of us—an IVR system offers a perfect way to see inaccessible art. If you can’t get to Paris, you can still visit the Louvre. If you can’t get to Florence, you can still visit the Uffizi. Can’t get to New York? You can still visit the Guggenheim.

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Edited by Juliana Kenny