Increasingly, businesses and other organizations are selecting cloud-based services – rather than traditional alternatives – to get simpler, more economical and efficient solutions. This has made a positive impact on Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems.
IVR provides automated, phone-based self-services, according to a recent white paper from Angel. At first, those using IVR needed to purchase hardware, software, platform, phone ports, databases and applications from a vendor. It was hosted on-premises at the customer’s site. Then, there was Internet-enabled self-service with plenty of information provided to customers. Hosted services next evolved as an option to on-premise IVR. That meant that customers no longer had to pay for acquiring, implementing, maintaining and upgrading hardware.
What is now offered provides even more benefits. Businesses now have “on-demand” IVR platforms which are hosted in the Cloud. The vendor hosts, manages and maintains the platform. The customer uses it on-demand. They only pay for what they use. Customers do not have to maintain or run the telephony, hardware and software.
As it has evolved, IVR allows for new business models and revenue sources. Callers use IVR to make personalized transactions. Companies offer improved experiences for callers that leads to more profits for the company and its shareholders. For instance, IVR can let customers know about an upcoming special event. Or, IVR can improve the public image of a company and also increase the number of customers it retains. Because businesses do not have to spend resources on maintaining an IVR system, they instead are using resources to fine-tune their systems.
Cloud-based IVR also lets organizations test the offering before purchasing. In fact, they can test one application at a time as they plan for future technology needs. That leads to what the company calls “pay-as-you-go” pricing.
The Cloud-based solutions have many other benefits, too. They can be implemented quickly and are less expensive than on-premise IVR, and are more flexible and economical than hosted systems. There are not the hardware, software and upgrade fees associated with legacy offerings. This kind of IVR evolves but never goes out of date. Upgrades are easy to make. Companies also keep control over customer data and implement design changes in applications as needed.
In the case of the Angel platform, it provides comprehensive solutions and plug-and-play apps. The Angel platform operates in the Cloud and is delivered through SaaS (News - Alert) (Software as a Service.) It is secure, open, and scalable.