Do your customers hate your IVR? Is it a frequent source of complaint? Are too many customers getting “lost” in your menu tree or zeroing out to an operator before they’ve input their account numbers? If you experience these problems, you may think it’s the fault of the IVR technology itself. This is usually an erroneous assumption.

The interactive voice response system is a tool, just like any other. It can be used correctly or incorrectly. Some of the many uses the IVR has to the average company include call routing and forwarding, serving as a tool for polling or customer surveying, identifying and authenticating customers, allowing customers to engage in simple self-help sessions such as balance inquiries and offering rote information such as office hours. 

Used incorrectly, however, the IVR can be an extreme customer annoyance. For companies that view the IVR as a “barrier” to keep customer calls out of the contact center, the news will never be good. Overly complicated systems with too many menu choices can easily get customers “lost,” and ineffective speech recognition systems can frustrate customers who try to interact with the system but keep getting error messages. Chances are good that many of these customers are abandoning their transactions and fleeing to a competitor.

For a successful IVR system, it’s all in the system design.

“The technology of IVR is highly advantageous for the customers, company executives, and the company itself,” blogged SYS-CON Media’s Viola Allen recently. “But this is only possible when it is set up properly. However, if set up improperly, it will only lead to the devastation of your business. Improper setting will lead to the generation of criticisms among the customers, by and large.”

Some of the ways companies can ensure they keep their IVR system user-friendly include:

Limiting menu choices. If customers are bombarded with too many options, they will become confused. Alternatively, they will become angry that they have to wait and listen to nine lengthy menu choices before they can navigate.

Never terminate a call. Perhaps you’ve encountered this IVR horror: if you fail to make choices, or you make input errors, it says “goodbye” and actually hangs up on you. This ought to be a capital offense in the contact center industry.

Always provide a route to a live agent. If you’re using your IVR as a barrier to keep customers from reaching live agents, it’s time to shut up shop now. Properly designed, an IVR can offload routine questions. But always ensure that it’s easy for customers with more complex problems to reach a live agent.

Use the info input by the customer. If you’re forcing a customer to enter a 17-digit account number into the IVR, don’t pick up the call only to ask the customer to repeat his or her account number. The customer will become annoyed and wonder what the point of the IVR was beyond wasting his or her time.

Make sure the IVR is current. Customers won’t be impressed if they call your company in March and are subjected to a cheerful “Happy Holidays!” greeting.

Choose a product with simple menu design. The IVR isn’t what it was decades ago. Today, it’s almost as likely to be a cloud-based solution with a desktop-based graphical user interface. Ensure that whoever has the run of it is knowledgeable and experienced.

Always navigate your IVR yourself. You won’t know if your IVR is easy to use unless you try it. After every change, have multiple people inside the company try to navigate the system to find any bugs and ensure it’s easy to use.