Despite IVR (interactive voice response) Systems remaining vital for customer-facing interactions, consumer sentiment remains overwhelmingly negative toward  IVR systems -- an automated service system that answers the phone for many companies.

Most callers become frustrated when an IVR system doesn’t offer the right menu options.

A Bangalore-based team of software developers, Manjunath Hanasi and Ankush Deshpande, have designed Breeze, an Android (News - Alert)-based app that will let users browse for IVR options on their smartphones and directly dial the selection.

Breeze seeks to simplify the IVR system of companies that have chosen to be listed in the app. The core idea behind the origin of the app came from Hanasi when he had a distressing personal experience with an IVR system.

"Last year my washing machine broke down and I had to call up the company's customer care,” he said. “I had to go through a lot of menu choices before zeroing in on an option that I thought was meant for me. But a month later, I found out that there was a miscommunication between the company and its service center in Bangalore as a result of the misleading IVR."

Manjunath added in a statement, “When I started discussing the concept with my colleagues, all of them came forward to tell distressing tales of their 'interaction' with IVR systems. In fact, we have an internal joke here that we do not listen to our wives as intently as we do to the IVR.”