Interactive voice response (IVR) systems have come a long way since the 1980s and 1990s when computerized phone systems often left customers feeling more isolated and confused than when they called in the first place. But a new age of IVR technology is changing that perception.
The key is intelligent and intuitive technology, which offers companies an opportunity to automate certain IVR processes in order to provide better customer service. The combination of improved technology and consumer familiarity with IVR in mobile devices has created a climate where companies are looking at IVR as a tool to improve the way they interact with customers.
“By 2016, more than 60 percent of inbound customer service calls will come from smartphones, laptops and devices other than landlines like gaming consoles, set-top boxes and store kiosks,” said Kevin Sjodin, CEO at Virtual Hold Technology (News - Alert) (VHT), a developer of virtual queuing solutions. “Today’s always-connected, app-enabled customers want answers quickly so they can solve problems and accomplish tasks. This means that after trying self-service, sometimes they need to talk.”
By using data collected in IVR interactions with customers, industry insiders predict the technology will improve quickly, becoming far more intuitive and, in turn, offering better service to future callers.
“With this framework the context of the call is studied and recorded, and interaction points designed to intelligently predict needs and offer a service based on context or event,” explained K. Balakrishnan, managing director and CEO of Servion Global Solutions, in an interview with The New Indian Express. “A compendium of rules and routing logic will be applied and the interaction is fulfilled. The interaction history and data will be mined for performance optimization.”
Servion Global Solutions recently launched ServIntuit, a solution developed to analyze the data generated by companies during interactions with their customers. The company is testing out ServIntuit with current customers.
“It will study and map the entire contact chain of customers,” Balakrishnan said. “If a customer always dials the number to know account details, we will provide them to him immediately without making him punch buttons to get the details.”
“It is an innovative concept that helps an organization predict customer interaction intent based on behavioral and transactional knowledge,” he continued. “The organization then has the power to customize services to effectively fulfill that intent.”
Edited by Rory J. Thompson