Advances with interactive voice response (IVR) have made the technology more useful than ever. But just because the technology can deliver efficient, cost-effective customer interactions does not mean that it always does. While IVR has advanced, the devil still is in the details when it comes to setting it up properly.

Here are five mistakes to avoid when deploying an IVR system:

Too complex. Keep your IVR menu system simple and easy to use. While customers have never particularly had a lot of patience for inefficient IVR systems, this is even more the case now that many customer issues can be resolved via the Web. Use short, clearly-worded menus with three or less options, and don’t make the menu systems too deep.

No maintenance. Many businesses set up their IVR system and walk away from it. This is a mistake. Just like a car, it is important to keep your IVR system tuned by reviewing your IVR system at least once per month. This includes not just making sure all menus are still relevant, but also checking call flow to see if callers are having their needs met or abandoning calls at a certain point in the system. With a system such Angel Outbound IVR, analytics can help determine if the message system is working well.

Hiding customer agents. The customer experience is important to any business. While it may cost more to have callers connect with an agent, in the long run it is far worse to force them to use the IVR when they clearly feel they need an agent. Make it easy for callers to reach an agent, not hard.

Being overly simplistic. Some businesses frankly demean their customers with overly simplistic IVR messages. Including the company’s Web site in an IVR system might sound like a good marketing practice, for instance, but are there really callers who don’t already know that the business they are calling has a Web site? Another example is telling callers how to enter their phone number into the system; most customers in 2014 already know this, so don’t demean them!