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April 2010 | Volume 13 / Number 4
Viewpoint: Voice of the Customer

Home Renovation and IVRs

I’ve recently completed a major, six-month renovation of a Victorian home here in Newport, R.I. – and I realized that there are a lot of similarities between the renovation process and implementing an IVR. Both involve knowing what you are capable of doing and what to leave to the pros, as well as where you are willing to invest your limited budget dollars.

In the debate between in-house and hosted IVR solutions, we find that there’s not a single answer that works for everyone. But there are a number of key things to consider to help you decide what’s the best solution for your company.

Resource availability Do you have the ability or desire to support IVR self service internally? Is IVR a core competency, or would you rather focus expertise in other areas? If you have an IVR in house today, what’s your track record for implementing and maintaining it – and measuring success?

Corporate financial models or preferences We find that costs over five years are typically similar for state of the art in-house and hosted solutions. Are you more comfortable with a capital expense or an operating expense model?

Unpredictable call volumes If you’re in an industry such as utilities or transportation, you may be hammered by high call volumes based on weather or other unpredictable events. Hosted providers have thousands of ports available to meet this demand.




Need for control Is your corporate culture one in which you have a hard time giving up control for systems and operations? If it is, a hosted solution will not be a happy marriage.

Business continuity and disaster recovery Can you afford the redundancy needed for full recovery? Do you have multiple, geographically-dispersed sites to support DR? If not, hosting may be the solution or a back up for mission-critical applications.

In our renovation, we ended up outsourcing nearly all of the work, but the time required to oversee it and maintain the budget – even with a great contractor – could be overwhelming. These are all things to take into consideration when it comes time to replace or upgrade your IVR. IT

Elaine Cascio is a vice president at consulting firm Vanguard Communications Corp. (www.vanguard.net).

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