Thursday, April 26, 2012
According to telecommunications and contact center expert Dena Skrbina, interactive voice response (IVR) hosted technology offers a means for companies to significantly improve their customer service.
Writing for Sys-Con, Skrbina argues that this is achieved by reducing the time and effort required for a caller to reach an answer, or the appropriate representative. She notes that traditional, menu-based call service requires the customer to wait through long lists of options, then attempt to match the available options with his or her specific problem, which can be a formidable task.
IVR, on the other hand, lets the customer describe the problem him or herself, as the natural language understanding technology is able to direct the call appropriately. This saves the customer time{,} and can decrease call misrouting.
Additionally, by outsourcing IVR to a hosted technology provider, companies can transfer IT maintenance worries to a third party, allowing them to focus on customer service.
These advantages have not gone unnoticed. Last year, a Global Industry Analysts report predicted that the IVR market will reach $2.78 billion by 2017. As the report notes, technological advancements, among other factors, are driving this trend.
