Thursday, April 19, 2012
The advantages of interactive voice response (IVR) are well established within the telecommunications industry. Among other benefits, it can provide a high degree of service to callers, freeing contact center agents to handle more demanding tasks.
However, while many companies take advantage of IVR in the contact center, far fewer use another of IVR's most useful abilities: outbound services.
As a leading telecommunications company recently highlighted, outbound IVR can provide a significant competitive edge to businesses. It has the potential to integrate different support channels into a single platform, including SMS and social media. Additionally, it can easily be customized to offer personalized interactions. This makes IVR more likely to effectively deliver a company's message than less responsive forms of automated dialing.
As TMC Net's Stefania Viscusi points out, outbound IVR can also improve customer service. By contacting customers to inform them of upcoming appointments or other reminders, as well as sales and promotions, she writes, outbound IVR offers the potential for an improved customer experience.
