The first thing coming to your mind when you are about to call a customer care, the pre recorded or dynamically generated audio. At sometimes you would have felt that Why these people don't change the style of messages .
Interactive voice response (IVR) is a technology that allows a computer to interact with humans through the use of voice (Automatic Speech Recognition -ASR ) and DTMF (Dual Tone Multiple Frequency ) tones input via keypad, which is commonly used among customers and companies. Before get to know about the alternatives we have let's see what are the common problems we face with our current methods
When the world was limited with traditional Copper line phone people find it easy ,still finding it easy though the current world is powered by smart phones? . Are we not in a position to create them with the awareness on the new technology ? which will make the work more simpler and easier.
Navigating an IVR is uncomfortable, waiting to hear all the right options to make sure you select the right one. whether you have to go for 1 or 8 or others will be a big question , any change in the menu tree will need very careful listening. In case of voice recognition , voice is necessarily linear, which makes any IVR time consuming and uninteresting. Otherwise we will end of hearing one more automated response of " Sorry, I didn’t understand".
Trust me , IVR and mobile phones are not made for each other . Constantly The caller needs to pull the phone away from their ear to press the right choice . In between he should not disconnect the call or the network should not break.
Now , the better solution is , Visual IVR, as per wiki , Visual Interactive Voice Response is conceptually similar to voice Interactive voice response (IVR) but with the addition of visual menus to enhance the experience. The user interacts with a visual interface by touch or click commands on his mobile or computer screen. Visual IVR is sometimes known as Graphical Content Routing (GCR).
Now We can expand the IVR experience by providing visually guided menus on your website or on your customer’s Smartphone. Visual IVR provides your customers with a convenient menu driven interface to your IVR. This allows your users to quickly select the options they need, saving them time, and money.
Sample Visual IVR from http://www.radishsystems.com/for-developers/for-ivr-developers/
The advantages will be ,
- scanning a screen is quicker than listening to lengthy menus and remembering the right choice
- customers will no longer have to simultaneously use their telephone keypad and listen to lengthy menus in an effort to remember which number corresponds to which category.
- We no need to build the Visual IVR from the scratch , It reuses the same Voice XML (“VXML”) scripts that your current IVR runs on to provide seamless experience to the Customer .
- Updating the basic information like contact address , email id , phone number can be done better than IVR.
In addition to all the benefits of IVR , Visual IVR gives more options for the non-tech-savvy users to access their information easier way.
