What is Interactive Voice Response?
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a software application that accepts a mixture of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, callback, e-mail and perhaps other media. IVR is usually part of a larger application that includes database access.
An IVR system picks up phone calls for you, asks questions for you, and answers those questions for you. It’s your virtual receptionist, secretary, operator, and customer service representative. If you need to automate a business approach over the phone, you should be thinking about implementing an IVR System.
- An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) saves time, reserving your best call reps for the toughest questions.
- An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) never marks time, acknowledging calls 24 hours a day every day of the year.
- An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) saves money, automating your repetitive business approaches.
Large and small businesses have adopted IVR technology because it saves money that would otherwise be spent on living, breathing (expensive) employees. An IVR system’s effectiveness is rated by the percentage of callers who ask to speak to a live operator. The lower the percentage, the more successful the system. Of course, there are some IVR systems that never give you the option of speaking to a live operator. But even among IVR fans, that’s considered bad practice.
How does it work?
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) requires a computer and special hardware called a telephony board or telephony card in order to accept calls. Callers are guided through the menu options and asked to choose from among them. Simple IVR software accepts only keypad input and works by decoding the keypad tones and directing calls accordingly. More advanced IVR systems use voice recognition technology to allow users to speak their responses. Many IVR systems use text-to-speech technology to generate custom responses to callers for data such as flight times or account balances.
A complete system may work as follows:
- Whenever a miner goes to work, he would punch attendance, which IVR will record and start calling him periodically.
- When a miner comes out, he will log his departure and IVR will no longer make the outbound calls to him.
- When a miner is unable to respond in the first call, IVR will call him within 2 minutes and would repeat for 2/3 times. After that, IVR will raise an alarm.
- When IVR raises an alarm, it can check with other miners to get information about the miner who is not responding.
Is an IVR system secure?
The IVR system is secure and confidential. Each time you call the IVR system you will need to enter your 9-digit ID number and your 4-digit PIN. Remember to keep both of these numbers private. A temporary PIN will be mailed to you. The first time you use IVR the system will ask you to change your temporary PIN to a new number. Do not share your new PIN with anyone.
How can an IVR help you?
An interactive voice response and speech recognition platform can be integrated with your data sources and the web to deliver feature-rich but simple to use IVR solutions – driving efficiency, improving business productivity, and enhancing caller satisfaction. And just as important, your custom-developed IVR is hosted in the cloud so there is no technology to manage.
Deliver a personalized call experience with advanced IVR technologies such as text-to-speech, voice print verification, name and address capture, reverse phone lookup and more. Have a full IVR staff a call away that quickly implements your needs or simply consults with you on caller experience design. Our in-house voice talent and transcription staff also provides IVR support that’s hard to replicate with doing it yourself.
Need some help in developing your IVR? Our team is adept at consulting with every industry on solutions ranging from automated surveys, lead generation, to medical after hours response.