Vedat Bilik

There is no denying whether you love or loathe them, IVR solutions implemented well can help to deal with high call volumes, reduce cost and improve customer service. Business hours can be extended to provide a round-the-clock response, every day of the year, and seasonal spikes can be managed to take payments which would normally require temporary staff or costly overtime. Ask people in the street about interactive voice response (IVR) systems and you are likely to get very different viewpoints. Loved by many as a quick way to make a payment, check a balance or top up credit on a mobile ‘phone, many customers are happy to use a self-service IVR solution.  However, other people just want to speak to someone directly and do not want to spend several minutes listening to a recorded message and selecting different options. Worst of all is when the caller ends up in a loop back where they started and then they have to repeat everything to a live contact centre agent. There is no denyin...

There is no denying whether you love or loathe them, IVR solutions implemented well can help to deal with high call volumes, reduce cost and improve customer service. Business hours can be extended to provide a round-the-clock response, every day of the year, and seasonal spikes can be managed to take payments which would normally require temporary staff or costly overtime. Ask people in the street about interactive voice response (IVR) systems and you are likely to get very different viewpoints. Loved by many as a quick way to make a payment, check a balance or top up credit on a mobile ‘phone, many customers are happy to use a self-service IVR solution.  However, other people just want to speak to someone directly and do not want to spend several minutes listening to a recorded message and selecting different options. Worst of all is when the caller ends up in a loop back where they started and then they have to repeat everything to a live contact centre agent. There is no den...