Interactive Voice Response, or IVR, connected to a virtual number, is something you could call a part of a support team. The purpose of the IVR is to help customers solve their issues more quickly by giving them information or assisting in forwarding their call to a specialist from the appropriate department. If you make sure to keep voice prompts up to date, it will be easier to meet customers' expectations. Let's see what you should take into account to make the IVR more effective.
5 Simple Steps to Improving the IVR
With IVR being the first customer touchpoint, you want to make a good impression with it. Set up your voice menu in a way that quickly gives your clients what they need. Here are some crucial points.
Less is More
Problem: Imagine how does it feel when you call a company, and it makes you listen to a voice message after voice message? People will get tired — and people will leave.
Solution: When you're preparing a script for IVR, use less than 5 actions to choose from that help to figure out the primary need that drove the customer to contact support.
Shorten Hold Time
Problem: Most people would prefer their call to be accepted within 20-30 seconds rather than get stuck in a virtual queue. If you make a customer wait a lot while you forward their call, you better rethink your support team's capacity and organization. Possibly, their workload is not being distributed evenly, or you lack people to process all the requests.
Solution: Configure IVR to launch a voice prompt to leave a voicemail or a callback request if a subscriber is forced to wait more than 30-40 seconds.
Set Up a Voicemail
Problem: Sometimes, it is not easy to predict how the customer flow will change. Just think back on when the quarantine just started: customers became much more active in placing online orders, and in many companies, support and delivery teams were quickly overwhelmed.
Or something unexpected could happen during your off-hours if you don't have 24/7 service.
Solution: Order a voicemail service so that your auto-attendant prompts the customer to leave a message on weekends or after hours. The first thing managers need to do is handle these requests as soon as they're on the clock.
Develop the IVR Depending on Customer Needs
Problem: Business is changeable, your range of services grows, new extensions are added. If you're using one and the same voice prompt menu, then at that time, your IVR will become obsolete. Besides simply keeping information up-to-date, you should analyze and improve IVR depending on the customer communication experience.
Solution: Before setting up your IVR, research the most common reasons that make people reach out to the contact center. Then you will know the most relevant issues and can record voice prompts that reflect that.
What to look into for updating your IVR:
- Listen to your voicemails, don't miss any complaints or voiced need. They can provide insights for improving the service;
- Schedule regular IVR checks after implementing changes. Take note of which answer choices users choose most frequently;
- Walk the customer's path - make test calls. Analyze how a call is forwarded, how long does it take;
- Check the data, pay attention to the number of dropped calls, the duration of the call on hold, and the request's processing time. It may turn out that the calls are directed to the wrong specialists who are forced to redirect them instead of solving the client's problem immediately;
- As you make adjustments, analyze call center performance regularly to understand how the IVR changes have impacted the customer experience.
Be Open with Your Employees
Employees can give a fair assessment of your IVR. They interact with the client immediately after the call forwarding and may notice problems associated with a poorly configured IVR.
Collect feedback from employees of the departments where your IVR forwards the calls. Are there any changes in their work? With fitting menu settings, customers will more often get to target specialists. In addition, you will find out if there is a line congestion problem.
How to Set Up IVR?
If you decide it's time to update your IVR, Freezvon's specialists will help you quickly set it up. We have voice artists to professionally record voice messages for IVR according to your script. We can guide you on independently configuring IVR based on previously prepared files via a virtual PBX. Freezvon has 24/7 support.