Interactive Voice Response Systems
Created | Updated Oct 20, 2010
A mouthful, wouldn't you say? IVR is the acronym for the computer you talk to when you ring up the bank but the live bodies don't answer. The computer with the soothing voice that's ever so glad to give you an account balance, or a credit application rejection, or the number to call another IVR, or a message to say that, while we're horribly busy with other customers, we desperately want to talk with you as well, so be a love and wait and your call will be answered in turn.
You may think that discussing IVR is akin to extolling the collective fine character and virtue of a wilding pack of telemarketers, but it's what I do for a living. The IVR bit, not the wilding telemarketers. It's my job to manage these systems for a bank, a rather large one actually, and to make them as friendly to the customer as possible. I thought I would begin by offering a few bits of information about how we do things, and see how quickly I'm slapped down. For instance, did you know....
You may think that discussing IVR is akin to extolling the collective fine character and virtue of a wilding pack of telemarketers, but it's what I do for a living. The IVR bit, not the wilding telemarketers. It's my job to manage these systems for a bank, a rather large one actually, and to make them as friendly to the customer as possible. I thought I would begin by offering a few bits of information about how we do things, and see how quickly I'm slapped down. For instance, did you know....
...IVR is designed so that the most frequently asked questions are dealt with first? Two reasons: quick customer satisfaction and lower "handle time", which equals lower costs. If you have to listen to lots of "Did you know about our new widget?" and "Would you like to speak with a representative about our new widget?" messages, you can safely assume that a Marketer has entered the equation.
...IVR is designed so that the most frequently asked questions are dealt with first? Two reasons: quick customer satisfaction and lower "handle time", which equals lower costs. If you have to listen to lots of "Did you know about our new widget?" and "Would you like to speak with a representative about our new widget?" messages, you can safely assume that a Marketer has entered the equation.
...IVR in the financial services industry can offload up to 75% of the normal call volume handled by live bodies. Why 25% of you want to speak directly with a surly, sensory-deprived, 22-year old chained to a desk with a headset is utterly and completely beyond me.
...IVR in the financial services industry can offload up to 75% of the normal call volume handled by live bodies. Why 25% of you want to speak directly with a surly, sensory-deprived, 22-year old chained to a desk with a headset is utterly and completely beyond me.
...If you press "0", even when we don't tell you to, it usually works.
...If you press "0", even when we don't tell you to, it usually works.
...We can capture your telephone number, and the time that you called, and the fact that you hung up because you were tired of waiting, and we usually do nothing with that information.
...We can capture your telephone number, and the time that you called, and the fact that you hung up because you were tired of waiting, and we usually do nothing with that information.
...The wave of the future (which means the next 6 months) for IVR is speech recognition technology. Which means we will construct a set of prompts that are built around "I" statements rather than "We" statements, and ask you to tell us that your name is Zeus Quinn, rather than have you futz around with spelling it out on a touch-tone keypad that has no "Q" or "Z". And the recognition algorithms are quite good; they're based on linguistic parts of speech, so it doesn't matter much if you speak Farsi or are from Alabama or both, the recognition success rates ride around 97%.
...The wave of the future (which means the next 6 months) for IVR is speech recognition technology. Which means we will construct a set of prompts that are built around "I" statements rather than "We" statements, and ask you to tell us that your name is Zeus Quinn, rather than have you futz around with spelling it out on a touch-tone keypad that has no "Q" or "Z". And the recognition algorithms are quite good; they're based on linguistic parts of speech, so it doesn't matter much if you speak Farsi or are from Alabama or both, the recognition success rates ride around 97%.
Again, this is my livelihood. I do everything from defining user system requirements to conducting customer focus groups to recording the messages and calling myself the "voice of the company". I would be interested to hear any input you may have.
Again, this is my livelihood. I do everything from defining user system requirements to conducting customer focus groups to recording the messages and calling myself the "voice of the company". I would be interested to hear any input you may have.
You may think that discussing IVR is akin to extolling the collective fine character and virtue of a wilding pack of telemarketers, but it's what I do for a living. The IVR bit, not the wilding telemarketers. It's my job to manage these systems for a bank, a rather large one actually, and to make them as friendly to the customer as possible. I thought I would begin by offering a few bits of information about how we do things, and see how quickly I'm slapped down. For instance, did you know....
You may think that discussing IVR is akin to extolling the collective fine character and virtue of a wilding pack of telemarketers, but it's what I do for a living. The IVR bit, not the wilding telemarketers. It's my job to manage these systems for a bank, a rather large one actually, and to make them as friendly to the customer as possible. I thought I would begin by offering a few bits of information about how we do things, and see how quickly I'm slapped down. For instance, did you know....
...IVR is designed so that the most frequently asked questions are dealt with first? Two reasons: quick customer satisfaction and lower "handle time", which equals lower costs. If you have to listen to lots of "Did you know about our new widget?" and "Would you like to speak with a representative about our new widget?" messages, you can safely assume that a Marketer has entered the equation.
...IVR is designed so that the most frequently asked questions are dealt with first? Two reasons: quick customer satisfaction and lower "handle time", which equals lower costs. If you have to listen to lots of "Did you know about our new widget?" and "Would you like to speak with a representative about our new widget?" messages, you can safely assume that a Marketer has entered the equation.
...IVR in the financial services industry can offload up to 75% of the normal call volume handled by live bodies. Why 25% of you want to speak directly with a surly, sensory-deprived, 22-year old chained to a desk with a headset is utterly and completely beyond me.
...IVR in the financial services industry can offload up to 75% of the normal call volume handled by live bodies. Why 25% of you want to speak directly with a surly, sensory-deprived, 22-year old chained to a desk with a headset is utterly and completely beyond me.
...If you press "0", even when we don't tell you to, it usually works.
...If you press "0", even when we don't tell you to, it usually works.
...We can capture your telephone number, and the time that you called, and the fact that you hung up because you were tired of waiting, and we usually do nothing with that information.
...We can capture your telephone number, and the time that you called, and the fact that you hung up because you were tired of waiting, and we usually do nothing with that information.
...The wave of the future (which means the next 6 months) for IVR is speech recognition technology. Which means we will construct a set of prompts that are built around "I" statements rather than "We" statements, and ask you to tell us that your name is Zeus Quinn, rather than have you futz around with spelling it out on a touch-tone keypad that has no "Q" or "Z". And the recognition algorithms are quite good; they're based on linguistic parts of speech, so it doesn't matter much if you speak Farsi or are from Alabama or both, the recognition success rates ride around 97%.
...The wave of the future (which means the next 6 months) for IVR is speech recognition technology. Which means we will construct a set of prompts that are built around "I" statements rather than "We" statements, and ask you to tell us that your name is Zeus Quinn, rather than have you futz around with spelling it out on a touch-tone keypad that has no "Q" or "Z". And the recognition algorithms are quite good; they're based on linguistic parts of speech, so it doesn't matter much if you speak Farsi or are from Alabama or both, the recognition success rates ride around 97%.
Again, this is my livelihood. I do everything from defining user system requirements to conducting customer focus groups to recording the messages and calling myself the "voice of the company". I would be interested to hear any input you may have.
Again, this is my livelihood. I do everything from defining user system requirements to conducting customer focus groups to recording the messages and calling myself the "voice of the company". I would be interested to hear any input you may have.
