What is an IVR
IVR or Interactive Voice Response is a technology that automates interaction of a database with telephone callers. Enterprises are increasingly turning to IVR to reduce the cost of common sales, service, collections, inquiry and support calls to and from their company.
IVR solutions are generally used with pre-recorded voice prompts and menus to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses. Modern IVR solutions however, also enable input and responses to be gathered via spoken words with voice recognition.
IVR solutions enable users to retrieve information including bank balances, flight schedules, product details, order status, movie show times, and more from any telephone. Additionally, IVR solutions are increasingly used to place outbound calls to deliver or gather information for appointments, past due bills, and other time critical events and activities.
Need for an IVR
Today's business scenario has totally changed the way business is done. The increasing competitive environment with extremely high levels of expectations of a consumer, technology plays a very important role in any business.
A well implemented IVR system can:
- Help efficient customer service
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Lower costs and
- Provide a new avenue to offer existing services or offer new services
The IVR system has emerged as an alternate to using Call Centres where the costs are huge and recurring. The IVR system replaces the need for agents, supervisors and training to a call centre team and therefore cuts down significantly on costs and time to market.
Various IVR Applications
An IVR system can be deployed for various applications to provide either some pre-recorded information or live information fetched from some database.
Some of the most common applications for an IVR include:
- Banking information
- Stock enquiries
- Airline & Railways information
- Sales promotions
- Loyalty programs
- Message broadcasting
- Order capturing
- Insurance enquiries
- Courier and logistics companies
- Travel agencies/organization
- Directory assistance
What does a company need to setup an IVR?
- IVR Backend
IVR backend includes the "server and operating system" hardware and software platforms on which IVR solutions run.
- IVR Application
IVR Application is a program that controls and responds to calls on the IVR server. IVR programs can either be developed by an enterprise, by an IVR development company or from companies that offer out of the box IVR applications.
IVR applications direct the IVR platform to prompt callers, gather input, and transfer callers to other phones. IVR applications also call on existing back-end database and application servers to retrieve records and information required during the course of a call.
- Back-end database
Back-end databases are existing databases from where the IVR can fetch information and play to the caller.
- Telephony Infrastructure
Telephony infrastructure includes telephone lines, switching equipment if required etc. Telephone lines for IVR can be standard analog lines or digital ISDN lines. These lines are connected on one side to the IVR backend and, on the other, to telephone company switches, or corporate PBX's.
ConferIndia role
The ConferIndia team has the ideal mix of technology and business analysts to help you design and implement the most optimum IVR solution for your organization.
The people at CI have been associated with the development and implementation of some of the biggest and most complex IVR and call centre projects done in India.
With more than 50 man years of experience on Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), the team has the skills on both hardware and software design and development to meet all the needs of an effective solution.
For enquiries, contact us at sales@conferindia.com
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