IVRs make a comeback

In 1985 the IRD introduced an IVR and things were never quite the same for the beleaguered application. It became associated with the worst practices in contact centres – although to be fair it wasn’t only the IRD in New Zealand that gave it a bad reputation. Around the Asia Pacific region, customer service professionals have been looking for ways to ditch the IVR for years.

Many companies have even touted the fact that their contact centres don’t have an IVR in their advertising. The National Bank has based an entire television and online advertising campaign on the fact that when customers call they get ‘real person’ straight away.

But is it time that the IVR made a comeback?

Great Outcomes director Giles Potter thinks it might be, particularly for small organisations with less than around 10 seats.

He says the ability to update your customers with messages on an IVR can be critical to retaining their custom, especially in an emergency. For example, during a pandemic when service levels may suffer due to agents being off work, a message at the front of the IVR can explain why there could be a delay.

But it’s not enough to have an IVR ready in case of an emergency. It’s not something you can dust off when needed, because contact centre managers and team leaders need to understand how an IVR works and be comfortable enough with the technology to record the right message quickly.

Potter suggests that an IVR can actually help build customer relationships, because if a centre gets into the habit of recording a regular message, it may save the customer from having to wait online for an agent.

For example, he says what if the local bookstore got in the latest Terry Pratchett and they put a message about it at the start of the IVR? The store would know whether this message would appeal to a large enough number of the customers by the amount of inquiries it had been receiving.

In other words, small centres can use the intelligence they gather through their inbound calls to push out messages that are timely, relevant and even personal. Yes, personal. Potter says all too often people claim it’s because IVRs are impersonal that they put customers off. But a friendly voice at the front of the call can set the right tone for conversations to follow.

“Make it personal, make it fun.”