Benefits of an IVR phone system

Always maintain the human touch with an interactive voice response telephone system

Written by Steven Bryan

For some businesses, it’s not practical or economical to have staff members answering customer calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Outside of your normal business hours, you can make good use of the benefits of an IVR phone system, which can provide information to many of your clients automatically.

Benefits and features of an interactive voice response system

Even in this age of voice mail, text messaging, and other instant technology, nothing is quite as reassuring as a live human voice at the other end of the phone. An interactive voice response (IVR) telephone system can deal with clients during off-hours, especially if they just need answers to basic questions.

Some features that you can expect to get with an IVR phone:

• Call routing.Customers can say the name of the department or person they want to reach, or simply enter the extension on their touch-tone keypad. You also can give them access to an interactive company phone directory if they can't remember an extension.
• Data retrieval. There are times when clients simply want to check on the status of an order or a payment, which is where an IVR phone system is the most useful. By speaking or manually entering account or invoice numbers, they can get the data they need in a couple of minutes instead of languishing on hold.
• Reminder calls. Ideal for medical offices and college campuses, your IVR telephone system can make outbound reminder calls to patients and students, respectively. The person who has been called can then change, confirm, or cancel a scheduled appointment.
• Fax. Offered as a service by some IVR telephone providers, customers call your main phone line and, after properly identifying themselves, request fax copies to be sent back to them. This is especially useful when patients need copies of medical release forms or other important documents.
• The escape button. No matter where they are within your IVR phone system, a client can press "0" or say "agent" to get routed to a live human operator.

Adding the human touch to an IVR phone system

Interactive voice response phone systems make effective use of menus for callers. It’s possible, though, to "nest" menus within menus to the point where callers are ready to hang up. When talking with your IVR phone provider, always make sure that your menus and options are clearly defined and do not cause your clients to get lost within a telephone maze.

The voice on your end of the IVR telephone should be warm, familiar, and friendly. You can “cast” one of your own employees as the voice of your company, but the provider typically will offer the services of some professional voice talent. With an IVR phone system, you definitely want to give callers as much of the human touch as possible.

Submit a free BuyerZone request for IVR phone system price quotes, and compare options from multiple providers who compete for your business.