If you find the headline confronting let me first list a few key points of data before we go any further:

In a 2007 Forrester US report¹ that tested real-life IVR systems, only 6 percent passed and four major design flaws were identified (1) value (missing essential content); (2) navigation (inefficient task flow); (3) presentation (poor production quality); and (4) and trust (no access to human assistance at key points) - the 2008 report added error handling.

Fonolo², a Canadian company that spiders (think Google) US IVR systems so you can visually choose (online) which step in the IVR menu to connect to without going through the IVR process, found that of the 500 company IVRs spidered:

• 5 companies had more than 100 IVR nodes or levels
• 20 companies had more than 400 words per IVR level
• 10 companies using the ‘listen closely as our options have changed’ message haven’t made an IVR change in six months

So maybe the first oxymoron definition is closer to real-life? No, I really don’t think so but there are still many organisations trying to be too smart, too complex and too happy to create IVR twilight zones in an attempt to minimise live agent costs. I am all for efficient inbound operations as long as you can also boost (or in the least not impact) customer satisfaction.

Intelligent Inbound contact centre operations starts with two principles:

1. Understanding who will be calling you, why and when
2. Using the two basics of IVR and CTI to better serve those people identified in the first principle

Understanding who will be calling you, why and when

This is pretty straight-forward. A good customer (or prospect) understanding will guide the inbound customer experience so you can balance brand personality and the needs of those calling. For example, customers of a travel company might just want to check arrival times or baggage restrictions which can be handled entirely by the IVR most of the time.

Likewise the voice and vocabulary of your IVR needs to reflect your brand values without too much chest-beating and at a level understood by your customers - choose shorter commonly used words when you can. Before you dismiss this as too simplistic, go back and read the key data points above - lots out there that just don’t get it.

Using the two basics of IVR and CTI

Now while many think IVR and CTI are ‘old hat’, the simple truth is lots of organisations get it wrong; overloading the IVR with options and not integrating IVR responses correctly to enable a CTI ‘screen pop’.  The IVR should not exceed four options and two levels.  If you can offer a self service option then do it but always make it clear to the caller what they need to press to speak to a live agent. If you are using a hosted IVR then you can easily adjust and fine tune call flow and IVR operation yourself (as long as you have the necessary voice recordings) based on the metrics and reports produced from the IVR. 

If you ask callers for an account number then for goodness sake make sure you have CTI in place to pop a screen of the caller’s name and details – asking them to repeat their account number after doing so in the IVR is simply out of order. Check your IVR reports daily so you can make adjustments if unsavoury metrics start to rise. A new or changed IVR needs to be monitored in real-time to ensure it is operating as expected (those pesky customers sometimes don’t act like your test team). Again a hosted system enables live monitoring to aid this.  

Next stop - complex intelligence

Once IVR and CTI is mastered, more complex intelligence can be built in using skills based routing (see the technical boys five minute model) and integration to internal databases so massive increases in the number of inbound calls can be handled in a clever self-service model. 

Speech recognition IVR has also become popular with customers divided about whether that’s good or bad. Just remember the logic of a speech-based IVR is different to a touch tone or DTMF IVR and it is not as straight-forward as voice-enabling the touch tone IVR.

So maybe I got carried away with the article headline, maybe it should have been ‘Inbound basics overview’. But then I would have missed the opportunity of using a word like oxymoron - this way is much more fun!

By Simon Burke

Simon is the CEO at IPscape and while overseeing the IPscape business also finds time to speak at conferences and seminars on next-generation call centres and the technologies that drive them.