Self-service goes hand in hand with customer empowerment. These days, many customers are on the go and seek quick answers. Giving them the tools for faster yet optimized service is key to winning their confidence and long-term loyalty. One such tool is IVR, or interactive voice response, a telephony menu system that uses either speech-recognition or touch-tone technology to enable the identification, segmentation, and routing of callers to the most qualified agents. Yet the most advanced feature that IVR has to offer is visual IVR, making the self-service experience even faster by enabling customers to quickly touch their way through menus for prompt customer service. Here are five ways visual IVR enhances the self-service experience for true customer satisfaction.
Visual IVR essentially eliminates the need for speech recognition by allowing customers to touch their way through visual menus. Customers don’t need to listen to long menus and may quickly skip ahead to the information they need through the ease and convenience of their mobile devices. In addition, visual IVR enables customers to get into an agent queue when necessary, while supporting text-to-speech in multiple languages on both the inbound and outbound sides of a call. Self-service becomes seamless, allowing agents to better manage customer queues and accurately estimate waiting times for overall satisfaction.
Reaching a customer service agent quickly saves customers time, but the additional benefit of visual IVR is being routed to the most qualified agent. Customers don’t need to be re-routed from one agent to another, explaining their case over and over again. Time is saved and confidence is won when matched with the most appropriate agent each time. In addition, dropped calls are far less likely when visual IVR systems are in place, and automatic callbacks can help customers save time when they are kept waiting too long in a queue.
Efficiency is not just about saving time but also completing tasks in an organized and confident manner. Visual IVR empowers contact center agents to deliver the best service possible, as their skills are closely matched to the customers who need their specific expertise. Furthermore, agent efficiency improves as agents gain more time to focus on other tasks or serve customers on other channels.
Smartphone use is on the rise, especially for customer service. A Google study found that 74% of customers are likely to return to a company’s mobile site if it is user-friendly, while 48% are frustrated if the site is not mobile-optimized. For this reason, visual IVR is a perfect tool for customer support, especially when customers are in-store and in the middle of a purchase. Giving customers quick and easy access to customer service can be critical to brand growth and preventing customer churn.
Lastly, visual IVR is highly cost-efficient. It is cheaper to deploy than traditional IVR systems, and it may be integrated seamlessly into an existing IVR system. Agents do not need training to find information that the system automatically provides, meaning that agents spend less time on the phone with customers and drive down costs on the voice channel. Ultimately, customers are given a quality self-service experience that demonstrates the efficiency of the brand, leading to their satisfaction and loyalty.
Visual IVR drives optimized self-service for greater efficiency and customer satisfaction. Automated and personalized service are combined to delight customers, drive sales, and deliver greater modern customer experiences.