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Customer satisfaction is something you can’t afford to ignore while running a firm. After all, it is the only thing that provides the business with a strategic edge and high retention rates. However, as the company expands, so does the number of clients who contact you for help. Customers now want their voices to be understood and their questions to be answered easily and painlessly as they engage with companies. Although you might extend your customer service staff to accommodate more of these reservations, it may not be the best option. Self-service IVR solutions, on the other hand, are a safer option.
IVR is a self-service technology that allows consumers to get help and resolve issues if required. The IVR scheme eliminates reliance on support teams by allowing them to do it on their own. You will work for a smaller staff to save money on overhead costs because this equates to timely service and customer loyalty. This blog brings to you the ultimate benefits of having an IVR solution in your business and how Apptivo’s Cloud Contact Center software brings the greatest capabilities of advanced contact center technology for providing the best support to your customers.
What benefits does IVR bring to businesses?
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) provides businesses with several ways to communicate with their customers and prospects. Companies can use input from the customers’ side or use an AI-driven voice recognition software for the same. Historically, IVR has been employed as a customer support tool. When properly developed, IVR systems have enabled callers to settle simple customer service transactions over the phone without ever speaking to a live representative. We now observe that the interactive voice response is not only utilized to answer an inquiry from the caller but that it has become a completely new role now: to carry out surveys, promotions, payments, surveys, brand awareness, and more. So, let’s get into the main benefits of IVR call center technology and the reasons for an organization to adopt it.
Saving you time
Customers need quick answers to their problems as well as product information. The IVR system can speed up incoming calls, precisely call routes, or even call back schedules with personalized menus. By allowing callers to respond with ease to voice or contact pad options, they can rapidly access the information they are looking for or, if necessary, have their problem increased to an agent. This saves the time of callers who spend most of their call timing either waiting or in call forwarding. The callers can simply choose the type of their service request and talk to the required agent. If the agent is not available, the caller can leave a voicemail message or request a callback. In either case, the customer will not be left unsatisfied.
Improves customer satisfaction
By directing your customer support process automatically to the correct representative at the right time, your customers will naturally be happier making the support process more efficient. An IVR system can lead your callers to the most competent agent using an intelligently designed speech-driven telephone menu. This makes your business the first priority of customers and makes them come back again whenever they are in need of service or looking to purchase a new product. Customers have a major role in deciding the profits of your business. As customer retention is much cost-productive compared to new leads, it is necessary for agents to pay attention to customer queries and feedbacks.
By paying attention to the customer service sector, businesses can notice a considerable boom in your business. Analyzing the type of customer service preferred mostly by customers enables your team to focus more on that particular communication channel. For instance, if you are doing B2B business and your customers do not like calls at any time of the day. In that case, you can schedule meetings and assign the right agents to contact them at their scheduled time. By this, you can avoid more customers waiting and bring in resources according to the surge in calls. This will further improve the customer satisfaction rate and hence, the customer retention rate.
It reduces support cost
According to a recent study, an IVR can cost less than $1 per contact and make customers happier when compared to live chat at $5 per contact or telephone-based customer care at $6 to over $12 for each contact. That’s a significant cost reduction. Not only can businesses save money on personnel, but they also enhance productivity by allowing employees to focus on addressing genuine problems or selling to qualified buyers.
Imagine you are running a small-scale business and you have hired around 10 employees to handle the customer service department. But, you do not get as many calls that are equal to the available human resource. In that case, you are investing more than required. However, you should remember that customer service is not predictable and there can be a surge in service requests at any time depending on your business type. To avoid any kind of risk, it is advisable for you to purchase an IVR solution that provides the necessary balance and ensures that all customer service requests are addressed.
It increases the conversion rate
Traditionally utilized as a customer service tool, today’s Interactive Voice Response systems are laying the groundwork for a completely new sales channel that can supplement or replace telemarketing. Because an IVR can automate the process of contacting prospective clients, it provides a more efficient way to pre-qualify interest and promote lead conversion. Following the completion of a few easy questions, interested and qualified prospects can be instantly routed to a live sales agent to close the purchase.
It gets you more insights into your customers
Marketers are rapidly using Interactive Voice Response systems to understand more about their clients, in addition to lead routing. IVR systems are a sure-fire approach to uncover client likes, interests, and demographics while conducting phone polls, surveys, or marketing campaigns. With such comprehensive consumer data incorporated into IVR systems, marketers may do post-campaign analysis to identify which demographics responded most positively and then modify messages accordingly.
Improve relationships with customers
Because an interactive voice response system is generally one of the first points of contact a client has with your organization, customization is essential for a successful IVR implementation. Your company can develop an engagement strategy by using customized phone menus and prompts. Mapping your business logic to the natural customer journey will help you to create an always-on-brand experience.
By leveraging an efficient IVR configuration that is powered by multiple customization options, it becomes possible to handle multiple callers at a time. Furthermore, the IVR setup saves the time of the callers by transferring the calls directly to the right employee or agent. By this, the customer need not have to go through the hassle of talking to several agents without any productive output or stay in the queue for a longer period. Additionally, when a particular agent is unavailable to provide the required service, the caller has the facility to leave a voicemail or request a callback at the time of their convenience. With this feature, the relationship between customers and employees becomes stronger.
It helps in scaling your support system
The best IVR solution will be versatile and robust enough to grow with your company and adapt to your consumers’ constantly changing demands. Building cloud-based APIs that enable intelligent routing, multilingual capabilities, and omnichannel support is paying off quite well for businesses. These innovators ensure comprehensive management of phone trees and efficient on-demand client engagements by connecting these APIs into current systems.
The cloud contact center software of Apptivo provides you with complete control over your IVR, allowing you to provide great customer service. It gives you the ability to seamlessly integrate your contact center into your CRM with capabilities like call conferencing, automated call forwarding, voicemails, quick reporting, and call routing, etc. With such advanced call center technology, you can be assured that Apptivo empowers your customer support department so that your customers get the best satisfactory experiences. The IVR setup of Apptivo is supported with a complete CRM solution that automatically pulls information on existing customers and helps your agents to save the contact information on new callers or leads right away. The agents can also record all the information related to the call via the collaboration tools supported by Apptivo. With this, the callers need not repeat the previous conversation to the agent when they initiate a new call. This saves the time of both callers and agents while boosting the credibility of your customer service.
Conclusion
You may be flooding with a high number of tickets while running a conventional business. Although they can overwhelm you, expanding your workforce to tackle them is not always possible. Instead of doing that you should be utilizing an intelligent IVR system, that not only simplifies the ticketing system but can also empower your agents in many different ways. So, with Apptivo, empower your business to deliver the best to your customers.
