IVR System

I'm the new kid on the block here at CRMXchange,but since I've been involved in customer-related issues since the prehistoric days when CTI was the golly-gee tecnhology and it was still acceptable to use the dreaded 'T" word to summarize the industry as a whole, I'm not all that new and hardly a kid.

I've seen the terminology migrate from customer service to customer care, to customer relations management--before it became the acronym we now all know and love. But the growing demand for immediate...

The main topics of interest at the IQPC Call Center Week Las Vegas were ‘cloud’ and ‘multi-channel’.  Attendees were also concerned with the use of social media.

How customers connect to companies is evolving.  Customers want to connect on their own terms with the channel that suites them best.  Vendors are attempting to respond to the customer’s needs with a variety of new solutions.  Below is a recap of exciting technologies and solutions that were at the event.

360'CRM   is a full spectrum CRM...

As the contact center landscape changes, so too must the reporting and analysis solutions that drive decision-making and performance management. Each contact center is a unique mixture of systems, applications, people and culture serving a specific customer or client segment, each will need a different roadmap to their destination.

There are four common reasons that contact centers are driven to undertake this journey in the first place:

1. Current reports don't meet requirements: Typically,...

Features commonly provided by unified desktop solutions are as follows:

Single login/logout - Once the agent logs into the application they have unified access to multiple applications. There is no need to log in and out to access data bases or other applications.

Pre-populated screen pops - Unified desktops rely on the CRM as well as other sources, such as IVR entries and data gleaned from enterprise data bases to fully populate screens before the agent takes the call. All unified desktops pop...

The following are some more information on the vendors who attended the IQPC event.  

Analytics

For companies frustrated with isolated or disparate data sources, 360'CRM's latest advances in its InSight data analytics tool provides new levels of actionable information for the Call Center or Channel Management practitioner.  InSight not only automatically draws call center performance data in to a common, universally comparable dashboard and report analytics library, it also integrates internal...

The staff of CRMXchange was present at the IQPC Las Vegas Call Center Week. IQPC did a commendable job with the content and speakers in the event. The exhibit hours were long, running close to 11 hours on day one, but the vendors were pleased with the amount of interest that people showed in their products and services. 

We traveled the exhibit hall. Below are some vendor highlights.

Analytics

Contact Solutions – The Continuous Improvement Practice (CI) is based on a unique methodology and supported...

Recent studies show that the vast majority of consumers today are both familiar and comfortable with the use of automated telephone self-service systems, including IVRs.

In fact, in a report by Forrester Consulting, 65% of consumers say they expect, and some even prefer, the self-service system over a live agent for certain tasks, such as prescription refills, getting a flight status, checking an account balance, storing information requests and tracking shipments. inContact discusses how to get...

Cisco sees “focused” video for customer care, where the video elements are engaged in the call flow only when they truly provide demonstrable value a new trend. For example, self-service sessions might best be supported with audio-only interactive-voice-response (IVR) systems or applications on intelligent devices that then escalate to video interactions when a customer service representative becomes available. 

A customer care representative can save time by showing a caller how to do...

Do you know if your interactive voice response (IVR) system is successfully handling customer interactions and providing your company the expected return on investment? Businesses need quantifiable information in order to effectively focus their IVR efforts; however, there is no commonly accepted standard for measuring IVR performance.

That’s not to say there’s a shortage of popular IVR metrics – there are plenty of them in fact. Many of them focus on indirect measurements like containment and...

It shouldn’t come as earth-shattering news to anyone that the experiences customers have when interacting with a business have a major impact on satisfaction, and ultimately the company’s survival. Before you can effectively manage customer experience though, you need to know where your organization stands today. The old adage, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”, still applies.

Companies invest time, money and effort to build brands and implement quality standards with one goal in mind: to enhance the customer experience and t drive customer acquisition and retention. But when you hire a partner, you give up a measure of control over your brand and service.

In an ideal world, your partner’s performance goals and strategies would be perfectly aligned with your own.  The reality, however, is that your partners have their own financial goals and operational challenges....

The integration of self speech service applications into an IVR system has become the norm rather than the exception in today’s environment primarily due to the cost saving and the efficiencies they are generating for companies and the high level of customer satisfaction they are achieving for their customers. Daniel Hong, Lead Analyst at Ovum, believes that the next hot area for these applications promises to provide us with a bevy of significant improvements which should continue to improve...

A Q3 2009 survey asked 107 enterprise, contact center and IT executives and decision-makers from around the globe to identify their top goals and priorities for 2010. Surprisingly voice- speech self-service solutions (also known as interactive voice response systems or IVRs) are expected to play a key role in helping enterprises of all sizes achieve their 2010 objectives.

The top 2010 goal for enterprise and contact center executives is improving customer service, thus increasing...

2008 was an impressive year for the hosted call center infrastructure market, and the first half of 2009 is proving to be even better. Research showed that the worldwide economic recession drove many organizations in all verticals to consider hosted contact center infrastructure solutions. DMG found that many of these companies were not classic risk takers, but rather companies that viewed hosting as an opportunity to do business differently, without a great deal of initial investment.

Growth of...