The pros and cons of Interactive Voice Response systems

Before subscribing to any kind of service or product,
cons first. Interactive Voice Response systems are one of those things that people either love or hate. Let’s have a look at both the advantages and disadvantages of these kinds of systems.

Pros

• It saves time and money – less living, expensive employees.
• It doesn’t go on lunch breaks, vacations or have sick days.
• It is available 24/7/365 to assist clients with their queries.
• It can make a small company seem bigger. The notion that only large companies can afford Interactive Voice Response systems still exists, even though the cost of owning one have lowered significantly. You can also intentionally use it to give a more professional feeling to your home based business by adding several menu options for different departments that lead to separate voice mail boxes.
• It makes customers feel like someone is attending to their needs. Even though it isn’t a human on the other end, it is still better than holding the line for hours just to speak to a consultant.
• It eliminates human errors like transferring a call to the wrong department.

Cons

A lot of people don’t like talking to machines. But the cons of IVR systems mostly come into play in situations where a business constructed and implemented the system poorly. Areas where companies sometimes go wrong are:

• Menus that is too long or difficult to understand
• Messages containing too much info to remember or irrelevant content.
• Voice prompts that are hard to understand because the voice talent doesn’t produce the words clearly or correctly.
• Interactive Voice Systems used for the wrong in the wrong ways. For example: if a customer actually made the effort to pick up the phone and enquire about a product, they will expect to speak to a human consultant at some point. Also, making use of an automated voice call for a telemarketing campaign will only alienate people if they receive the call at an inappropriate time.

Sign up with a profession IVR system provider like Integrat to avoid the cons of Interactive Voice Response systems in your business.

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