IVR Services Within Your Budget

Perfect blend of people, technology, and tools - these are the common desire every call canter manager have. To make this desire a truth can be a very difficult task because of some bad IVR habits . Nowadays most of business requires customer support system. For this customer support system, business telephone systems and call automation are very much required. Let's check out some of the bad IVR habits which are affecting call centers:

5 Worst Call Center IVR Habits

•         Not Setting a Budget.
•          Ignoring Performance Metrics.
•          Paying for Applications and Features You Don't Need.
•          Forgetting About Your Live Employees
•          Infrequent Upgrades

How To Overcome These Bad IVR Habits

At a particular day when there is huge flow of calls, IVRs can play a major role as life-savers. Finding the right one -- at the right cost -- is a delicate balance indeed. There are thousands of IVR options available in the market to choose from to automate the phone lines. These IVR can play a major role in increasing productivity, but it is very important to set a budget in the beginning. It is very vital to decide that exactly how much you are willing and able to pay for the services or equipment. Once a budget has been set, do not vary from it. Once you've set a financial boundaries then you must respect that. To get IVR services within your budget or to plan a budget you must do a detailed research on different IVR service providers.

Performance metrics are important because they let you know what is going on with your voice response platform. Without metrics, your IVR could be doing more harm than good and you would never know. Today, most systems provide actual percentages on things like dropped calls, average wait times, opt-outs (where callers choose to speak to an employee instead of your IVR), and other really critical rates.

Call center managers are likely to engage in applications and features which are non-essential to them. There is maximum chance that you'll not use all the features comes in a bundle of telemarketing and help desk automation software but the software providers will try to motivate you to purchase the non-essential features also. Worst thing is that all these features come with a scary price tag and chances are you'll never use all of them. It will be best if you'll go for trial with a hosted voice response vendor. This way, you'll just need to pay for the applications you're most likely to use.

Even IVR systems are now in advance phase then also it cannot match the intelligence of human being. The best voice response software can't guarantee the activity in your center will carry on in auto-pilot mode. Live employees are always a vital part of the call center and employee management is one of the key elements of a successful call center. For those folks who are making calls, it's a good idea to invest in some conventional software to manage their work flow. Good choices include: response-time goals, delay estimators, and time-sheets. When possible, choose online resources that offer an option to download reports offline so you can monitor them remotely.

Upgrades can be a major annoyance for telephone system owners, and static or in-house IVRs are worst violators. By now, hopefully you know that most progressive call centers are using some type of adaptive speech technology to support call flow. It's important to realize there are two (and ONLY two) IVR options available to you: physical and virtual platforms. Use your best judgement about your ability and resolve to commit yourself to future upgrades here. Realistically, non-hosted options tend to need upgrades and basic maintenance after about one year.

Finally, you should never get into the habit of thinking that call center IVRs are 100% self-serving. You will still need to be educated on the platform, train your employees how to interact with the new system, and develop ways to track your performance.