Customer demands are changing faster than ever. But keeping up with them is not as daunting of a task as it may seem.
Call center cloud solutions give you the flexibility to adapt. You can easily incorporate new technology and communication trends into its functionality.
Interactive voice response (IVR) system software has long been the gatekeeper of the call center. It routes customers to departments relative to their needs, gives wait times, and provides answers to a limited amount of frequently asked questions.
IVR, like a lot of call center software, has become stale and outdated. Contact center cloud solutions give you the ability to jolt it back to life. You can add features to your IVR that create a great customer experience and improve some important key performance indicators (KPIs).
Here we help you figure out when the time is right to move IVR service to the cloud.
When to Move IVR Service to the Cloud
IVR takes a lot of heat for its shortcomings. Common complaints include:
- It’s not personal—interactions feel robotic and clunky
- The menu options aren’t up to date
- It isn’t very helpful.
Cloud IVR solutions tackle these problems head on. You can create multi-level IVR menus and manage them from one interface. New technology that might improve your IVR can easily be incorporated.
Making changes to legacy systems of your call center can be a painful process. But sometimes the signs are so glaring you have no choice but to make the migration.
Let’s have a look at 5 signs it’s time to move IVR services to the cloud.
1. You have high abandonment rates
Abandonment rates indicate your customers are hanging up before the conversation even begins. It is crucial to find out why.
Analytics can help you determine exactly when your customer hung up and then make an informed guess about the reasons behind it. Some typical reasons for customers hanging up are:
- Long wait times
- Getting routed to the wrong place
- Cycling through menu options that don’t fit your customer’s needs.
Cloud IVR lets you easily add new features to your IVR system that might mitigate the problems you uncover. Abandoned calls due to long queue times could be avoided by the addition of a customer call-back option. Intelligent routing, leveraging unified data, can ensure customers are sent in the right direction. And IVR menu options can be easily changed on the fly to reflect current needs.
2. Your customers tell you they hate your IVR
Feedback is an invaluable tool for improving customer experience. Your customers identify points of friction and informed solutions can be set in motion. With regard to IVR, one comment that sticks out is that interacting with it feels clunky and robotic.
Customers prefer conversation with IVR to be as similar to natural human conversation as possible. Technologies like natural language processing and machine learning enable cloud IVR to interact on a much more human level. Instead of a simple “press 1 for your account balance” customers can interact in a familiar way: conversationally.
3. Your First Contact Resolution (FCR) rates are low
Low first contact resolution rates are a troubling sign in the contact center. It indicates that somewhere along the line, efficiency is breaking down.
You can increase first contact resolution rates by making sure your customers are correctly routed. Intelligent routing incorporates a few AI features to achieve this:
- Natural language processing—customer’s issues are accurately understood
- Agent ability is matched with customer’s inquiry
- Emotional or technical nature of inquiry can be accounted for.
Cloud contact centers can easily integrate intelligent routing into their IVR system and with it increase first contact resolution rates.
4. Your call volume hampers service quality
Most contact center managers are aware of the ebbs and flows of inbound volume and plan accordingly. But what about when an unexpected surge overwhelms your call center to a point that customer service suffers?
High inbound call volume creates:
- Long wait times
- Increased abandonment rates
- Overworked agents
To help mitigate high inbound volume, cloud IVR can take care of an increasing number of tasks and the number of calls agents are required to field themselves decreases significantly. Contact center cloud solutions make it easy to add helpful tasks to your IVR’s repertoire.
5. Your IVR lacks important data integrations
The success of your call center depends on the level of customer service you are able to provide. The better you know your customer, the better your service you are able to provide.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software allows you to bolster your customer focused strategy with technology. You gain a clear view of your customer in one place. Through constant input and analysis, the picture of your customer on file is being revised to match their most up-to-date preferences.
CRM integrations with IVR supercharge your pre-call interactions. Menu options can be tailored to your customer. Details of your customer’s omnichannel interaction history, account information, and preferences tell your IVR how to best approach your customer.
Cloud Services Simplify the Process
Your IVR is the first responder to your customer’s inquiries. It is in your best interest to make sure that first interaction is as smooth and helpful as possible.
Give your IVR a test run. If it isn’t particularly helpful and seems clunky, it might be a sign it’s time to move IVR service to the cloud.