A Call Center Guide To IVR Software

This guide teaches you about IVR call center software. You'll learn the basics, get tips, find advice, see trends, and more!

Call centers and IVR software

Historically, call centers have been defined as the department used to give or receive information on behalf of the company or organization. Today, it's clear that business call automation has evolved.

Innovations in voice response software have made it possible to view the contact center as more than just a communication hub. In fact, some might go so far as to describe it as a dynamic and strategic business move.

That's because software, unlike hardware, is diverse.

Categories of applications:

Personnel Management

Analytics & reporting

CRM/Lead capture

You'll see businesses using it for employee training, keeping track of operations and profitability based on calls received, and even for improving customer relationship management (CRM). Let's take a closer look at each category and what is needed for success.

Software that is designed for support staff often includes scheduling, job reporting, and technical support. This is somewhat different than conventional applications because it focuses on addressing the needs and concerns of the employee, rather than those of the caller.

What's needed: Applications that save time, reduce errors, and minimize frustrations that might impede performance.

Analytics and reporting applications can include both basic and advanced options such as providing call transcripts or creating records for callers detailing why a voice response aided call was transferred to a live employee.

What's needed: Applications that accurately report information based on what the client wants.

CRM and lead capture software simply refers to voice response solutions that depend on caller-specific details and records.

What's needed: Applications that are able to interact in real-time.

In each instance, software can play an important role in helping the company balance key areas. Read on for tips on how managers can use software in a way that increases accountability, streamlines procedures, and fine-tunes call automation.

Tips for managers

Managers normally find themselves at the helm when it comes to implementing new software. Because support staff will perform at peak levels when they are held accountable for the services they provide, it is up to the managers to ensure that everyone is on the same page so to speak.

Here are some tips to ease the transition if your company is just getting started:

Make sure key employees understand how to use it & know how to get help when they need itCoordinate with internal departments so calls are routed appropriatelyHave regular staff meetings so you know what's working and what isn't

New and upcoming industry trends

Several new and exciting trends have popped up this year. One of the more interesting developments is how voice response solutions are being integrated with the caller's mobile devices. The idea is that relevant consumer data like web browsing, texts, and downloaded apps can be captured and entered into a company's existing database.

Finding more resources

No guide is complete without a list of additional resources. Here's a list of helpful sites with more resources for call centers:

TMCNet

Contact Center World

Connected Planet Online

Voip-News

Jay E. Coop writes about technology and has spent nearly a decade helping call centers choose sophisticated IVR software. Visit http://www.smartaction.com/ for more info.

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Call Center IVR: Exploring Speech Technology

Technology changes fast and so does the cost of doing business. When faced with the decision of hiring human agents to handle business calls, many high-level executives look for alternatives with measurable results.

In the business world, communication is a key factor for analytics. Call automation systems that are designed to respond to questions from actual customers are ideal for measuring efficiency, workflow, and success.

Understanding the different technologies available today

The technologies used for call automation include tone based voice response, interactive speech based applications, and traditional human employees.

Tone IVR is considered cheap to install but compared to the speech IVR and other methods of communication with potential customers. With this technology, it is not detailed and involves providing a simple Yes or No answer to the caller.

Speech applications are considered more complex in the types of conversation that can be processed. They have been designed to handle complex conversations between clients, and can respond to a client's requirements just like a live agent working in a call center. Conversations are not required to flow in a predetermined manner.

Human staff are often lumped together with the technology of call automation because they are an essential part of the equation. Some companies reserve live employees for more complicated or delicate caller issues. Others save live staff for areas where automated solutions fall short (callers with accents, multiple requests, or complaints typically fall into this category).

Truthfully, one type of automation is no better than another. Each serves to quickly address important phone calls.

What prospective buyers should look for

The company selling a call automation system should offer ongoing monitoring of the system, along with reporting. As mentioned earlier, these systems should provide an easy way to measure efficiency, workflow, and success.

They should also provide any kind of maintenance that is needed. This includes performance optimization, as well. Ultimately, the entire experience should be hassle free.

Besides "try before you buy" options, a company that offers free installation is an advantage. Clients should not have to pay to install something that they are going to pay for later. Therefore, prospective clients should only look for companies that are willing to install their IVR system free of charge.

A good IVR system will offer a variety of applications and features to use. Ultimately, one should have a large amount of choices from which they can choose. Some features and applications worth looking more into are:

+ Customer management
+ Automatic upgrades
+ Adaptive call center customer support
+ Other ways to customize

See a visual comparison of agents to IVRs at: http://www.smartaction.com/. For more resources, visit: http://www.smartaction.com/resources/main

Jay E. Coop enjoys writing about IVR phone systems and interactive voice response.

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The Best Practices and Proper Use of Call Center Recording

When you record and review all calls entering your organization's phone system, you will produce the wealth of raw material necessary to identify the ground-level problems and potential sticking points preventing your customer service representatives from providing the maximum value to your clients.

That being said, you can't jump head-first into call center recording, ignorant to the rules and regulations surrounding the best practices and proper use of your recording capabilities. If you are going to use call center recording technology, whether because you legally have to or because you simply want to streamline your telephony systems, then you need to follow the laws governing this potentially abusive technology to their every last letter.

The Lack of Nationally Unified Laws

First things first- the laws governing call center recording aren't always uniform as they tend to vary from state to state. Before you establish a system for recording your organization's phone calls, you need to first perform your due diligence and ensure your planned recording system complies with all of your state's laws.

Not only should you make sure you're complying with your own state's laws regarding recording inbound and outbound calls, it's wise to make sure you comply with the recording laws set out by any other state you may make or receive calls from. When it comes to recording phone calls it's always better to err on the side of caution and to absolutely minimize your potential liability instead of doing "just enough" to get by.

In essence, every organization with the potential for a national reach or presence needs to ensure consent before a single word is written to tape.

What Consent Means in Telephony

At a national level, there's nothing illegal about recording a phone call you make or receive. At the state level, the legality of recording phone calls depends on whether you received the consent to do so or not.

How states handle the question of consent tends to fall into one of two camps.
Some states require only one half a phone conversation to provide consent to record the call (One Party Notification).Some states require everyone involved in a phone conversation to signal their consent before a recording can be legally produced (All Party Notification).

In each of these states both you and your clients need to signal your consent to have your phone calls recorded before any recording can be made.

Signalling Consent

The word "consent" sounds a lot more intimidating and demanding than it actually is.

"Consent" is a well-defined legal term in the world of phone recording, and it can be acquired through a few different widely accepted methods. At the moment there are three legally acceptable forms of consent you can utilize to stay on the right side of the law when you record your organization's inbound and outbound calls.
The first way to receive consent is through some sort of prior verbal or written permission provided by your caller stating their acquiescence to you recording their calls. For example, you can include an acknowledgement of consent within a contract or service agreement you and your clients enter into together, stating clearly that you can record any future phone calls between the two of you.
The second way to receive content is by providing some sort of aural indication that you've initiated a recording, such as an audible beep or tone repeated regularly throughout your phone call. Most organizations do NOT choose this form of receiving consent because it is more ambiguous than the other two, and because it can potentially disrupt your phone communications.
The final, and most common, form of receiving consent involves some sort of verbal notification that a recording will be made, given prior to the phone call or prior to the start of the recording. This form of consent is the least disruptive, the most flexible, and the easiest to obtain. The majority of organizations who record their calls use this solution because they simply need to playback a pre-recorded statement indicating that the proceeding phone call may be recorded, and informing their callers that remaining on the call indicates giving their consent.

While the regulations surrounding consent do need to be followed, they don't need to impair your organization's ability to provide superior customer service to all of your callers and clients. In nearly all cases, a simple, unobtrusive indication of your intention to record your phone calls and your caller's agreement to be recorded is enough to keep you and your organization on solid legal grounds.

Sam Rozenfeld runs DLS Internet Services, a business VoIP service provider. He shares his thoughts and a service provider's prospective on how hosted VoIP is being adopted by business community. Go to TelephonyYourWay.com/blog to see more.

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Factors To Check Before Choosing A Call Center For Your Business

Are you thinking of hiring the services of a call center? There are many advantages of outsourcing the task of receiving customer calls and answering their queries and questions. If you want to gain a lot of customers and make a large amount of profit, you should make it a point to hire the services of a call center. There are professionals who can represent your company to customers over the telephone. Thus, when customers or clients call up the numbers of your company, the calls are actually received by the executives of such agencies. They are trained in the business processes of your company and have experience of dealing with queries and questions of all types of customers. Customers can talk with real people, and find your company reliable and trustworthy. You will not lose valuable customers anymore. There are certain factors you must check while choosing a call center for your business:

The first thing you should check is of course the certification and licensing. Check whether the service center you are choosing has been accredited by the BBB or better business bureau. In addition to that, you can search for the ATSI gold certified service provider. Checking the validity of such accreditations and certification is important if you want to find a service provider that can provide you the best quality services for 24 hours a day.
An important factor you should check is the budget. Find out whether the call center you are choosing provides services well within your budget. Different service providers have different rates for such services. Moreover, the rates of such services vary according to the type of service package you are choosing. In addition to that, you can check whether the cost of opting for such a service is reasonable.
Check whether the call center you are choosing has trained and experienced staffs. There are loads of benefits of choosing a service provider that can provide professional answering services. Before choosing a center, you can find out whether the professionals associated with it are knowledgeable about the business process of your company. Remember, they should have proper knowledge about the goods and services of your company to be able to answer the queries and questions of your customers.

So, you can see that the image of your company depends upon the services provided by the call; center you choose. Therefore, you should be careful while choosing a call center. Bucks County has a few good centers.

Searching for a suitable call center in Bucks County? Towne Answering Service can provide you the best possible solution.

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Call Center IVR: Exploring Speech Technology

Technology changes fast and so does the cost of doing business. When faced with the decision of hiring human agents to handle business calls, many high-level executives look for alternatives with measurable results.

In the business world, communication is a key factor for analytics. Call automation systems that are designed to respond to questions from actual customers are ideal for measuring efficiency, workflow, and success.

Understanding the different technologies available today

The technologies used for call automation include tone based voice response, interactive speech based applications, and traditional human employees.

Tone IVR is considered cheap to install but compared to the speech IVR and other methods of communication with potential customers. With this technology, it is not detailed and involves providing a simple Yes or No answer to the caller.

Speech applications are considered more complex in the types of conversation that can be processed. They have been designed to handle complex conversations between clients, and can respond to a client's requirements just like a live agent working in a call center. Conversations are not required to flow in a predetermined manner.

Human staff are often lumped together with the technology of call automation because they are an essential part of the equation. Some companies reserve live employees for more complicated or delicate caller issues. Others save live staff for areas where automated solutions fall short (callers with accents, multiple requests, or complaints typically fall into this category).

Truthfully, one type of automation is no better than another. Each serves to quickly address important phone calls.

What prospective buyers should look for

The company selling a call automation system should offer ongoing monitoring of the system, along with reporting. As mentioned earlier, these systems should provide an easy way to measure efficiency, workflow, and success.

They should also provide any kind of maintenance that is needed. This includes performance optimization, as well. Ultimately, the entire experience should be hassle free.

Besides "try before you buy" options, a company that offers free installation is an advantage. Clients should not have to pay to install something that they are going to pay for later. Therefore, prospective clients should only look for companies that are willing to install their IVR system free of charge.

A good IVR system will offer a variety of applications and features to use. Ultimately, one should have a large amount of choices from which they can choose. Some features and applications worth looking more into are:

+ Customer management
+ Automatic upgrades
+ Adaptive call center customer support
+ Other ways to customize

See a visual comparison of agents to IVRs at: http://www.smartaction.com/. For more resources, visit: http://www.smartaction.com/resources/main

Jay E. Coop enjoys writing about IVR phone systems and interactive voice response.

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Call Center IVR - 7 Road Blocks to Customer Satisfaction and How to Overcome Them

Any company that's responsible for handling dozens of callers can benefit from a call center IVR. This type of telephone system is designed specifically for use within a call center environment. The acronym stands for an interactive voice response, and is a telephone-based technology that uses computers (and even software, in some cases) to detect touch tones and voices. Touch tones aptly refer to the sounds generated when a caller presses a key from the number pad on their telephone. The computerized system allows a business or service provider to form menus that help callers to access or give information.

Despite many firms embracing this technology, customer satisfaction is not always achieved. A number of observations have been used to explain why this technology has been counterproductive in some cases. It is essential to understand the pitfalls associated with the interactive voice response systems, to be able to satisfy customers. Below you will find 7 of the most common road blocks to customer satisfaction, and learn how to overcome them.

The most obvious road block is not giving callers an option to talk to a live agent. Many customers prefer talking to a live agent and when they are unable to reach one, they feel unappreciated. Nevertheless, some firms use this technology to reduce their expenditure on hiring agents. Those utilizing this mode of giving information should not phase out agents completely and always provide callers with an easy way to talk to an employee.
The computerized call center might fail to direct callers to an agent. Some subjects are very sensitive and answers provided are not satisfying, hence there is a need for human intervention. If customers will end their calls without finding solutions to their problems, the goal is therefore not achieved. One way to avoid this problem is to create a series of "triggers" that will notify employees when sensitive or difficult topics are introduced during the call.
Some menus have a poor prompt structure where information seekers are given too many options. Callers are likely to be confused by a big number of menus. This is irritating mostly when a customer has to keep answering the same questions. This is easily solved by simplifying the menu. Have your employees test out the system before it goes live.
An effective IVR should have high quality audio recordings. The voices used should have some uniformity and must be audible. The professionals who install these facilities should avoid using faulty recording devices. The recording is better done in a studio to ensure quality, and volume consistency.
This technology is supposed to recognize voices so that those who call for a second or third time can be directed to a live agent. Cases of failure of this function have been reported despite claims that the structure should recognize voices. This shortcoming frustrates customers who keep calling hoping to reach a live agent. One solution is to use advanced speech technologies. Again, have your employees test out how effective the system is at recognition.
Some companies do not take enough time to test this application. The development stage is very critical to success or failure. We have already seen a couple scenarios where testing is vital. When no tests are done many hitches go unnoticed thus tainting the image of the organization. To minimize the problems encountered by caller, some tests should be done using a small number of people. Do not forget to do tests and trial runs with the analytics provided; reports, call logs, and call completions are often overlooked in this stage.
New users might find the instructions difficult to comprehend. Instructions should be easy to follow and execute without wasting time. Frequent users who are familiar with the system should be allowed to type ahead. They should not be forced to wait until all the options are given so that they can be allowed to respond.

Many companies are planning to change their customers' experiences using this technology. A call center IVR can be of benefit but if not well structured can result to poor customer services. Corporations are able to reduce cost, increase their operating hours and handle high numbers of calls. All these will be of benefit when done with the customers' satisfaction in mind.

Jay E. Coop is a call center IVR blogger writing from his own experiences with voice response technology. Read about newer models and solutions like hosted IVR on his site.

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