The Interactive Voice Response System (IVRs) provides the menus that you hear and respond to at the beginning of a call
If used smartly, you can improve your customers’ overall experience whilst also increasing the productivity of your workforce. Everybody has an idea of the basics when it comes to IVRs but is there more to it?
Be at work – Even when you’re not
An IVR allows you to access your phone system and features that encompass it remotely. You can set up your IVR so that you can call a selected number from any phone and be directed to log in with a personal extension and pin – by doing this you can access your voicemail, join conference calls and even leave voicemails for other colleagues.
However the best thing surely must be that you can log in to your personal work extension and make a call to any number you like, and the receiving caller will think that you are calling from the office. This means that you can call customers from anywhere in the world and still appear to be at the office; offering true geographical flexibility in regards to where you wish to work.
Conduct customer satisfaction surveys
You can save time and resources by setting up your IVR to be a customer satisfaction and feedback tool. You can ask your customers prerecorded questions and they can answer with just the touch of a button. The information is then stored and can be fed back to the relevant department to use however desired. It’s worth noting that these types of IVRs are generally very bespoke and take quite a bit of setting up. However, it’s expected that as demand grows, they should naturally become more readily available and accessible to all.
Automated IVR surveys demonstrate an effective way of collating feedback. It requires zero effort from staff and collects honest and objective feedback from your customers.
Look bigger, much bigger
A professional sounding telephone system can give your business international presence, potentially giving you an edge over your competitors. You can have a complex menu with many different options, stating different departments and offices when in reality you are just one person working from home.
In short, you can make a small company with 10 employees appear to be a hundred user organisation. By appearing larger, you seem a more established, viable option to potential customers.
In the past, only the big businesses with huge budgets could afford the setup costs, hardware and staff expertise to have such a system. However, with hosted-telephony solutions now open to all, smaller businesses can have access to and take advantage of the many features and benefits that an IVR system offers.
Further advice
If you would like to know more about IVRs and setting up a new VoIP phone system call us on 0345 557 6100.
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