It’s not surprising to call a business and be greeted by an IVR system that helps us navigate to the right department or handle issues on our own through self-service options. Some companies take inbound IVR to the next level by combining different contact center technologies in a clever way to create messages fully tailored to each individual. This kind of personalization can make a great first impression on callers or even de-escalate frustrating scenarios they’ve encountered.
Read on to find out more about how IVR can truly personalize CX in your contact center.
Addressing local issues in your service
If you’re a provider with a lot of subscribers (such as in the utilities or telecommunications sectors), a sudden outage or a local error in a specific area may impact your solution for a few hours. In these cases, you’ll probably have hundreds of people calling your customer service department to report the issue. Losing access to a service that you pay for might be frustrating enough on its own, but not being able to reach the provider’s call center just adds more fuel to the fire.
However, you can set up an IVR menu to help you address issues proactively. This way, when a customer calls, the system checks if there’s a problem with your services in their area. If so, they’re redirected to an IVR that acknowledges the problem and gives them an update on the estimated time to resolve the issue. The latter information can come from a backend system automatically as well.
Setting up such IVR will be beneficial on multiple levels: you’ll be able to inform and reassure callers that help is on its way while saving a lot of time for agents, allowing them to focus on different inquiries that cannot be solved in an automated way.
Streamlining order management
If you’re in the e-commerce business and you receive a call from a person who recently bought something from your website, there’s a pretty good chance that they’re inquiring about their order. In this case, a personalized IVR menu can help customers cut to the chase and even offer them self-service options regarding their purchase.
The system can check callers’ phone numbers and see if they have any ongoing orders. If they do, they can be redirected to an IVR asking them if they have any questions about their purchase. You can even take CX to the next level by offering 3 options related to orders: inquiries on expected delivery dates, cancellations and modifications – the first two can even be automated to save time for your agents.
Of course this would need your call center operations to be synced with a CRM. To get a better understanding of how this can work, see how VCC Live integrates with Salesforce and Hubspot.
Language preferences
Some businesses make the mistake of using the same IVR scripts for every caller regardless of where they’re calling from. A common mistake is treating the company’s mother tongue as the default language for all IVR scripts, potentially making international callers listen to a lengthy message that they don’t understand.
Instead of offering the English version of your IVR at the very end of the menu, you can personalize language preferences from the get-go. The system can filter caller IDs so that people using foreign phone numbers are automatically transferred to the English version of your IVR. Many contact center solutions support multiple languages so callers from different regions can all be greeted and talked to in their native tongue.
Automated language recognition can also be helpful in inbound email management. When a business receives an inquiry, the system swiftly detects the language used in the message and directs it to the relevant queue, ensuring that a qualified agent can respond effectively.
Personalized greetings and offers
You can utilize caller IDs to do a lot more than just determining language preferences in your IVR menu. Boost your relationship with customers by taking personalization to another level, and greet known callers based on the information provided by them, such as their name, location or age. Your customer service greetings can also reflect the time of the day, ongoing public holidays, or even acknowledge longer wait times.
It’s common to play pre-recorded promotional messages during IVR intros. However, if all callers receive the same offers, it might lead to some confusion. Your loyal customers of several years are probably not interested in the discount offered for new joiners. Even worse, they may think it applies to them as well, leading to some disappointment. Instead, there are options to personalize your offers played during your IVR greetings as well so that they’re applicable to the customer listening.
AI can even take personalized offers to the next level by analyzing previous conversations and pinpointing indicators that led to positive or negative outcomes, potentially being able to decide what to offer to callers after some learning.
Voice identification
To let customers easily access their data while maintaining high levels of security, contact centers can even offer voice recognition through their IVR system as a form of identification. The system will recognize the caller’s voice and compare it to stored samples to find patterns. When the person is recognized, a CRM integration lets them access and modify data or even make payments on their own.
All in all
These are just a few examples of how tailored IVR messages can enhance CX, streamline operations and even improve security. By embracing the full advantages of IVR technology, you’ll be able to create a lasting positive impact on your callers while optimizing your contact center processes.
