Conversational IVR is here as a blessing for companies to transform their customer relationship strategies!

The primary focus of every business is to increase growth and value for customers, to meet and exceed their expectations. Nearly 60% of the consumers prefer to communicate with customer service through phone or email. If the customer service branch of the company uses outdated technology, the customers might not be able to reach them, and the staff cannot remain available 24*7. This is where conversational IVR comes to play.

For businesses trying to get an edge in the competitive market, improving their organization's customer experience is of high priority. 40^% of surveyed business leaders have admitted that boosting their company's customer experience is ahead of other initiatives like reducing product costs, improving quality, and such others.

So, what is Conversational IVR?

Conversational IVR is a software system that uses voice commands from customers and allows them to interact with self-service IVR systems when they call a company for customer service or any other queries. The content and context of the conversation are well understood by these systems, which improves on the slower hierarchal menus, taking a step forward with customer communications.

After implementing this system, the customers can navigate easily through the menu trees with just voice commands. They no longer have to press numbers at the crucial time and delay the process. This is a progressive initiative towards enabling a self-service for customers.

Conversational IVR works very efficiently as it is driven by artificial intelligence. The system is designed to learn and understand the semantics of the concerned language and the niche to make the IVR more competent than traditional IVR systems. It takes auto attendants to the next level by enabling more human-like conversations using natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. So instead of being walked through a series of prompts where callers answer specific questions, conversational IVR makes this process more organic with a live customer support representative.

Advantages of incorporating Conversational IVR in businesses

As one of the most essential technologies in the contact center, this system offers a range of robust benefits that can drive an exceptional customer experience while reducing operational costs and increasing organizational efficiency.

Callers are greeted through greetings, prompts, and increasingly through conversations. Like a website design or a logo, the script, the music, and the greetings, chosen by the company speak volumes about the brand. Having an IVR system that is aligned with the brand's policies, creates cohesion and consistency that creates a strong brand image for the customers. Besides, not only does it create operational efficiency but also reduces cost. The more efficiently callers are directed to the right resources, the more savings the company will realize. Also, by combing self-service through personalization, the IVR system proves to be a valuable asset to build customer relationships.

Is Conversational IVR right for your business?

Bigger organizations that are fielding large amounts of calls are likely to benefit the most from this system. The best conversational IVRs can reduce the number of live agents by half. They improve the accuracy of call routing and customer management. Every business owner knows those long menus and waits times can keep customers from coming back. However, if a leader is still contemplating his or her choices, they must be relieved because the flexibility of IVR systems allows creating an easy proof of concept implementation to check out various use cases before actually using it for organizational purposes.