Currently, interactive voice servers (IVRs) can do much more than just divert calls. For all retailers, the IVR – this system that connects customers with a service via telephone exchanges or voice menus, can be a very good tool throughout the customer experience.
Across all areas of sales, service and marketing, resellers use the IVR system as part of their overall personalization and customer engagement strategy to increase loyalty and increase business profits.
How to demand more from IVS
The best customer experiences are characterized by ease, convenience, and personalization. To do this, top retailers are leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver personalized, omnichannel customer experiences at scale. Unfortunately, IVR’s older systems no longer meet today’s standards for quality customer experience. Too slow, too expensive, sometimes inflexible and impersonal… so many inconveniences to be corrected.
Here are the characteristics of a modern IVR for retailers:
- Flexible : need to be able to update and adjust menu, messages as desired. By directly controlling the IVR, it is possible to optimize the experience to suit the business.
- Omnichannel: a modern IVR is not limited to calls, but allows interaction with brands on the chosen channel thanks to intelligent routing. The more an IVR is capable of supporting a multitude of channels, the better the chance of diverting calls to a less time-consuming solution for agents. This omnichannel also makes it possible to benefit from a more harmonious transition during a conversation between Internet users and agents, by picking up where it left off, thus avoiding customers having to repeat their request each time they are connected.
- Customized with CRM integration: with intelligent routing, data from the CRM system is taken into account to connect a customer with the right representative and the right flow and thus personalize the customer experience, from updating orders to updating the account balance.
- AI-powered: to provide the best possible IVR experience to your customers, you need to be able to understand what they expect. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps companies interact with more customers without sacrificing the quality of the interaction. Using machine learning, it is possible to train the SVI in natural language processing (NLP). This form of speech recognition allows you to provide customers with a conversational experience that requires no agent training. Rather than making predetermined choices, customers can explain why they are contacting you.
The multiple uses of IVRs for retailers
With their omnichannel and conversational capabilities, IVRs can be used throughout the customer journey to ensure a fast, convenient and personalized customer experience.
In customer service
When live agent requests exceed system capacity, IVRs can give callers the option to receive a call or switch to chat or SMS messaging with the next available agent, rather than waiting in a queue waiting. It is also possible for brands to customize their queues as they wish to optimize the customer experience. Whether it’s broadcasting a song or promoting a podcast, all means are good to hold their attention.
By combining physical stores and contact centers on the same platform, IVR also offers a unified customer journey, facilitating redirection to the local store or an agent depending on the nature of the requests, to check if a particular item is in stock. stock or to make an appointment, for example.
Post-purchase, an omnichannel IVR with instant messaging capabilities, such as WhatsApp, is also useful for keeping customers informed about the status of their order.
Marketing side
Proactive marketers know that when there are incoming calls, it’s a great opportunity to promote a special offer or deliver a personalized marketing message while getting them to the requested destination.
IVR systems are also used in integrated marketing campaigns by adding local IVR phone numbers to SMS messages, emails and print advertisements. Customers can easily call to enter a contest or take advantage of a promotion.
SVI surveys are also an opportunity to collect valuable user feedback following a recent transaction or interaction with your customer service.
Using API interfaces to create your SVI
It takes an average of nine months to make minor updates to an IVR system. That’s why leading brands are moving away from complex legacy systems and off-the-shelf IVRs, instead building their own IVR systems using flexible cloud-based application interfaces (APIs).
APIs make it quick and easy to add and integrate new features to your IVR to create an experience tailored to your customers’ needs and tailored to your business.