Beginner’s Guide to IVR

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

July 19, 2019

10 mins read eye

Table of content

Irrespective of your organizations size and the industry, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) caters to every type of business perfectly. Besides providing a communication platform, it has proved to be a great customer engagement tool that has bridged the gap between customers and businesses.

This guide aims to take you through What, why, and How of Interactive Voice Response and helps you understand the relevance of IVR in your organization’s growth trajectory.

1. What is IVR?

IVR is a telephony system that interacts with callers through numeric or voice inputs. It answers all the incoming calls, presents a list of menu options and prompts the callers to respond by choosing one of the presented options. Based on the received response, these calls are redirected to different departments.

2. How Does It Work?

The working of an IVR is a no brainer. It is simple as calling on any phone number. The only difference is in the engagement it provides.

When a customer calls on your IVR-linked business phone number, the call gets answered by automated voice response – programmed at the backend. After greeting callers with a welcome message, IVR presents a menu to guide the customers further in the process.

For instance, after welcoming callers, IVR presents the below menu options.

Press 1 for Billing Related Queries

Press 2 for Product Enquiries

Press 3 for Sales Related Enquiries

Press 4 to Directly Connect with an Agent

To proceed, if callers respond “1”, the call is redirected to the billing department. These calls are routed using the most optimized call routing algorithm so that the callers do not have to wait in long queues during the interaction.

3. What is Single-level and Multi-level IVR?

Single Level IVR

As the name suggests, single-level IVR has only one layer of menu options. These options are generally broad and directly connects you to a live agent.

Often, single-level IVR is used by small businesses who have a limited number of departments and thus want to provide a direct route to connect with their agents. Due to the broad filters, this type of IVR is simple to program and customize but has a low-quality filtration.

Single and Multi Level IVR

Multi-Level IVR

On the other hand, multi-level IVR follows a nested structure which can extend up to “n” number of levels. Frequently used by large businesses, multi-level IVR filters and distributes callers according to their queries before connecting them with a live agent.

In comparison to single-level IVR, multi-level follows a precise approach of filtering callers.

For instance, in the above example, customers with billing-related queries are filtered at the first IVR level.

On the next level, callers are further filtered on more precise conditions such as retrieving monthly bill and changing billing plans. And the remaining callers with more complex queries are provided with an option to connect with a company representative.

Apart from screening, Interactive Voice Response also offers a high level of customization flexibility which lets you tailor the call flow, build multiple levels, change with the voice recordings, and create self-service options.

4. Why You Need an Interactive Voice Response (IVR)?

If quality customer service and experience is your brand’s top priority, then IVR is what your business needs.

You cannot expect to deliver a high-quality customer experience if your customers have to spend hours trying to make a single call. Worse, if the customers are unable to contact you in the first two calling attempts, chances are they’re never calling you back.

To handle such critical business scenarios, IVR comes into the picture. The working of Interactive Voice Response is not merely restricted to answering calls. It also ensures that your calls are handled intelligently where every caller is acknowledged and provided the best possible solution in minimal time.

Below is a list of such 7 benefits that IVR solution offers to your business.

(a) Multiplies Your Call Handling Capacity

The most notable advantage of implementing Interactive Voice Response is that it expands your capability of handling customer calls. With a manual receptionist, if you could answer only one call at a time, then IVR extends the limit to 4-5. Also, since a virtual receptionist answers the call, there are negligible chances of calls getting missed or unanswered.

(b) Represents Your Business as an Established Brand

Interactive Voice Response cater perfectly caters to every type and size of business. If you’re a startup with a limited budget and workforce, you can still portray yourself as an established brand using IVR.

Professionalism reflected through Interactive Voice Response makes your brand look renowned, having a large customer base, along with a wide variety of departments. Also, welcoming callers with a customized and professional greeting gives your business an edge and creates an instant and lasting brand recall.

(c) Makes Calling Process Error-free

In comparison to a human receptionist, Interactive Voice Response makes the whole process less prone to errors. Chances of any lapses are minimum with IVR, as the whole process of answering and routing calls is automated.

Unlike human receptionist, a sudden surge in the call volume doesn’t affect the calling process. Also, as the call flow is programmed and managed at the backend, the accuracy of the whole process while transferring the call is less prone to errors.

(d) Saves Time and Money

Deploying IVR cuts down your business cost drastically. You do not need to hire and pay a dedicated professional human receptionist to answer every call manually.

Instead, with IVR, you can provide quick and timely resolutions to save yours as well as the customer’s time. Eliminating the need for a human receptionist, it expands your call handling capacity drastically and ensures that you do not miss out on any potential customers.

And with cloud-hosted IVR, the setup process is quick and budget-friendly. You don’t have to invest time and money in purchasing or configuring complex telephony setup anymore.

To get going, simply search for a trusted cloud IVR provider like Acefone who can handle all the setup for you and channelize your energy and time into deciding the call flows and attending customers.

(e) Provides Customer Satisfaction

Self-service options provided in the Interactive Voice Response reduces the call hold time significantly. Callers are no more dependent on the agents to provide resolution. They can instead avail the self-service options presented in the IVR to get the answers.

This not only quickly resolves your queries but minimizes the total call duration, especially the call hold time. As a result, boosts the quality of your customer experience and satisfaction.

(f) Access Call Data for Analysis

To remain relevant in the business arena, you need to add value to your mundane processes constantly. Call data analytics does the same for the business. It provides business with key insights into their contact center and helps them understand the gaps of the processes.

Numbers such as received calls, call duration, abandoned calls, and more, can be used to understand the call-flows, agent performance, and customer trends. Also, you can access and scope the call recordings for quick and better understanding.

**(g) Provides 24*7 Customer Service**

Through Interactive Voice Response, you can easily provide round-the-clock customer service. You need not invest a large portion of your budget in hiring a large workforce and required infrastructure.

Using IVR’s self-service options, your customers can get answers to their basic queries at any time. Also, you can transfer the call received at off-business hours to your personal number through the call forwarding feature. This ensures you are available when required without being physically present at the office.

5. Things to Remember While Designing Your Business IVR

How to design an IVR

Once you have understood the relevance of Interactive Voice Response in your business, the next important step is to create one. An IVR can only yield you good results if its design and operation are optimized. Simply, creating menus and forwarding the calls to the departments might not help.

Below are a few of the recommended IVR practices following which can accelerate your customer satisfaction rate drastically.

(a) Keep Only 3-4 Menu Options

A common mistake committed during IVR designing is providing more than 4 menu options.

People won’t remember all the options at once. They can hang up the call if they’re overwhelmed with the list of options.

Keeping a limited set of options is important as the more options you give, the more you confuse the callers. So, keep only 3-4 menu options in your IVR, which are broadly categorized by your business requirement. For example, categorize them according to departments, products, or services.

(b) Announce the Message Before Option

It is always a good practice to announce the related message before the keypress option. Announcing the action before the description reduces the recall of the option. As customers have a short attention span and IVR has a list of options to present, the probability of remembering the action after the message gets diminished drastically.

For instance, if IVR options follow the below structure, high chances are that at the end of the last message, i.e., product department, you might not remember the key to be pressed if you wanted to connect with the billing department.

Press 1 to connect with the Sales department.

Press 2 to connect with the Billing department.

Press 3 to connect with the Product department.

Whereas in the below example, as the action (Press 3) is mentioned at the end, there’s an instant recall of the key to be pressed.

To connect with the Sales department, Press 1

To connect with the Billing department, Press 2

To connect with the Product department, Press 3

(c) Don’t Hide the ‘To Connect with the Agent.’ Option

As stated in the first point, you should keep IVR options limited to 3-4 broad options, but while doing so, you have to cut down on many possible options that callers might search for. Thus, providing a “connect with a live agent” option is necessary for the issues that are not mentioned on the IVR menu.

First, it gives a direct route to connect with the company agent if self-service options don’t help. Second, a startling 98% of customers try to skip the IVR that means not all customers are comfortable using self-service options; these types of customers can skip the long IVR route and can connect with the agent directly.

But a major mistake done while designing IVR is the hidden placement of this option. Nothing aggravates a customer more than having to struggle to find this option. Hiding this option can jeopardize your brand’s image and customer’s faith in your organization.

(d) Don’t Promote Your Brand in Every Message

Businesses often promote their brand on every opportunity they get. But the same is not appreciable when it comes to IVR. Customers approaching your businesses are already in a rush to get their queries resolved and burdening them with your promotional messages only multiplies their furiousness.

So, while designing your IVR, keep self-promotion minimal. Play a promotional audio message when you welcome callers but avoid doing the same if the customers are on-hold. Be mindful of your customer’s journey and play audio recordings in the IVR accordingly.

(e) Minimize Waiting Time to Seconds

The most annoying experience of IVR is call queues. Customers dread when asked to put their calls on hold during the call transfer process.

According to a study surveying 2500 customers, 60 per cent of customers are unhappy if the call hold durations exceed a minute. While 32 per cent answered– keeping on hold should be totally eliminated.

Thus, while designing an IVR, you should ensure your call hold time is less than a minute. To achieve this, make sure you streamline the below points in your IVR.

Ensure you are equipped with sufficient staff to handle call overloads
Design well-researched and optimized call routing structures
Transfer calls to the right department and agent

Summing It Up

Today, customers want to be more self-sufficient, and businesses want to provide high-quality customer service. Offering the best of both, Interactive Voice Response has proved to be a self-help platform where customers can find answers to their queries without compromising on the quality of the resolution.

However, implementing IVR and delivering optimized customer experience can get tricky at time. But if you’re following updated IVR testing and designing mechanisms, the quality of delivered customer service will steadily gain momentum.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

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Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK's leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.

5 Ways to Get Customers to Pick Your Calls

Acefone Editor

Author

Operations

June 17, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

As the famous saying goes,

Conversations lead to Conversions

This saying holds true for all the businesses aiming to attract and convert leads.

In fact, as per a survey, there is a strong connection between the number of conversations that agents have each day to their performance. An average sales rep has around six conversations a day, although top representatives have a lot more than that.

But with internet access being readily available, channels like WhatsApp are being used by people to drive conversations. These channels have reduced the provision of calling, as there is always an option to drop a text and start the conversation.

And with the rise in the number of spam calls received every day, customers have become cautious about picking calls from the unknown number.

But, to overcome these challenges and drive more conversations over the call, you need to ensure that a maximum number of customers are answering your calls. However, the response rate of these calls is entirely dependent upon how you approach them. Following the below strategies can prove to be beneficial in improving your call pick up rate.

If you have a Voice broadcasting solution for your business, you must have encountered with bummers of customers not picking calls. To overcome all these challenges faced while call pickup, here are a few basic tips that will boost up your probability of call being received by your customers: –

1. Make Calls to Target Customer Base

The foremost thing you need to keep in mind while making calls is your customer base. It’s essential to understand that your products and services have an intended audience, and thus you should prioritize them.

You need to understand the needs of customers and target them accordingly. Having a proper idea about target customers makes it easy for you to make calls to the customers who are looking for your products or services. Hence, it increases the probability of your call being picked up.

2. Call at the Appropriate Time

We get it, you need to capture a maximum number of leads, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of harming your brand image. As a standard guideline, it is ideal to abstain from calling before 8 AM and after 8 PM. Studies demonstrate that the most suitable time to call your customers is from 11 AM to 12 PM, and 4 PM to 5 PM.

During the 11-12 window, customers have checked in at work, start with their tasks and are slowing down for lunch.

Also, they are wrapping up for the day between 4-5 PM. The customers are clearly not going to take up a task that requires extreme concentration during this window, which makes it the best time to call.

3. Dial From the Local Area Code

Most people don’t want to answer calls from unknown numbers or the numbers that do not belong to their local area codes. People are more probably to answer your call when they see a local number in their caller ID.

According to a Survey, people are four times more likely to answer calls from numbers with Local caller ID. Just 7 per cent responded that they’re probably going to answer a call from an unknown caller with a toll-free code, but that number jumps to 27.5 per cent when that caller is utilizing a local caller ID.

4. Use Multi–Channel Contact Strategy

Enhancing call pickup rates is not only about calling at the appropriate time or having a target customer base; it also follows a multi-channel contact approach. There are a few people who will never accept calls from the organizations they don’t identify.

One should try to fit in the customer’s shoes and establish a marketing strategy accordingly. Observe customer behavior and try to contact them on social media sites or other platforms.

You can drop an email to your potential customer and inquire about the right time to call. You can also use social media channels to connect with customers. After this, a call should be placed, and subsequently, send a follow-up email to collect the feedback.

5. Ensure Your Credibility

The basic thing you can do to improve your call pickup rates is to ensure that you have authenticated ID over True Caller app. People are highly likely to receive your call when it is not marked as spam or blocked by users on such apps. This gives credibility to your brand and to the users, which, as a result, improves your call pickup rates.

Outbound sales is always a challenging job, but with the correct methodology, it’s a challenge worth pursuing. By utilizing the above strategies, you can support yourself and create enough opportunities and income that you need to flourish.

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Transactional or Promotional SMS: What Does Your Business Need?

Acefone Editor

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SMS Service

June 7, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

According to a report released by Dynmark International, the open rate for SMS or text messages has already exceeded by 98%. Further, 90% of the text messages are read within 3 seconds from delivery. The high and fast open rate has made SMS a key component of omnichannel customer communication. A large percentage of customers these days interact with businesses and brands by sending text messages. Likewise, most businesses use text messages as a robust communication tool to deliver customer service and run marketing campaigns.

The text messages sent by a business or brand can be divided into two broad categories – transactional SMS and promotional SMS. A business sends transactional text messages to customers to provide relevant information required to use its products or services more efficiently. The Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) defines transactional SMS as a text message which does not contain any promotional content.

On the other hand, a business sends promotional text messages to promote a product or brand by informing both customers and prospects about offers, discounts and promotions. TRAI has not defined promotional SMS clearly. But it regards all non-transactional or service text messages as promotional text messages. Hence, before availing the benefits of bulk SMS services, businesses need to identify the major differences between transactional SMS and promotional SMS

Major Differences between Transactional SMS and Promotional SMS

TRAI Guidelines TRAI has imposed several guidelines to control bulk SMS services in India. For instance, it prohibits businesses and marketers from sending promotional SMS to telephone numbers which are on the Do Not Disturb (DND) list. But it allows businesses to send transactional SMS to customers who are on the DND list. Hence, it becomes essential for businesses to abstain themselves from sending promotional text messages to customers falling in the DND criteria. However, TRAI keeps updating the regulations and restrictions related to bulk SMS services at regular intervals. The businesses must comply with the latest TRAI regulations while sending each type of text messages.
Purpose

As noted earlier, a business has to send transactional and promotional SMS for different purposes. The transactional text messages act as a tool to convey important product or service information to existing customers. For instance, a bank can send transactional SMS to deliver important information like bank account balance, current bank transaction, and OTP for financial transaction.

On the other hand, the businesses use promotional tools as a powerful tool to advertise or promote their products or services. They send these text messages to customers to convey offers, discounts or promotions. They further send the promotional SMS to customers and prospects regardless of their consent.

Delivery Time

Transactional SMS can be sent on a specific action taken by the customers like requesting OTP or placing order. Hence, a business can send transaction text messages 24 hours a day. But no business can send promotional messages to customers and prospects before 9 AM and after 9 PM.

Sender ID

The bulk SMS service providers send transactional messages and promotional messages using different and independent SMS gateways. But the businesses need to select the sender ID according to the type of text messages. A business can send transactional text messages using an alphabetic sender ID consisting of six characters. But it has to use a numeric sender ID for sending promotional text messages.

Charges and Taxes

TRAI imposes service taxes on promotional SMS. But it does not impose any service taxes on transactional SMS. Also, TRAI prescribed a termination charge of 5 paise on both transactional and promotional SMS. The service and termination charges make promotional and transactional text messages more expensive than normal text messages. Hence, a business has to incur additional expenses to send both transactional and promotional SMS.

The bulk SMS services provided by leading cloud telephony service providers help businesses to send both transactional and promotional text messages without violating various TRAI guidelines. In addition to helping businesses to run multiple SMS campaigns simultaneously, the providers also boost the campaigns by providing sophisticated facilities like automatic DND checking, marketing campaign scheduling, automatic SMS retries, and business system integration.

Start your free bulk SMS trial with Acefone. Reach out to us.

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What is Number Masking ?

Acefone Editor

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Contact Center

June 4, 2019

4 mins read eye

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India is home to more than 3000 new businesses, third biggest base on the planet, with 800+ new companies being propelled annually. With the rapid increase in the number of start-ups and other companies, the major concern for these companies remains customer privacy.

We share our phone numbers every day with various apps and websites for several reasons, such as cab booking, ordering food, online shopping, etc. But individuals hesitate to provide their telephone number, which is reasonable.

Consequently, most of the companies have adopted the agenda to keep their customers’ private information secure as a part of their safety measures. So, to handle such sensitive business scenarios, a solution like a number masking was introduced. This article will guide you through the perks and needs of Call masking solution.

Understanding Number Masking

Number masking or call masking is a suitable way for organizations to protect their clients’ identity and avoid abuse of sensitive data by anonymizing the client’s telephone number. This arrangement acts as a secure platform to communicate between two parties without disclosing either party’s contact number.

Number masking involves a masked number in the process of communication. A masked number is a temporary number which is mapped against a real number at the time of call request. Masked numbers are helpful for any industry that requires customers to share their telephone numbers.

Number masking works with a virtual number and provides security to the client and the business, guaranteeing safety at both the ends. Whenever a customer calls any business, the server automatically masks the client number with a virtual number at the backend. For instance, when a client is requesting to book a taxi, the driver will see the masked virtual number and not the client’s telephone number. Also, the driver’s phone number is disguised at the client’s end.

Call masking allows various parties to connect with each other without revealing their phone numbers. It hides the contact information of both the customer and the agent and creates a communication channel between them.

If telephone numbers are revealed and used inappropriately, one could face hefty repercussions, which can lead to substantial monetary losses. The business might get cut out of the deal which might damage the brand reputation. This is where number masking comes into the picture.

Phone number masking work flow

Perks of Number Masking

1. Secure Customer Base

Number masking allows you to protect the phone number of both the parties so that only the authorized personnel can access your customer base. This is useful in situations where third parties, including cab drivers and delivery persons, exploit the clients’ contact number. They also forward the customer related information to marketing agencies which use the customer’s number for advertising and selling their products.

2. Control Over Your Communication

Call masking solution helps your business to keep an eye on the calls taking place between your customer and agents. With the call recording feature, you can always track the calls happening at both the ends. These call recordings are an efficient tool for resolving customer complaints.

Suppose you provide a cab booking service and your customer books a cab. If you directly provide the customer’s number to the driver, you won’t be able to track what conversation happened between the customer and your agent. This might lead to the use of foul language and inappropriate behaviour from both the ends. Here, number masking eliminates this stress for you as the calls are placed through the cloud service provider’s server and can be monitored.

3. User Privacy

User privacy is the crucial measure taken by any business to secure customers’ information, and number masking operates it very effectively. Customers usually do not prefer sharing their phone numbers because of frauds, prank calls or spam. With number masking, customer’s permanent phone number is never exposed during any call or transaction, not even to your agents. This inculcates a sense of trust and reliability in the customer towards you.

4. Cost-effective

Using virtual number for number masking saves your capital and resources in real time. Since you need not purchase a local number for different business locations; number masking comes out to be very cost-effective. Not only it saves your cost but also provides you with an option to expand geographically with minimum charges.

5. Call monitoring

All the calls can be monitored, which get routed to your customers via the cloud service provider’s server. The call monitoring dashboard provides detailed information about the incoming and outgoing calls along with the active calls. It also provides insights about the time and duration of all the calls facilitated by your agent.

Above information clearly shows the perks of deploying phone number masking solution for your business.

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Six Ways to Combat Fraudulent Activities with SMS Verification

Acefone Editor

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SMS Service

May 14, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

It is no news that online messaging platforms have hijacked the traditional texting service without warning. With the facility of fast internet connection and instant messaging apps in the pockets, almost everyone is using some online messaging platform to communicate. And while we thought SMS is nearing its end, good news in the form of “SMS verification” surfaced in the market. It transformed the basic purpose of SMS, by making it a transactional platform.

A major reason for using SMS as a verification platform was because SMS had a high open rate of 98 per cent which is 60% higher than email.

This noticeable difference in the user preference led a growing number of businesses to adopt SMS as their verification tool ranging from big tech giants namely Google, Facebook to ride-hailing & food delivery app namely Uber and Zomato. Almost every industry and app have now started using SMS verification platform at multiple stages of their user’s journey. Below are six such business cases where SMS verification has strengthened the security of apps and has helped the business to combat online fraud effortlessly.

1. User Registrations

Growing businesses are flooded with registration requests. But to ensure that no unauthenticated or fake users intrude into the system, they need to verify the identity. Traditional password-based authentication proved to be weak and insecure in the past. Any fake user with multiple email IDs could easily create multiple user registrations to spam the system.

Here, asking users to register with their phone number helps in filtering many potential spams during the initial phase, i.e., registration process. Validating the user by sending a One Time Password on the provided number provides maximum security in the registration process. It prevents frauds explicitly in two ways with sms verifcation: –

It detects if the number used at the time of registration is already associated with the company or not, to prevent any spamming.
And, whether the existence of the phone number is real or fake by validating with the received OTP

Servetel portal signup

2. Password Reset

To make the passwords highly secure, many platforms prompt users to create complex, lengthy and unique passwords. While this SMS verification method makes the password hard to crack, it also becomes hard to memorise, which leads to a lot of password reset requests.

In such cases, sending an OTP code on the associated phone number prevents a lot of fraud and identity theft. Also, makes the password reset process a lot easier for genuine users. Every time users want to reset a password, a simple text message with OTP codes can help them to do the same quickly. And the limited time validity of the OTP codes adds on to the security of this process.

3. Two-step Verification

65% of people use the same passwords everywhere, and 90% of passwords are crackable within 6 hours. Thus, stealing passwords and hacking into account is not hard for hackers. Moreover, sharing passwords with peers or family members or using the same password over multiple platforms is a general practice followed by the users. This makes it easy for the cybercriminals to hack into user accounts.

secure password

Two-step sms verification adds a layer of security while logging into the account. After the user enters their password, they’re asked to enter the OTP code received in the textbox. These OTPs are instantly generated and are valid only for a few seconds which reduces the probability of an unauthenticated login to the minimum. Google has been promoting the two-factor authentication rigorously to prevent user accounts from any fraud.

Two Step Verification google — Image Source: Google

4. Reactivate Users

When a registered user logs into their account after a long period of inactivity, suspecting the legitimacy of the activity is imperative. Many times, the request can be genuine, but there is a high probability that an attacker is trying to activate a passive user login to break into the system.

To handle such cases, sending an SMS to the phone number used at the time of registration works as the best solution. This immediately verifies the nature of the activity and helps the business to tackle it promptly.

5. Order Verification

Fake orders and frauds are a prime concern for any e-commerce platform. This platform has provided a convenient method for people to shop online, but at the same time, it is important to handle the lapses this convenience entails. And the criticality multiplies with the increase in the number of high-value orders.

Using SMS verification on high-value orders prevents many fraudulent purchases. Sending a simple order verification OTP to users at the checkout page makes the process more authenticated. The order gets successfully placed once the user validates the OTP. This kind of verification keeps a check on the rising number of e-commerce fraud without complicating the purchase process for the users.

6. Transaction Authentication

Financial transactions are critical and are thus most vulnerable to online fraud. Earlier, ATM pins were used to ensure the safety of the transactions. They were considered secretive and private and thus guaranteed more security. But with expanding online fraud, breaking into your ATM pin during the online payment process became a cakewalk for the hackers.

To battle such critical and sensitive frauds, the introduction of OTP verification proved to be a significant step. It reaffirms the transaction authenticity before the final payment. Also, it hardens the process of breaking into an online transaction as the validity of OTPs is for a brief time, which leaves hacker with less time and incomplete information to break into the system.

Opt for SMS verification for your business. Reach out to us at 1800-120-4132 to start your free trial today.

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Do’s and Don’ts of Interactive Voice Response

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Uncategorized

April 16, 2019

5 mins read eye

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According to Reuters.com,

The Interactive Voice Response Market is expected to witness growth at a CAGR of 7% during the forecast period from 2017 to 2023. Increasingly being employed by a variety of business organizations, the global market is expected to reach an estimated value of USD 3.7 Bn by the end of 2023.

The trend depicts enterprises from various industries have been employing IVR solutions to automate and expedite customer service delivery. Unlike conventional telephony systems, IVR Interactive Voice Response technology enables customers to collect information and resolve problems by choosing from two distinct options – interacting with a live agent and using self-service options.

Many customers these days leverage self-service option to avail the required information or assistance without interacting with live agents. But a number of studies suggest that the design and performance of IVR solutions impact call abandonment rate negatively. The callers abandon the Interactive Voice Response system due to a number of reasons – ambiguous menus, poorly tuned recorded instructions and lengthy wait time.

Businesses can easily reduce call abandonment rate by improving the design and operation of the IVR solution. Cloud-hosted IVR solutions are easier to configure, customise, and extend than traditional IVR systems. You can easily reduce call abandonment rate by customising and monitoring the performance of hosted IVR solutions. However, while designing the IVR, it is also important for you to consider a list of do’s & don’ts mentioned below.

7 Do’s of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Configuration and Customization

1. Do Make IVR Menus Complement Customer Needs

Many customers abandon calls when the IVR solution does not provide them with the right self-service options. While configuring the IVR, you need to keep the menus simple and unambiguous to enable customers to avail relevant information or assistance without any hassle and delay. You also need to ensure that the IVR menu reflects the needs and interests of callers. For instance, when callers want to pay their bill, the IVR must allow them to make bill payments without following a list of steps.

2. Do Include Option to Talk to a Live Agent

While accessing information or availing assistance, customers these days prefer self-service options in comparison to live interactions. However, in many cases, customers prefer talking to a live agent instead of using self-service options. Here, you need to ensure that the IVR solution allows callers to talk to a live agent directly and quickly. IVR solution should also allow callers to bypass self-service options and talk to an agent directly.

3. Do Focus on IVR Navigability

While configuring an IVR solution, you need to keep the welcome greeting short. It reduces call abandonment rate by playing the menu prompts quickly. However, you also need to make it easier for callers to avail relevant information by keeping the IVR solution easy to navigate. You should not add multiple levels in the IVR menu as this can add confusion and cause IVR abandonment.

4. Do Send Callers to the Voicemail Directly and Quickly

You can leverage cloud-hosted IVR solutions to deliver customer service round the clock. But you cannot handle customers calling after business hours without deploying dedicated live agents. The IVR solution must transfer the incoming calls made by customers outside of business hours to the voicemail directly and quickly when there are no live agents available to handle the call.

5. Do Keep IVR Levels to a Minimum

Multi-level IVR solutions help callers to avail more relevant information by selecting self-service options in multiple levels. But you need to ensure that the IVR menu levels remain short and simple. Restrict the menu levels to three to prevent callers from listening to pre-recorded instruction. Minimisation of IVR levels helps the business to prevent call abandonment rate.

6. Do Deploy Voice over Professionals

Built-in text-to-speech solutions provided by cloud-hosted IVR systems help business to create and customise messages quickly. But you must review and edit the recordings to ensure the voice is clear and audible. Robotic voice often makes the menu options and prompts appear less human. Hence, you should provide professional voice over artists to record engaging IVR recordings.

7. Do Integrate with Existing Business Solutions

Businesses can also integrate the cloud-hosted IVR solutions seamlessly with existing enterprise applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Google Sheets. This integration will make it easier for business to enhance business productivity and personalise the customer experience.

5 Don’ts of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Configuration and Customization

1. Don’t Increase Number of Options

Often callers abandon the call if the IVR solution provides them with too many options. The additional options make callers confused and delay customer service delivery. While configuring the IVR solution, you need to ensure that the list of self-service options remains short and unambiguous.

2. Don’t Make the Customer Submit the Same Information Repeatedly

IVR solutions need specific information to deliver personalised customer service. But the callers often abandon the call when the IVR asks them to repeat the same information again and again. You need to ensure that the IVR collects customer information once and reuse the same information throughout the customer journey.

3. Don’t Change Menu Options Frequently

Many businesses keep tweaking the IVR menu options to improve customer experience. But frequent changes in IVR menu options often leave the callers confused and annoyed. After implementing the IVR solution, ensure that the menu structure does not alter frequently.

4. Don’t Forget to Include Call Back Options

A large percentage of callers abandon Interactive Voice Response IVR systems due to the long wait time. You can prevent customers from waiting by providing IVR call back options. This enables the customers to receive a call back from the business simply by leaving their telephone numbers.

5. Don’t Forget to Assess the Speech Recognition Solutions

New age IVR solutions support both text-to-speech and speech recognition technology. Business leverage speech recognition to allow callers to choose self-service options by giving voice commands. But before implementing speech recognition solutions, you need to ensure that the IVR solution recognises and responds to each voice command accurately.

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10 Ways to Promote Your Business Toll-free Number

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Toll Free Numbers

April 2, 2019

5 mins read eye

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A toll-free number is not only a strong medium of communication but is also useful in attracting and converting leads which gives a notable boost to sales and ROI. Also, it works wonders for enterprises which regularly deal with customers. If toll-free numbers are marketed on the right platform, targeting the right target audience, it can lead to a massive surge in profits as well as in the number of customers.

This blog discusses top 10 such ways to promote and market your toll-free numbers in the right manner at the right place.

1. Social Media Promotion

Indisputably, social media is one of the best ways to promote and market your toll-free number. Going by the statistics, Facebook already crossed the 1 billion count in January 2019 and currently sits at 2.27 billion active users per month. YouTube and WhatsApp are trailing with 1.9 and 1.5 billion respectively.

This expansion in the user base has presented a big opportunity for the businesses to market their services in a more filtered way. Moreover, customers today prefer to visit social media channels of the business to research about the brand. Thus, if your enterprise owns a fully functioning toll-free number, you must ensure to market the number over all your media platforms.

social media statistics

2. Marketing Campaigns

Promoting your toll-free numbers on PPC marketing campaign banner and ads can maximize the turn out of the customers instantly. Mentioning the number in the banner can be very effective and beneficial for an enterprise. Businesses can also take advantage of ‘click-to-call’ actions by directly linking the numbers with call extensions.

According to Google, the majority of the search users connect with the business directly through ‘click-to-call’ action. They find it extremely convenient and easy as compared to other methods of communication. Also, you can add google tracking code in the click to call links to analyze the reach and leads of the campaign.

Moreover, businesses can create a large and visible print of their toll-free number for added promotion during physical marketing campaigns. The data collected in this way allows businesses to inspect and scrutinize the effectiveness of such marketing campaigns as well as the whole association of the customer with the organization.

marketing campaign stats

3. Email Campaigns

Email campaigns can be very advantageous for promotional activities as they are an integral part of digital marketing. With this method of promotion, enterprises can develop long-lasting relationships with potential clients. Promoting and highlighting your toll-free number on email campaigns can get you in touch with plenty of customers within a flash. Once you get started with your email campaign, the customers will be in direct contact with your business without having to go through formalities such as filling a form with personal details and so on.

4. Website Promotion

Mentioning your toll-free number on the website is the perfect place to promote your number. Different businesses in various parts of the world claim that toll-free inbound calls are the best lead source they have at the moment. Furthermore, large-scale promotion of your toll-free number on your business website can work wonders because of the remarkable user visibility of the world wide web.

5. TV Commercials

It is very true that not every enterprise has a sufficient amount of funds for advertising its new phone number on television. But for those businesses who are in a position to promote their toll-free number on such a platform, this strategy can generate a great deal of telephone traffic since millions of people watch television. Additionally, you can efficiently deal with the increased number of inbound calls with IVR features.

6. Direct Mail Promotion

For a larger audience reach, businesses should promote their toll-free numbers through a variety of mediums such as postcards, letters, office envelopes, and so on. If your toll-free number is included in the official letterhead, it will pave the way for prospective customers and other stakeholders to reach out to your company.

7. Billboards

It is very uncommon for anyone to ignore billboard ads. It is necessary to make sure that your new phone number is printed large enough on the billboard to be visible from a distance. Moreover, you should opt for a catchy number to make sure that callers find it convenient to read and remember your toll-free number when they see it on a billboard.

8. Business Cards

Business cards have been around for quite some time now, and they are one of the most efficacious ways of promoting your new phone number. Once you own a toll-free number, it is imperative that you get business cards for yourself as well as for the employees of your company. Lastly, business cards are a quintessential example of formal promotion.

9. Radio Commercials

Radio commercials are undoubtedly an effective way to promote your toll-free number. Moreover, if you have an existing radio commercial, you must ensure to promote your phone number on it. Re-iterating your phone number on a radio ad increases the number recall drastically. Moreover, radio ads are an economical option for small businesses as well.

10. Flyers and Brochures

When you opt for a toll-free number, new flyers and brochures are a must-have in order to make sure that effective promotion takes place. Those brochures can generate more leads since a business toll-free phone number is usually easier to remember than a traditional local number. Also makes sure the number is easily visible on the flyer to capture the reader’s attention.With tools like DesignWiz, you can create professional flyers that highlight your toll-free number and drive more engagement.

Final Words

Switching from a traditional phone number to a toll-free number can help businesses reach out to larger audiences and get more potential customers as a result. By effectively promoting your toll-free business number, you can boost lead and increase conversion. Lastly, a toll-free number is a remarkable tool for a promotion that can help a business attain greater heights.

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Top 6 Best Call Routing Strategies for Your Business

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Contact Center

March 29, 2019

5 mins read eye

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Call routing is an efficient way to handle incoming calls and enhance customer interactions. It is useful for cutting down on unnecessary costs associated with a call centre and providing customers with prompt service.

Call routing defines how calls are distributed to available and experienced agents by the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) technology of a call centre.

However, it is not uncommon for a call centre to get baffled since there are multitudes of routing techniques and approaches available in the market. Determining the most effective strategy for your business requires a clear objective of the needed service and technical knowledge simultaneously. The right selection can only be made by analysing the intricacy of your contact operation. This blog lists and expounds the top 7 best call routing strategies to help your business digital phone service excel at customer interactions.

1. Direct Routing

This typical call routing strategy is suitable for those call centres that are still establishing and laying their foundation. Direct routing is the most appropriate standard model for businesses who adhere to a basic approach towards customer service.

In this routing strategy, customers dial a number for a particular service, and they are directly connected to the right department. The call is usually connected to the first person on the list, and if they’re occupied, it goes on to the next person. However, if there is no agent available to answer the query, customers have to wait. Thus, direct routing is associated with long queue times. With this conventional method of routing, businesses can provide a defined group of customers with better services.

2. Time-based Routing

Also referred to as a follow-the-sun model, the time-based routing strategy can be extremely favourable for large-scale global operations. In this strategy, the system analyses the length of the wait times and directs the calls to different destinations accordingly. It can help eliminate the expenses associated with night shift loading by routing calls to various call centres around the world.

For example, if customers try to get in touch with an organisation after office hours when there is no agent available to acknowledge the caller’s query, the call can be forwarded to another branch of the office which is still open. With the help of time-based routing, calls can be forwarded to different office locations considering the time. All incoming calls after office hours can be sent to voice mail as well. Along with that, it is very much possible to establish an IVR based on time.

One of the major advantages of time-based routing is that it makes an enterprise capable of handling calls automatically. Last but not least, it enhances the overall productivity of a business and gives a significant boost to client satisfaction concomitantly.

3. Skill-based Routing

Skill-based routing indeed is one of the most effective routing strategies. It consists of a procedure that identifies the purpose of the call and directs it to a most skillful agent. Caller ID, Speech Recognition, IVR etcetera can be utilised for identification of the call. The evident advantage of skill-based routing strategy is that it helps ensure that resources are used efficaciously and also eliminates long wait times.

Customer experience can be improved by connecting the caller to the most experienced and skilled experts. Hence, experts who possess dedicated knowledge of the issue should be appointed for similar responsibilities. For example, an international caller should be routed to an advisor who has a strong command over the customers first language and can speak adeptly. Additionally, the skill-based routing strategy can give businesses an apparent edge over their competitors.

4. Value-based Routing

The ACD can easily figure out the value and importance of a customer by making use of a combination of CTI and CLI. The determined information can be utilised to route the customer to the most appropriately skilled agent. This amalgamation of the customer ID with CRM-style information provides ample opportunities for value-based routing. In addition to that, a revenue-based equation is introduced by this remarkable routing strategy. A value-based routing system recognises the intentions of the customers and ensures that they remain with their existing provider.

5. Database Integration Routing

Customer interactions are not confined to just phone calls. Database integration routing enables a call centre to see the previous interactions they’ve had with their customers, and it is made possible by integrating call routing with the customer database. Merging the initial IVR ID process with the current data of customers can be very advantageous for a business. Therefore, identifying customers at an early stage and acting accordingly benefits an enterprise in the long run.

6. Dynamic And Service Level Routing

Now and then, certain customers pose queries which are beyond the comprehension of the agents. The agents have a hard time dealing with the complex queries of such customers, and they often direct the call to a supervisor so that they can look into the matter. In such a situation, dynamic routing can be an inordinately amazing choice.

By scrutinizing expected and anticipated wait times, it is possible to provide customers with an improved experience. In congruence with dynamic routing, service level routing can be even more advantageous. If expected wait times for a particular skill are bound to breach, the service level can still be safeguarded by bringing in backup agents.

Final Words

Since this is the age of science and technology, new call routing strategies are rapidly emerging. There is a marked difference in the way calls are routed with different methods. No two businesses need the same routing strategy for enhancing customer satisfaction. The right way to choose the most appropriate strategy for your business is to understand the potential of your current ACD and determine the type of service you want your customers to enjoy.

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What is IVR Blasting?

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IVR Service

March 25, 2019

4 mins read eye

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IVR blasting refers to a combination of IVR service and call blast. It is a very strong communication tool that allows pre-recorded voice messages to be automatically broadcasted to various groups. For example, when customers receive calls from their mobile operators to promote various ongoing schemes and offers, they interact with a computerized voice which is an IVR recording. Moreover, the calls are concomitantly blasted to the consumers.

This technology allows you to capture and store the response from targeted customers. It is specially designed for new businesses to help them excel and spread communication efficaciously.

This technology is perfect for increasing efficiency and maximizing reach. Besides existing businesses and startups, IVR blast, which is also known as voice broadcasting is also utilized by community groups, corporations, and government organizations. This article discusses the numerous advantages and features of Voice broadcasting and expounds how it can benefit a business in the long run.

Why Opt For IVR Blast

Due to the innumerable advantages offered by IVR blast, this technology is being widely incorporated by the businesses. This technology helps your company maximize its reach in one go. You can effectively deliver secure broadcasting campaigns with IVR blast. Most essentially, with cloud-hosted IVR campaign, the campaign process becomes economical. You do not need any infrastructural setup to get started with the campaign. Additionally, multiple add-ons such as text-to-speech, predefined message templates adds value to the whole broadcasting process. And to increase the utility of the broadcasting process, you can also take benefit of the real-time tracking reports.

Applications of IVR blast range from simple promotional broadcasts to payment reminders and more. And on-demand scalability, automated call retries, and DNC checks help you increase campaign scope by optimizing the overall success rate.

What Are The Various Features Of IVR Blasting

Besides enhancing efficacy and cutting down on unnecessary expenses, it can help an enterprise reach height in a shorter time frame. Businesses from various industries have been using voice broadcasting services. for Here are some of the most notable and significant features of cloud-hosted IVR blasting service.

1. Efficient Campaign Scheduling

IVR blasting service allows you to customize your campaigns as per your business requirements. Businesses can schedule the campaign for any time of the day as per their target audience. This effective campaign scheduling maximizes the reach of the broadcast by reaching the audience at the right time.

2. Run Multiple Campaigns Simultaneously

Best thing about IVR blasting is that it allows businesses to run a number of campaigns simultaneously. You can efficiently operate and monitor various voice broadcasting campaigns on a single dashboard. Lastly, IVR blast indeed gives a significant boost to efficiency and improves the overall performance of a business.

3. DNC List Check

Voice broadcasting comes with the facility of DNC list check. In-built DNC check helps to filter the uninterested audience. While uploads the data into the broadcasting portal, the DNC check is automatically applied. This automatic check eliminates the need of manually filtering the data which is a great relief for the campaign managers.

4. Automatic Email Reports

One of the most notable features of IVR blast is automatic email reports. With this feature, you can automatically send daily campaign updates to the members of your team via email.

5. Text-to-speech

IVR blast comes with another significant feature known as text-to-speech. With this excellent feature, you can easily convert your text into an audio message. All you have to do is type the text and click the “convert” button. In-built TTS integration makes this whole process a lot smoother.

6. Pay-as-you-use

While using cloud-hosted IVR blasting service, you get to take your pick from a wide range of plans which are in accordance with your business requirements. Moreover, with the pay-as-you-use method, you only get to pay for the call & minutes which are answered by the customers. If the calls remain unanswered, you do not have to pay the charges for the same.

7. Infinite Scalibility

When it comes to IVR blasting, there is nothing like limited scalability. You can make use of the scalable infrastructure and flexible pricing plans to enhance your campaign reach at any point in time.

8. Round The Clock Customer Support

Voice broadcast service providers like Acefone delivers round the clock assistance to their customers. This ensures that no customer has to wait to get their queries resolved. You can also connect with our product experts over email, call or chat at any time of the day.

9. Real-time Analytics

Real-time call analytics is an amazing feature which allows you to monitor a number of live campaigns with a user-friendly dashboard and real-time reports concurrently. Hence, this undoubtedly gives a significant boost to the efficacy and performance of your campaign.

10. No Infrastructure Setup

If you do not have the capital to set up an infrastructure, cloud-hosted IVR blasting can be quite useful. You can substitute the intricate infrastructural setup with your Acefone’s web portal. A stable internet connection is all you need to fulfill your requirements.

Final Words

Apart from minimising business costs, it helps to provide customers with quick and professional responses. This top-notch technology offers efficacious solutions for unique problems. Last but not least, it is inordinately efficient and budget-friendly at the same time.

Get started with IVR blasting by contact us today.

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Follow these Tips to Create Highly Engaging IVR Surveys

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Contact Center

March 19, 2019

6 mins read eye

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IVR surveys are designed to receive feedback on the working of an organisation. Potential audience for these surveys is majorly the existing customers using the product.

Although, IVR surveys are a consistent and proven way to understand customers expectation, but if not appropriately managed these can render biased and unmeaningful data. Here are a few tips which can help you build highly engaging IVR surveys ensuring you gather accurate data from the right target audience.

1. Define and Identify the Goal

“Why” is the most important question one should ask when designing an IVR survey.

The reason for the survey should be crystal clear. Two main questions which should be clear while designing an IVR survey are:

Why is this IVR survey being conducted?
Where does the survey stand in the organisation’s vision?

The former is important. After all, it defines the fundamental requirement behind the survey. But, without the latter, the survey has little meaning. You should never forgo your organization’s motto when designing the roadmap of survey. Every survey organised should act as a catalyst towards achieving and following the vision.

Identifying the goal is the primary objective of a survey. Determining who is it aimed at and why is important in planning and designing the survey. It’s only after the goal has been identified that the designing of the survey can begin. Defining and identifying the goal go hand in hand. Therefore, immense care should be taken during this initial stage.

2. Designing Questions Is an Art

For any successful IVR survey, the questions are the heart and soul. Designing such questions is an art. However, certain standards must be followed when designing IVR survey questions. The objective of an IVR survey is to gather accurate data. The tone of the question can coax the type of answer provided by the responder. Under such circumstances, a survey bears little meaning and relevance.

Thus, questions should be objective in nature to ensure that the answers received comes without biasedness.

3. Order Questions Logically

Another important factor in designing an IVR questionnaire is to order questions logically. When ordered in the right manner, it sets the right tone of the survey. Well-designed questionnaire is self-sufficient to walk through the objectives. The first few questions should be general screening questions, preferably, questions prompting one-word “yes/no” answers. These may then be followed by descriptive or open-ended questions, giving detailed insights about the person’s opinions. Lastly, the survey should end with demographic questions; these are integrated with CRM to capture response in the database.

4. The “Keep It Simple Stupid” strategy

Great scientist Nicholas Tesla once said, “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply, and be quite insane.” This seemingly simple quotation has deep implications. It implies that a thought process should bear clarity. It’s easy to lose the motto when one dwells into the depth of scenarios. This is perhaps the reason behind the US Navy’s “KISS” (keep it simple stupid) strategy.

When creating an IVR survey, one should ensure clarity above all else. Customers are comfortable answering questions that have a clear, precise objective. Haphazardly quoted deep questions make people lose interest. This results in dropped-off surveys.

5. Proper Scaling of Options

Answers to an IVR survey are often scale-based. For instance, let’s consider the question: On a scale of 1 to 7, how much do you like our service. Such questions often end up getting a different response based on a customer’s perception of merit.

Two customers with the same likeliness can deliver varying answers, as two people might weigh numbers differently. To avoid such scenarios, a proper scale must be developed. Since answers in an IVR survey are given by passing a digit, thus the need to have a robust scale of alternatives is imperative.

6. Less Is More

When considering a dataset in the survey, it is crucial that the volume of dataset be optimised. In a large dataset, the possibility of randomness increases. For instance, when the rating of a service should be given from 1 to 7, the average rating provided by large dataset will near around 4&5. This is due to the reason that most people prefer to avoid giving extreme ratings. Thus, 1 & 7 are an unlike option. And the average rating is delivered between 2 to 6.

There are two steps to solve this issue.

Limit the scope of the alternatives. With a lesser selection option, the customers end up giving more significant replies.
Wisely choose the target audience. If the audience is relevant, then they will understand the value of providing feedback. They’ll know the service they are reviewing, and the feedback they are providing will be channelised towards the improvement of the product used by them. In such cases, the customer gives an exact and appropriate answer in the survey making the survey more relevant and meaningful.

7. Remove Ambiguity

It is important that ambiguity is removed from an IVR survey. There are two main reasons for it. Firstly, a customer may misinterpret a question. Due to this, the customer’s answer may not be what question was intended for. This results in an insignificant answer that misleads the survey. Secondly, a customer may get confused. This results in customer dropping out of the survey. Either of these cases spoils the whole point behind the survey. Therefore, it is vital to have no ambiguity in your survey.

8. Avoid Industry Jargon

Industry jargons refer to technical terms that are alternatively used by the industry people of any industry. These words may not be understood by the general audience. When conducting an IVR survey, it is important that such terminologies be avoided. These terms may cause frustration and loss of interest among customers.

9. Pre-Testing the Survey

When conducting an IVR survey, it must be a general practice to pre-test the survey over a sample audience. This allows figuring discrepancies if any. It also helps to get a brief idea about the variability of the answers and ambiguity, if any exists. With this, all discrepancies can be tackled before performing the actual IVR survey.

10. Share Findings and Identify Actions

The best way to generate customers is to make them feel valued. A customer takes a survey to add value to the services they receive. Therefore, it is a practice of entitling faith among customers. When a survey is completed, an organisation must share the findings they uncovered during the survey. This makes customers feel valued for their time.

When the actions to be taken are disclosed, the participants feel they have made an impact. This encourages them to participate in upcoming surveys, hence generate loyalty.

Take Away

Indeed, IVR surveys are a certified way to accumulate data. But the quality of data is largely dependent upon the way these IVR surveys are organized. To get the most out of the resources used in conducting IVR surveys, it is important that immense care be taken when conducting surveys.

Create effective IVRs with Acefone. Start your free trial today by calling us today.

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Beginner’s Guide to IVR

1. What is IVR?

2. How Does It Work?

3. What is Single-level and Multi-level IVR?

Single Level IVR

Multi-Level IVR

4. Why You Need an Interactive Voice Response (IVR)?

(a) Multiplies Your Call Handling Capacity

(b) Represents Your Business as an Established Brand

(c) Makes Calling Process Error-free

(d) Saves Time and Money

(e) Provides Customer Satisfaction

(f) Access Call Data for Analysis

(g) Provides 24*7 Customer Service

5. Things to Remember While Designing Your Business IVR

(a) Keep Only 3-4 Menu Options

(b) Announce the Message Before Option

(c) Don’t Hide the ‘To Connect with the Agent.’ Option

(d) Don’t Promote Your Brand in Every Message

(e) Minimize Waiting Time to Seconds

Summing It Up

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1. Make Calls to Target Customer Base

2. Call at the Appropriate Time

3. Dial From the Local Area Code

4. Use Multi–Channel Contact Strategy

5. Ensure Your Credibility

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Transactional or Promotional SMS: What Does Your Business Need?

Major Differences between Transactional SMS and Promotional SMS

Charges and Taxes

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What is Number Masking ?

Understanding Number Masking

Perks of Number Masking

1. Secure Customer Base

2. Control Over Your Communication

3. User Privacy

4. Cost-effective

5. Call monitoring

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Six Ways to Combat Fraudulent Activities with SMS Verification

1. User Registrations

2. Password Reset

3. Two-step Verification

4. Reactivate Users

5. Order Verification

6. Transaction Authentication

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Do’s and Don’ts of Interactive Voice Response

7 Do’s of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Configuration and Customization

1. Do Make IVR Menus Complement Customer Needs

2. Do Include Option to Talk to a Live Agent

3. Do Focus on IVR Navigability

4. Do Send Callers to the Voicemail Directly and Quickly

5. Do Keep IVR Levels to a Minimum

6. Do Deploy Voice over Professionals

7. Do Integrate with Existing Business Solutions

5 Don’ts of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Configuration and Customization

1. Don’t Increase Number of Options

2. Don’t Make the Customer Submit the Same Information Repeatedly

3. Don’t Change Menu Options Frequently

4. Don’t Forget to Include Call Back Options

5. Don’t Forget to Assess the Speech Recognition Solutions

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10 Ways to Promote Your Business Toll-free Number

1. Social Media Promotion

2. Marketing Campaigns

3. Email Campaigns

4. Website Promotion

5. TV Commercials

6. Direct Mail Promotion

7. Billboards

8. Business Cards

9. Radio Commercials

10. Flyers and Brochures

Final Words

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**(g) Provides 24*7 Customer Service**