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Working of Ivr systems

Ivr systems are short for interactive voice response systems. It is telephone technology in which a customer uses the dial pad of the telephone to interact with a database of a company. The customers punch in the numbers on the telephone pad as options to a pre recorded message to acquire information from or enter data into the database. A pre recorded human voice is used to guide the customer and requires absolutely no human interaction. Numerous banks and credit card companies use ivr systems to provide updated account information to their customers. The customers key in through the telephone, their credit card number and pin code / security number and can perform different transactions by following a pre recorded message.

Ivr systems make use of tone dialing. The punched numbers on the telephone are converted into digital format pulses and transferred to the ivr systems via the telephone exchange. The system consists of software and hardware implementation which senses the number entered and accordingly inputs the response to the ivr system. The ivr software is programmed to respond to a certain option in a predetermined fashion. For example if the customer of a bank punches in the option to check his bank balance ,the ivr software would check his account and covert the bank account balance into an audible format and play it to the customer. In a similar fashion various other transactions can also be carried out.

The strength of ivr systems lies in the fact that the customers do not have to wait on phone for any idle agent. These systems also help companies to massively cut down on staffing costs thus improving profits. But in spite of these advantages ivr systems cannot provide the same level of customer satisfaction compeering to an agent. Most companies are aware of this, and many believe that reduced customer satisfaction is a necessary tradeoff for the large cost reduction the ivr systems provide.

Most call centers use ivr systems to handle only redundant processes or for taking preliminary information from customers. But since they may not solve all of the customer's queries, almost all ivr systems provide speaking to an agent directly as an option.