All businesses that want to stay in business are striving to maintain a meaningful relationship with their customers. That’s why they’ve all explored the best and the latest that tech can give them, bringing about the rising popularity of telecom assets brought about by Telnum and other providers.
There are a lot of tools at your disposal, each of which serves a function fitting certain situations. One of these tools is the Interactive Voice Response or the IVR.
If you want to learn more about this and why you should get one, keep reading.
A quick intro on IVR
“If you want to check your balance, press 1.”
We’re sure you’ve encountered something similar at least once in your life. And this means that you’ve experienced what it’s like to be on the other end of an IVR.
You’ve probably loved that you can find out information without having to talk with an actual person. After all, do you really need a live agent just to find out how much you have in a certain account?
In this setup, what you hear on the other end of the line is computer-generated and operated. And you interact with it by pressing buttons on your phone, sort of like how it is with choosing your adventure books. The only difference here is you have a definite end that you want to be fulfilled.
Depending on why you called, this can also be a means for you to be directed to a department that can help with your concerns. So instead of bouncing from agent to agent, you get your issue addressed more quickly.
Why you should get a cloud IVR system for your business
It sure is pretty convenient if you’re a customer, right? For us, that’s enough of a reason to try it out. But if you’re not convinced on just about how powerful this can be for your enterprise, here are other reasons:
- It lets you deal with a higher number of calls
Imagine if every person that calls your business will be connected with an employee. Perhaps it’s the way that you’re doing things now, so you’re not bothered at all.
But what if tomorrow, you get 10 times the number of calls that you normally do? Will you still be as unbothered?
A growing enterprise means more people calling. But despite this growth, it may not be feasible to hire a few more people on the team. This is where IVR comes in.
Instead of your employees directly helping them, you can have your clients help themselves by interacting with it. Because not every person would need to be connected with an agent anymore, you can handle more calls without expanding the workforce.
- It makes you more accessible
No call goes unanswered with IVR because no one has to physically pick up the phone anymore. You can set it up so they can leave messages to your voicemail, ensuring that you don’t ever miss an opportunity to land a big sale.
It’s also a great bonus that all calls are answered instantly, thus increasing the odds of them actually following through with the sale.
- It can help you collect qualified leads
Let’s say you’re running a promo, but they only qualify if they meet certain requirements. And if they want to avail of this offer, they call a number.
How do you ensure that you’re not wasting time with people who aren’t qualified anyway?
You can set up your IVR to ask prequalifying questions before connecting them to the agent. That way, your agents only spend time with qualified people for whatever your offer is.
And for those who aren’t qualified, you can direct them to other offers that you may have, allowing you to maximize potential revenues.
- It’s multi-purpose
Anywhere from customer support to running a promo, you can use your cloud-based IVR. And that’s the beauty of it. There are a lot of scenarios where a client or a potential client would call you, and you can set it up to accommodate all those scenarios.
The quality of customer support can make or break a company, especially if it is yet to build a solid and loyal market base. And used right, this tech can be a highly effective solution to help you retain existing customers and gain new ones through your glowing reputation.
Thus, it’s a great way to streamline client-facing communications, so the enterprise is always shown in a good light.
- It’s cheaper
If you don’t have an automated system in place, you’re losing money. Logical flows and systems help direct customers to the right help, so all your resources are efficiently used.
Funneling calls instead of directing them randomly will make your staff more effective, no matter the purpose of the call.
Cloud-based IVR systems definitely check all the boxes. Not only are they cheaper, but they’re also effective in ensuring that anyone that calls will always hang up the phone satisfied.
