One thing that has always been a pain about IVR systems is the lack of user control: With “traditional” IVRs, when the user wants to change inbound/outbound messages and routing schemes, they have to go running back to the vendor, make the request for the change, and then wait until it takes effect.

In a way, this defeats one of the main purposes of an IVR system – which is to bring timely messages and alerts to customers through the initial greeting when they first call in (or at various junctures as they navigate through the system). In today’s highly competitive business world, companies need the ability to react quickly to changing market conditions – and to inform their customers of these changes, if they are going to impact them, as soon as possible.

The insurance industry provides some good examples of the importance of timely alerts and messages: Customers dialing into an insurance company might need to be informed of regulatory compliance issues or changes to insurance laws – especially if they are closely related to the product or service that the customer is calling about. Sometimes it is important to let customers know about something as simple as a form change. By proactively informing customers about changes that affect them, companies in the insurance industry can reduce demand on live agent resources while at the same time improving customer satisfaction.

Increasingly, IVR vendors are “consolizing” their systems so that their customers have greater control over messages, alerts and routing schemes. This involves bolting on a series of tools and a Web-based administrative panel that gives call center supervisors and/or IT staff the ability to control certain features and functions of the system on the “back end” from any Internet-enabled computer, without having to go back to the software vendor. These ad-hoc changes can often be implemented in real-time or near-real-time.

About ten years ago, Ci Direct, a contact center outsourcer serving the insurance industry and specializing in customer acquisition and retention, lead generation, new product introduction and account maintenance, was using a “legacy” IVR system which client customers used to select particular types of insurance, access account information, or be connected with a live agent. The problem with this proprietary IVR system was that it became increasingly unstable and difficult to customize as the company’s client base grew and service requirements became more complex.

Not only did the company need an IVR system that was more “customizable,” it also needed contact center system which could handle multi-channel routing, web chat and fax-on-demand.

After reviewing numerous solutions from leading vendors, Ci Direct chose Interactive Intelligence’s Customer Interaction Center platform for its variety of interaction management applications as well as its IVR system, which offers Web-based administration. With the IVR system’s built-in customization tool, Ci Direct can now quickly and easily create custom scripts (i.e. inbound greetings) of virtually unlimited complexity with no arbitrary limits on the number or depth of menus, as well as the ability to be applied across communication channels.

The company is also benefitting in a myriad of other ways from the features and functionality of the all-in-one, all-software CIC platform. With this system the company has been able to do away with many of the separate, standalone components from various vendors that made up its traditional on-premises contact center system. This, in turn, has relieved the strain on the company’s internal IT department--which now has many times fewer systems (and vendors) to deal with—plus it has reduced downtime due to maintenance and upgrading of standalone systems.

 

“We could’ve gone with a traditional IVR vendor but chose Interactive Intelligence (News - Alert) because the company offered us a migration path that would enable us to change ourt switching network data protocols and other IT systems without losing our investment in IVR application development,” a representative from Ci Direct is quoted as saying in a customer case study posted to Interactive Intelligence’s Web site.

Today, Ci Direct uses CIC’s IVR to support more than 100 agents processing on average 10,000 inbound and outbound interactions per day. The company cites a 24 percent reduction in live agent call handling – that’s a 24 percent increase in capacity – resulting from the new system’s ability to effectively match IVR criteria with the appropriate routing destination. This reduction on live agent resources, in turn, has equated to savings of more than $1 million annually.

To download this free customer case study, click here.