In the midst of a crazy Monday schedule, your refrigerator breaks down, forcing you to call the company's customer service. You dial the number, and the Interactive Voice Response system greets you in a cheerful tone. Within seconds, it redirects you to the right agent who books a service for your refrigerator. And voilà! Your work is done, and you can breathe a sigh of relief!
The Interactive Voice Response is nothing short of a hero. In today's fast-paced world, it simplifies routine tasks quicker than you can anticipate. The IVR is
Pulse India says that now is the right time to move your business communications to Cloud IVR services.
In general, IVR systems work by providing the caller with a menu. The caller responds by pressing the appropriate keys on their phone, and the system responds accordingly. Based on the caller's answers, the IVR will provide the required information or reroute the call to an agent to guide the caller.
By accomplishing all of these actions within minutes, the IVR solution ensures zero missed calls or disgruntled callers.
While its functions are similar to the regular IVR system, cloud IVR operates from the cloud. Cloud-hosted IVR is a SaaS solution (Service as a Software). And that technological magic is what spells a world of difference for businesses.
When you invest in Cloud IVR, you do not have to own or manage an IT infrastructure. You need not worry about owning data centres or on-premise IVR applications. Your service provider who owns the server will do it all for you. Cloud-based IVRs are accessed and operated online via the provider's cloud-based server. Companies rent space on that server by purchasing their cloud-based IVR tools and systems.
In today's world, Cloud IVR is a great investment for organisations of all sizes. However, they are a huge blessing for small businesses and start-ups. If yours is an upcoming business that lacks the financial resources to run your own call centre, Cloud-based IVR is your best bet.
Apart from significantly improving customer engagement, there is a slew of advantages to reap with Cloud IVR. Here's a list of what you stand to gain.
Also Read: 8 Benefits You Reap With Call Routing In Call Centres
1. Advanced IVR features
Many service providers offer Cloud-based IVR services with robust, cost-effective features that would otherwise cost you an arm and a leg with on-premise IVR systems. You can opt for packages that allow you to add on attractive, functionally useful features at cost-effective rates with just a few clicks. Cloud IVR provides you with:
2. Robust Scalability
Cloud IVR greatly adapts to the ever-changing business realities, customer expectations, and organisational growth. And because it is not tied to any telephony hardware, Cloud IVR is easy to operate. All you need to do is log on to your web-based dashboard and make the necessary changes based on your current business requirements.
IVR solution are scalable according your business needs. As your business grows in terms of customers, you can implement virtual chatbots to respond to customer needs, especially when sales are booming. The system also allows you to adjust your queuing strategies based on your customer influx.
3. Cost-effective solution
In-house IVR systems can burn a hole in your pocket, especially when calls flood your system. With zero flow control, time is wasted, and resources are misused, resulting in unexpected expenses. Fortunately, there's no such thing with Cloud IVR. There is no call flooding because the system does these three things:
If you are paying for inbound calls by the minute, it makes sense to have a system that deals with large call volumes without making your customers wait.
4. Server Redundancy
If you've worked with on-premises IVR systems, think of the many times you've dealt with unreliable servers at critical times. You are probably aware of how important it is to keep these systems up and running and how they can let you down without warning.
On the contrary, thanks to the redundant servers and backup equipment, your Cloud IVR service stays up and running even if the server goes down. From a business standpoint, this is a great advantage. You get to offer high-level solutions without incurring the expense of implementing in-house configurations.
5. CRM Integration
If Cloud-based IVR is a blessing, CRM integration is an additional bonus. CRM integration provides critical insight and control for your call-centre managers and agents. When a customer calls, your agent will have the complete customer data without fumbling for information. Within minutes your agent and customer have a resourceful conversation, and your customer ends the call with the information they need.
6. IVR based routing:
Pulse's cloud IVR solution also allows you the benefit of prioritizing the calls from your elite customers. Premium clients can be routed to experienced agents bypassing the existing call queue. This enables you to offer added importance to specific clients and give them more priority.
7. Agent Productivity
You don't want one agent handling many calls and customer support while the rest are doing next to nothing. Cloud IVR evenly distributes the workload among your agents through ring groups based on the call menu responses. A ring group is a group of agents with the same training or working in the same department. Cloud IVR allows you to ring all agents in a ring group simultaneously, use round-robin call distribution, or use most-idle call routing.
8. Increased Leads
Of late, Interactive Voice Response is becoming the basis of a new sales channel that can support or replace telemarketing. Your IVR system can support lead conversion by automating the process of reaching out to prospective clients. You can provide a survey or a simple questionnaire to ascertain their mindset. Most of them would be happy to answer choice-based questions. Potential customers can be quickly routed to live sales agents after answering a few simple questions. Thus, you are increasing your leads and getting to understand them better, thanks to IVR.
9. Analytical Insights
Cloud IVR gives you a wealth of actionable insights useful for employee scheduling. It allows you to track:
These analytical insights help you avoid bottlenecks and decrease the instances of bad customer responses. It gives you the upper hand to keep track of employee productivity and performance.
Your organisation needs many solutions to stay afloat in this fiercely competitive business era, and Cloud IVR is a must-have prerequisite. When your business communications are cloud-based, it gives you the flexibility, time, and resources to expand. Want to grow from a small-time business to a global conglomerate with Cloud IVR? Make the switch with Pulse Telesystems. Contact us today, and let's get going!