IVR phone systems

Years ago, you would've needed a ton of expensive equipment to run an interactive voice response system—dedicated software on a separate computer, a database, a couple of servers, not to mention an IT team to install and look after everything.

But today, IVR is built right into some cloud-based communications platforms. (Like Dialpad!) It’s easy to set up and configure, and all the infrastructure is owned and maintained by your vendor, so it costs you less too.

How it works: When you get an inbound call, the IVR system springs into action and greets the caller with a pre-recorded welcome message and a list of options, which you’ve pre-programmed to fit your business' needs.

More advanced systems use speech recognition technology and will ask the caller to give a brief description of their reason for calling (e.g. “I need to change my password” or “I want to pay a bill”). These systems use AI to understand the words spoken by the caller.

Other systems will ask the caller to press a button on their phone’s keypad (“#1 for accounts, #2 for tech support,” and so on). They can detect the dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) tones from a phone’s keypad, and use the information to process the request.

When the system detects a simple inquiry, it may provide self-service options, or route the call to the right person or department as defined by your pre-set call routing rules. This may be based on availability skill set, or on a rotational basis.

If a caller wants to speak to someone who’s not picking up, the IVR menu can offer alternative options such as trying a different department or leaving a voicemail. (Dialpad’s IVR system can handle callers’ requests in both of these ways to make sure they get the right information as efficiently as possible.)

If your business isn’t already using an IVR solution, here are a few examples of how you can use it. There's contact center routing—when your customers try to get in touch with you, the last thing you want is for your contact center or call center team to put you through to the wrong advisor. That’s where call routing comes in. In the specific case of contact center routing, IVR makes sure all inbound calls are routed to the right agent, which keeps the average duration of calls low, since the vast majority of callers will be putting themselves in touch with the people who can resolve their issue quickly.

Being able to allow your callers route calls and do that heavy lifting for you also comes with an added bonus: It keeps your contact center queues shorter, which creates a better customer experience overall.

IVR is also a fantastic way to get callers to provide feedback or answer short surveys. You can set up your IVR system to ask callers to answer a quick survey at some point during the call (ideally at the end—right in the middle tends to interrupt conversations). They’re a great tool for measuring customer satisfaction. For example, you can set up a CSAT (customer satisfaction) survey in Dialpad in just a few clicks, and Dialpad’s text-to-speech feature will automatically ask that question in your customer calls.

Finally, there's general office call routing, which is subtly different from contact center routing, since most office calls will be going through to coworkers, receptionists, or other members of the office rather than a live agent in a call center. Think of these calls as the types of phone calls you get at your HQ, rather than the ones that go to your customer support team in an inbound contact center. You may still have someone at reception to greet visitors and pick up the phone when it does ring, but you can at least minimize those kinds of repetitive desk phone tasks with an IVR system that can take care of most of the call routing work. Long story short: Good IVR applications turn call routing into a self-service—and cut out the need to hire an operator or dedicated virtual receptionist.

Definitely. One industry-specific example for IVR is with bank and stock account transactions. These days, it’s pretty easy to check your account balances from your mobile device or computer. It’s just kind of how that customer experience has naturally progressed. An IVR system doesn’t make you recite your account number (or any other sensitive information, for that matter) to an actual person, and generally it’s pretty efficient since it’s all automated. Where human operatives might have call recording functionalities enabled automatically for all the calls they take, IVR systems don’t work this way.