Your opinion: Time to throw out the IVR?
Has the time come to throw out our IVR systems and start speaking directly to customers?
I was stuck recently when trying to call into Nationwide Building Society by the barriers that their IVR had built up.
I was greeted by a compliance message, three levels of IVR, and another message advising me that the IVR menus would soon be changing. Three key presses and 1 minute 15 seconds and two rings later I was cut straight through to a very friendly advisor who tried to upsell me a mortgage and some home insurance. And I’m not particularly going after Nationwide, calls to the Tax Office and numerous other companies have had similar results.
Contrast this to First Direct where after a short queue you are passed straight through to an advisor.
It struck me that it would benefit everyone if we were to ditch the IVR systems and connect callers straight into the queue. Nationwide would have connected me in less than 5 seconds and I might have been in a better frame of mind to be upsold to.
The other benefit would also be a lower abandon rate in the IVR. A recent reader asked what is a typical IVR abandon rate. While we have yet to find a definitive answer, I have heard rumours that it is around 13%. It seems that most call centre stats seem to exclude this key metric, which is only painting half the picture of what is happening to callers.
One leading utility company has started a project to take out their front-end IVRs or at least make it an option.
So, should we consign IVR to the scrap heap and start building an improved customer experience?
What do you think? Leave your opinions in the comments box below.
Jonty Pearce, Editor, Call Centre Helper
I work for a company that has a relevently new call centre. When setting it up we made the concious decision not to have an IVR. There is nothing worse than having to navigate through a maze of messages to supposedly get through to the relevent person. We ensure that all staff are kept up to date on our services, changes within the company and who deals with what through our intranet and other means. The only messages that we have are the compliance messages and marketing messages when people are on hold. Our abandoned rate is 7 secs. I don’t think that’s too bad! Working in a B2B environment, our customers appreciate that they can talk to someone there and then.
Comment by Donna — 17 Jul 2008 @ 9:59 am
I agree with Donna. I think that IVR gets in the way of building a good customer experience.
I think that everyone has IVR because it provided the ability to do self service. Now when we think of self service we think in terms of the website.
Doesn’t that make the IVR redundant?
Comment by Amy — 17 Jul 2008 @ 11:09 am
We have been operating customer services systems on behalf of a client for a number of years and have never used IVR. We always endeavour to answer a call within 3 rings. Customers are so pleasantly surprised to speak directly with a person with a wide knowledge base and find it reassuring.
Comment by Bev Humphreys — 17 Jul 2008 @ 12:17 pm
As part of a Police call centre, where we have had to deliver a service level of 90% in 10 seconds I beleive there is a place for an IVR in order to satisfy those callers with the greatest needs.
However, examples like the above are not the solution. Simple and subtle menu systems have massively aided us, whilst still acheiving over 95% satisfaction levels.
Some callers like self service others do not, so I beleive it is about offering choices to callers that spread out demands.
Many years ago people never beleived an ATM could dispense cash accurately and quickly, but ask yuorself when was the last time you queued to speaker to a person just to withdraw money from your account!
In conclusion IVRs can help if done right but if done wrong they are more than a disaster!
Comment by Ben Long — 17 Jul 2008 @ 12:35 pm
It seems to me that the decision-making process that leads to the deployment of IVR is where we should be focused.
So we’re talking about the people who sign the cheques, and finding out what their view is around the purpose of the contact centre, and what level of customer service the organisation is prepared to deliver.
If the process starts with the question ‘we have this much money, what’s the most cost-effective way to deliver service to customers?(so that our shareholders are happy)’, you’ll end up with a multi-level IVR in front of an outsourced offshored contact centre. (any major telecoms companies spring to mind?)
If the process starts with the question ‘here’s the service level we want to give our customers, here’s the customer experience that our brand requires, how do we deliver it?’ then you might end up with a much simpler IVR or no IVR.
In the public sector and not for profit sector, the absence of a shareholder imperative is replaced with a ‘best value’ imperative, yet decision makers can still choose to prioritise the customer experience.
So in essence it’s a simple issue - if the people who run your organisation put cost first, you’re likely to have a complex IVR. If they put customer experience first, you’ll have a simple or absent IVR.
Which of these strategic choices will win? the jury is still out!
Comment by MikeB — 17 Jul 2008 @ 5:06 pm
I agree that it can cause a very poor customer experience but for some organisations I don’t suppose they can have everyone trained for every type of product.
I called Sky the other day to buy an HD box and was directed through to a salesperson and after finishing arranging the order, I asked about my broadband connection speeds. Clearly, sales and technical aspects of two very different products isn’t something that I’d expect anyone to try and keep up to date with and I needed to be transferred.
As consumers, we can’t have it all - we want companies to diversify and provide competative products but we’re not all superhumans and can’t be specialists in every area possible - I reckon maybe two or three at a push options of IVR are acceptable.
Comment by Anonymous — 17 Jul 2008 @ 11:28 pm
I have recently had a bad experience with a large provider of digital TV. Having dialled an 0870 number for their customer services dept, which you know is going to cost you a fortune, I then waited whilst they told me that the number I dialled will soon be changing before being connected to the IVR menu.
30 minutes later and after being passed through to over 6 different departments, none of which were able to help me, I hung up highly frustrated knowing what awaited me when I eventually called back!
Comment by Portis Head — 18 Jul 2008 @ 3:45 pm
The key to any good IVR deployment, whether touchtone or speech based, is the design - it must be simple, intuitive and designed from the customer’s perspective. Too often, IVR menus and dialogues are designed to meet the needs of internal processes, rather than delivering what the customer wants - which is to get to the right person to deal with their issue first time!
As more and more companies are recognising that customer service is a key differentiator, the need to provide a more personalised service is becoming important. However, in order to personalise, you need to know who is calling and why in order to route the call to the right agent. There is also the debate as to whether you train all of your agents to handle all calls, or keep specific teams of experts and route the customers to the right teams. The ultimate choice is down to your business model and how complex your products and services are, but ultmately if you cant have universal agents, you will need some way to route calls.
Dont throw away your IVR - just give it some TLC and redesign it from your customer’s perspective! If they work well, they are a major contributor to both call centre efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Comment by DaveL — 23 Jul 2008 @ 8:40 am