Interactive voice response

Everyone knows the prompt "press one". Behind it sits an interactive voice response system. It is the first stop of a call and decides whether a request is resolved right away or reaches a person.

#From keypad to conversation

Classic systems work with menus: announce options, read the key pressed, branch. That is robust, but it gets slow as soon as menus grow deep.

Speech dialogues turn the principle around. The caller says in their own words what they need. Intent recognition maps the utterance to a request, and the system only asks for what is missing. Where a whole conversation is automated, the term is voicebot.

#What an IVR can handle itself

• Information with a clear answer: opening hours, status, deadlines.
• Simple transactions: confirm an appointment, submit a meter reading, request documents.
• Identification: ask for a customer or case number before a person takes over.
• Offer a callback when every line is busy.

1. Greet. A short prompt that says the call is handled automatically at first.
2. Understand. Capture the request by key or by voice.
3. Resolve or hand over. Solve it, or pass it with context to the ACD.

#How to recognise a good IVR

A good IVR traps nobody. The way to a person is always open, and whatever has been said arrives on the agent desktop. Nobody has to repeat their customer number.

Measure an IVR by resolved requests, not by prevented conversations. A caller who hangs up because they got stuck is not a solved case; they are a later call.

Accessibility is part of it: short prompts, repetition on request, enough time to respond. What the European Accessibility Act means for customer channels is covered in the Trust Center.

#IVR in Univerx

In Univerx you build menus and speech dialogues in IVR & self-service without programming. Why a callback often achieves more than any hold music is the topic of Callback instead of hold.