In today's technology driven world, we often see businesses putting technology to use. Sometimes it's done well, and the technologies put in place really aid the business in meeting and exceeding their goals. However, sometimes it's done badly. When we see businesses utilising technology badly, it's often not the technology itself that's wrong, but the implementation. IVR solutions are a perfect example of good technology that can be put to bad use.

With this in mind, this series of articles aims to look at the top 6 considerations that should constantly be in mind when designing an IVR solution. We're not trying to sell ours or anyone else's products; we just aim to provide you with an understanding that IVR should only do what your business and customers need it to do.

This first article will be on the topic of 'solution'; the idea that an IVR system should be a solution put in place in response to an identified problem.

How decisions are made in a business environment changes within every business, but one thing that is certain is that your business will have a formal method of self-evaluation. It will almost certainly also have a recognised way of agreeing how to deal with any issues the business is facing. Often, the hardest part of the process is actually identifying those issues.

The decision to bring on or upgrade an IVR solution is one that should really only be undertaken once the issues have been identified, and even then it's often difficult to understand the full impact of the issues and how an IVR solution can help to rectify them. Like all technology, an IVR solution should only be implemented if the needs of the business require it.

So, what sort of issues within a business are best dealt with by the introduction of IVR? I'll outline a few of the most common issues here, but this is by no means an exclusive list.

Firstly, we have cost reduction. Consider for a moment a large contact centre, taking thousands of calls and dealing with numerous enquiries. Over 70% of the costs incurred by a contact centre are staff related, with estimates that a customer service representative (CSR) costs a contact centre, on average, between £3 and £5 per call. Add to that an industry-wide problem with staff attrition and the operation of a contact centre can start to look costly. A reduction in call volumes can immediately reduce the operational costs of a contact centre by allowing a reduction in staff overheads. In this situation, the implementation of an IVR solution can be a viable solution to reduce costs. Every time a customer manages to self-service via an IVR solution instead of being passed through to the contact centre, the business saves money.

Secondly, we have security. Allowing live CSRs to handle sensitive customer information, such as credit card information, exposes the business to the potential of fraud. With the adherence of PCI DSS requirements an ever present consideration for businesses handling credit card information, moving the customer's details away from live CSRs to an automated system can be a very cost-effective investment in security and compliance.

Thirdly, we have customer satisfaction. If a customer calls your business and instantly becomes stuck in a queue for a CSR, their opinion of their importance to your business begins to drop. If every customer with a problem has to speak with a CSR, the contact centre can quickly become clogged with calls that could easily have been resolved via self-service. Customers will always consider taking their custom away from a business if they felt like the business didn't care about them; and simply playing a "your call is important to us" message often doesn't cut the mustard.

So, there are a vast number of issues that a business can face where an IVR solution may be the best way of rectifying the issue. But whatever the issues that your business is facing, it's important to understand what sort of impacts an IVR solution can and will have on your business. An IVR solution should be seen as a real extension of your business and be treated as such, rather than a cool bit of technology that aids existing offerings.

Let us take an example of a customer self-service IVR solution for a utilities company. The benefits of the solution, improved customer service, improved security and cost reduction through decreased contact centre call volumes, will need to be weighed up against the work required to ensure the IVR solution is providing customers with the services they require and generating a return on investment for the business. A utility company implementing an IVR solution will almost certainly need to ensure that their current systems have some mechanism of allowing a third party application to interact with them; whether it be through an API, direct database connection, etc. If customers are entering meter readings, these will need to be updated in the company's systems in real time, the bill updated automatically, and the customer read back the updated bill and maybe even given the option to make an immediate automated card payment to pay the bill. This example given isn't too far from the real world solutions implemented by utilities companies, and every time a solution such as this is implemented it's because there is a real business need to do so. Lets carry on with this example and consider the business needs that would have lead to such a solution being implemented.

Let's look quickly at self-service meter readings. The alternative past solutions to getting meter readings have always been rather costly options. There are employees whose job it is to visit customer's houses and get the actual meter readings, but on a reading-by-reading basis this must be pretty costly for the utility company, not the mention all of the supporting infrastructure, such as scheduling visits, upkeep of vehicles, etc. There are also "smart" meters which automatically send the meter readings, but on a per-unit basis these are extremely costly and require massive infrastructure changes and nationwide adaptation. Allowing customers to provide their own meter readings quickly and easily allows them to stay on top of their account, especially as the majority of customers dislike estimated bills, whilst dramatically reducing the cost-per-reading for the utility company. There are multiple routes into this kind of system, most notably an automated IVR solution and a web-based solution. With an IVR solution, instead of staff costs, vehicle upkeep, scheduling, and other costs involved in having an employee visit a house to take a reading, we're reducing the cost-per-reading to the cost of a phone call, which in most cases would be mere pennies. Whilst there will be initial costs for the set up of the IVR solution and the business integration changes required, such as ensuring the IVR can update the readings in real time and updating paper invoices to give details about the IVR service available, the business need is clearly evident, and the benefits of implementation are numerous.

IVR solutions can be fantastic tools to engage customers, push advancement within the business and dramatically cut costs, but a poorly implemented IVR solution, or one that has been implemented with little planning and little understanding of the requirements, can do exactly the opposite.

So, what is the message here? It certainly isn't to avoid IVR in case you get it wrong. The message is that IVR should only be considered when there is a real business need for the technology, and the solution should only do what your business and customers need it to do.

The next article in our series about IVR solution design will discuss how to successfully integrate an IVR solution into your existing offerings and ensure that the IVR is capable of doing everything you need it to do.