IVR – Interactive Voice Response

IVR systems allow businesses to interact with their callers via the phone’s keypad. Clients can respond to simple pre-recorded voice messages and state their intent through a simple push of a button. Most companies greet their callers with a welcome message, followed by various routing options. The IVR system allows callers to arrive at the right channel fast, without having to interact with a live agent.

IVR stands for interactive voice response. Technically, it’s an interface between human callers and telecommunication computers, or in our case: your clients and your company’s VoIP telephone systems. The interactive voice response unit thus opens up a new communication channel between companies and their clients, saving valuable time on both ends.

What are the benefits of having an IVR?

An IVR system allows a company to service their customers faster by quickly directing them to the right department. It has multitasking skills that humans simply can’t compete with, capable of answering and handling multiple callers at once. Thus, the bottleneck created by the human operator is eliminated. Other benefits are answering clients during non business hours and holidays, when businesses are not normally available. Upon receiving input from the caller, the IVR system responds with a dynamically generated audio message that further directs users on how to proceed.

At Melody on Hold we can help with all your business telephone system needs

The genius of the IVR application is that it can be adapted to perform almost any function where the steps can be broken down into a series of basic interactions. So whether your customers want to pay a bill, set up a meeting with a staff member or clarify the status of their account with your company, all of this can be easily achieved by following the directed sequence of interactions. With the means of completing these types of administrative tasks, irrespective of location or time zone, the IVR system goes a long way to enhance a company’s customer service operations and thereby perceived professionalism.

How is IVR different from an auto attendant?

Although IVR and Auto Attendant are often used interchangeably, strictly speaking they both refer to two separate functions. While the purpose of an IVR is to receive the caller’s input, process it and then provide an appropriate response, the function of an automated attendant is simply to route calls through to the appropriate channels. This is a much simpler function, that  is often designed to complement the IVR by routing callers to the channel they have requested in order to complete an action.  

Melody on Hold is equipped to provide businesses with IVR and Auto Attendant solutions that complement your music on hold and messaging systems.