The Case for Voice IVR

I’m from Ireland. And growing up there, I remember many great times hitchhiking around the countryside as I came into my late teens. Occasionally, my friends and I got lost and had to stop and ask a local for directions.

I don’t know what it’s like today, but back then, you’d get something like “Well, go on down the road here for a bit, until you see a big barn near a house, then go to your left and go on down another bit, and you’ll be heading towards town.”

This was all fine, until you got to the barn. Then you had to wonder if the house was close to it. And what exactly is a “bit down the road”? And is “another bit” the same distance as the first bit?

You see, this all makes sense to a local. And it also made sense to a lot (though not all) of my fellow Irish natives at the time. Again, this might not be true even to an Irish local today. It may even frustrate them; it would most certainly have that effect on the out-of-towners.

For your customers...to find what they are looking for is cognitively a lot like asking for directions.

Now I live in America. And being a science guy, if I’m asking someone what’s the best way to get to an unfamiliar location at a given time of day (I’ve been led astray by my map apps enough to still feel the need to do this), I want strictly lefts and rights with distances in-between.

That means I don’t want generalizations, and I certainly don’t want to have to avert my attention to look for obscure and ambiguous landmarks while I’m in four lanes of fast-moving rush-hour traffic.

Giving Directions to Customers

So, this brings us to an important aspect of modern-day contact centers and the technologies we use to support them. For your customers, working their way through your voice, mobile, and web services to find what they are looking for is cognitively a lot like asking for directions. You know where you want to go, but you are at the mercy of another individual to get you there.

This is true whether you engage directly with another human such as a contact center representative, or with technology that was ultimately designed for humans by other humans.

Knowing what we’re being told actually applies to us is the true value of voice through that one-to-one contact.

You engage in a step-by-step process, listening to or watching directions, painting a mental picture in your mind as you go along, and hoping that it takes you where you ultimately want to go. Whether that’s a physical location or the solution to your problem.

But too often, it does not. Or it takes you there, but it takes you the long way around. Either way can lead to a frustrating experience.

Voice Channel Challenges

With contact center voice channels like IVR, and voicebots in particular, the similarities with listening to someone giving you directions are quite strong:

• Both are serial, step-by-step processes.
• Both require an awareness of where you are (either geographically or contextually).
• Both require a certain amount of “memory buffer” as you work your way cognitively from one point to the next in your mind and execute the steps to get you where you want to be.

The Visual Realm Has Its Own Issues

With visual channels, you get to present a lot of information at once to the user. The challenge here is knowing what information to present, how and when to present it, and understanding what obstacles your customers may face while trying to navigate their way through it. Simple web pages and mobile screens with clear, unambiguous labeling are generally best.

Make rudimentary data entry for dates, times, Zip codes, etc. simple, consistent, and easy to get right the first time. Avoid cramming too much information into images and keep them lightweight and quick loading. Use very short movies and sliders where appropriate. And absolutely, make sure your pages are fully responsive for desktop, mobile, and tablet displays.

Things to keep in mind:

• Phone screens can only hold so much data.
• Web pages can be slow to load.
• Maintaining visual clarity and information prioritization can be difficult.

More important than this though, to many of your customers, engaging with a web page or mobile screen designed for the masses doesn’t carry the same weight as hearing it straight over the phone does.

All that being said, for many of us, until we call and hear important information, we tend to wonder if it really applies in our own particular and present case. Especially if it’s a delayed flight, an unusual charge on our credit card, or a bank deposit that hasn’t been made when expected. Knowing what we’re being told actually applies to us is the true value of voice through that one-to-one contact.

Aiding the Voice Channel

As I alluded to earlier, voice channels also have their challenges that are akin to asking others for directions. To come to our aid, we have a bevy of new technologies like Conversational AI, machine learning, natural language understanding, agent assist, and many more. Of course, we also have the tried-and-true directed dialog IVR, email, chat, and expert (but expensive) customer service agents.

...if your IVR call flows are getting ridiculously long, or your agents are handling a lot of repetitive, mundane calls, consider a true Conversational AI experience.

The trick is to know what to use and when to use it. That’s a lot easier said than done but in my experience, there are a few points well worth considering before you lay out a big chunk of next year’s budget and resources to the task:

What does your audience expect?

Younger generations are usually hoping to zip through a few phone screens or text messages (SEE BOX) and hit on an exact solution in less than a minute. If so, what are the chances you’ll be able to deliver that reliably every time? What are the chances you’ll only frustrate them before they seek alternate channels like voice, or sellers like your competition?

Generations that have been around a while might be okay with slow, clear, and concise verbal instructions, even if it’s old school and takes a little longer. So, ask yourself if you can deliver this reliably in your voice channels.

What kind of information do you need to support?

Is it simple balance information, binary yes/no, or multiple-choice information? If so, don’t complicate it with error-prone speech recognition when clear, definitive touch-tone may work better. Not very cool, I know, but the idea is to get the job done for your customers, not test drive technology that could be overkill for your business models.

On the other hand, if your IVR call flows are getting ridiculously long, or your agents are handling a lot of repetitive, mundane calls, consider a true Conversational AI experience. Many relatively complex tasks like address change, billing disputes, flight changes, and a lot more can be handled easily, fairly reliably, and at a lot less cost than burdening agents with these calls.

The main point here is to first get a handle on the volume and types of information your business needs to provide to your customers.

How important is your brand and customer experience (CX) to you?

If I’m interested in knowing when the next commuter train to New York City leaves from my home in the suburbs, anything more than a simple, reliable web page that updates automatically according to the time of day and day of week, and which informs of any delays and service changes, is all I want.

I’ll bookmark that page and come back to it when I need it, or if I hear an announcement or get a proactive service alert to direct me to it. PDFs can go out of date and feel less trustworthy. Phone calls to an IVR and mobile apps are nice but are overkill in many cases. And if you are on a train or platform, you might not be able to hear them anyway from all the noise.

At the other extreme, if I’m going to spend hundreds of dollars on a nice hotel or a business class flight, a great web or mobile experience is a great starting place for the great voice experience that could seal the deal. The key here is understanding your brand, the service levels your business models require, your competition, and of course your budget.

Getting on the Right Road

Yes indeed, we used to live in a much simpler world. There were fewer roads, and buildings, signs, and intersections along those roads. There were also fewer vehicles and hence, fewer individuals using those roads. Local cultures had much greater concentrations of people who went back many generations and who possessed deep knowledge of their immediate areas.

Today’s populations have not only grown in size, but in diversity, language, and cultural norms. The range of products and services most businesses offer has grown tremendously too, as has the number of companies competing for the attention of your customers.

Before you begin your journey, understand your audience: not just the age demographics, but the cultures, languages, habits, and even their openness to new approaches to solving their problems.

PDFs can go out of date and feel less trustworthy. Phone calls to an IVR and mobile apps are nice but are overkill in many cases.

Don’t be surprised if a good portion of them are quite happy with an IVR experience that gives them simple “lefts and rights” to get them where they are going. Not just because they don’t want to learn something new, but because they know what works for them and really, they just want you to solve their problem for them.