What are visual IVR applications and why should they be considered as part of our customer self service portfolio?
Question
What are visual IVR applications and why should they be considered as part of our customer self service portfolio?
Answer
The worlds of IVR and mobility are colliding, and the result is visual IVR. Visual IVR is a relatively new concept where a company creates a menu-driven interface for their IVR, website and mobile applications. The process is conceptually simple, but requires a uniquely designed interface.
Here’s how it works. The IVR script is translated into a visual display of options, and presented to users via the Web or mobile device (smartphone) so that customers or prospects can conduct their business by touching or clicking an option. As most people can read a sentence much more quickly than they can listen to it spoken, this affords them the power, capabilities and flexibility of IVR in significantly less time.
One reason why visual IVR is catching on is because these applications are designed to allow companies to build the visual interfaces without rewriting their existing IVR applications. Although the content of the user interfaces (UIs) required for mobile devices is totally different from what is presented verbally over a traditional IVR or speech recognition application, much of the existing code and application is used, and the primary change is in how it is presented.
All companies that use IVRs should consider the opportunity to increase utilization by offering IVR capabilities to their customers and prospects via a smartphone application. To do so, companies should work with a vendor that offers this next-gen IVR functionality, and use the services of a visual IVR expert to build the mobile application and UI. It’s important to avoid the same mistakes that many companies have made with their traditional IVRs: assuming that any programmer can build an IVR script or voice user interface (VUI). This has never been the case, and remains one of the primary reasons why so many IVRs are poorly designed and executed.
