What is IVR?
IVR (interactive voice response) is an automated telephony technology that
is used to interact to the clients or customer in the form of database through phone keypad or voice commands.
Mostly it is used 24*365 days in the BPO, KPO, and Banking sector as
well as in-house and offices to save money and employee resources where
any emergency inquiry or service is not required.
IVR system is very useful where some limited inquiry is asked like checking bank balances,
managing credit cards, checking the timing of store hours or locations, or ordering
the prescript medicine etc. If any company appoint the employees, for this
purpose, it has to recruit at least two or three persons which is very costly
for the company as it has to pay the salary, perks, gratuity and funds etc. So
this device saves lots of money of the company. IVR system is also used
for providing dynamic information such as weather, news, traffic or stock
reports etc.
The IVR system works as in the voice form, when the
client asks any inquiry, this system replies it in the simple form like
"Yes" or "No" or blah blah in the human recorded voice. It
also ask question and gives the instruction about how to answer of this question
by pressing phone's keypad like press 1 for yes or press 2 for no
or press 3 for returning in the main menu or vice versa. Many
it gives the direction to reply the question in the human voice as say
"Yes" or "No" or "Return". So IVR
system is very useful where there non-emergency and limited
information is required and it can reach far more people in the comparison
of actually manning phones.
Usually, IVR systems is installed in-house, but it is also used as
an "outsourcing solution providers," or OSPs. The IVR
system providers maintain their system on their own premises, integrating it through the client's network.
Though it saves money and resources of the company, but it has some limitations because it has designed to provide some limited information that can not surpass the limitations of human query, only intelligent human being can solve these problems.