What if you never had to answer the phones again?

Nice thought hey… Of course, We know you have to answer the phone at some point. But when you use Think Pickles Intelligent IVR—an interactive voice response system—you’ll only have to pick up the phone when someone’s already up for chatting with you. Great Huh?

IVR software can collect information on callers, screen out unwanted callers, and give your business a professional presence 24 hours a day. With an IVR application in place, your business can gather information while you sleep. Your IVR can field incoming calls from prospective clients while you block out time at work. For all intents and purposes, you’ll only have to answer the phone when you want to.

If that sounds Simply Awesome to you then you might want to know more about the solutions we have in our Jar. let’s look at all things IVR.

What is IVR—Interactive Voice Response?

If you’ve ever called a phone system or a call center and interacted with an automated message, you’ve encountered an IVR system.

The role of your Think Pickle IVR Solution is to route your call to the right place without any humans on the receiver’s end. So ideally, that means your caller will be able to choose from a range of pre-set functionality by you to help them easily and navigate straight to the right person in your team.

We’ve all had the pleasure of using these systems, think whenever you call any major company and you get that sexy voice advising you of your options, like “for sales press 1, if it accounts you’re after great press 2” etc. But if you’ve never been on the other side of an IVR before, you might not know just how powerful this can be in managing your business and managing call volume, as well as getting real time information as the call is connecting more on this below.

Download Think Pickle's IVR Solution Case Study

How IVR Works

IVR systems work with a combination of speech recognition and touch-tone keypad selection to automate call routing. IVR does this by providing pre recorded voice responses based on user input, keypad signal logic, access to relevant data, and sometimes, recording voice input for future use. IVR systems may also use computer telephony integration (CTI) to hand off a call to a live agent who can view the data related to a caller.

IVR systems use dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signals to automatically interpret keypad input and communicate between phone and computer. This allows IVR software to provide users pre recorded greetings or menu options specified by your organisation. Advanced IVR platforms include voice recognition software, leveraging natural language processing (NLP) for a conversational self-service experience.

IVR may also leverage text-to-speech (TTS) technology to communicate complex information, such as news reports, emails, weather, etc.

What Are the Benefits of Using an IVR?

Having an advanced IVR System shows customers you mean business. Don't worry using an IVR will not make your business sound like one of those giant corporate big guys that treat their customers like a number, Instead, an IVR for a small or mid-sized business will absolutely improve your relationships with customers:

Always appear professional, and with your custom pre-recorded messages, you’ll essentially have someone 24 hours a day to answer your important calls who's always having a great day. Your IVR and Custom Bots don’t put in for holidays, or even better pay rises. They’ll use pre-recorded messages to consistently use the tone you want without fail.

With your custom call management requirements, this is all easy to create in real time in your Think Pickle's Customer Engagement solution. This is particularly great as this helps the customer save time.

We’ve all been in that position of passing the call around relevant departments, and know how frustrating that can be right? This will get your callers to the right person the first time. Don’t think that automating a process like answering phones automatically means your business will become faceless. Think Pickle’s intelligent IVR can even go as personal to remember someone's Birthday, better still we will even sing Happy Birthday if you have that information in your system.

It's all about the Ratings & Customer Satisfaction

Now we know that consumers prefer phone over email, live chat, and an online knowledgebase when they have a question they need to be answered in real-time.

Caller Information to your team Lighting Fast!

When you answer your own phone calls, you become your own information-gatherer. It adds to the length and heft required to get through a phone conversation. An IVR can pre-screen calls and gain all the helpful information on your client before you ever pick up the phone. This provides rich insights into customers who are calling you up, what their problem might be, and what you can do to fix it. This also saves you time and makes the phone call much more rewarding for the customer, as it's more personable.

IVR Can manage calls without bothering you humans

Of course, people can bypass an Interactive IVR system to get through to real humans at times. But what if someone is just wanting a simple request like the balance of their account? What if they only need your business hours? This does not need a human, when an IVR can handle simple requests automatically.

Put a Turbo Booster on your wait times

If you have a large phone presence and a limited team, then putting them on hold can be risky. Think Pickle’s interactive voice response system can put the most recent calls at the head of the caller queue, minimizing their wait time. Depending on your available resources, this system won’t always be perfect, but the IVR can optimize it in a way that benefits both you and the customer.

We put more money back in your pocket

Leveraging your IVR software as an automatic call distributor (ACD) saves you the cost of hiring a live agent to field inbound calls.

Now with These Simply Awesome benefits, the obvious answer is to move to an IVR solution and never look back. Now we know businesses are not created equal and not every business uses an IVR phone. Word is they believe it’s too complicated to set up or will end up being too expensive, now with Think Pickle that’s a myth!

But what if you configure an IVR system using Think Pickle other features like complete voice system infrastructure ie to have your own version of a contact center?

How to Configure your IVR with Think Pickle

Once you log in to your Think Pickle Portal, there is a jar load of options for setting up an Interactive Voice Response system:

Settings set up just for you

If you have multiple employees/teams, you’ll want to create a set of user-extensions. Even if you’re simply connecting a remote team member's mobile phone number, you can use the custom voice greetings to direct callers in the right direction with an extension system.

Hit the Recording Studio

Your main greeting is the voice greeting you use to greet people as soon as they dial to your main business number. You can edit and record your own, or have one of our voice professionals record it for you.

Alter your settings based on time of day

Depending on the time of day, you can have different options with the main menu. For example, all calls can be sent to your mobile phone during the day. But after 5 p.m., you can use the voice system to direct customers elsewhere or have them leave a voicemail, and why not, put your feet up as you've earnt some quiet time!

Add Additional Pickles as you need them

For example, you might create an extension for “Sales.” Under this extension, you can use multiple employees and personalise your options for how calls are forwarded, and when someone chooses “Sales.” You can even use the settings to speed up customer response by having multiple lines ring when an extension is dialed, giving the call to the first to pick up.

How IVR Can Reshape Your Business for the Better!