Interactive Voice Recognition systems or IVR are very popular across the globe. Many companies with larege client databases - such as wireless operators and insurance brokers - could’t imagine their life without IVR. Meanwhile customers who expect that a human advisor would deal with their problems are often left disappointed due to a poor quality of Interactive Voice Response systems.
Embarq, one of the major USA internet service providers, has just published a press release, which shows them as heroes of similar stature to Batman and Superman. The story is that they have re-opened a human customer care representative call centre. As many as 15 representatives will deal with customer enquiries along with the traditional IVR system.
Why am I speaking about this with such an irony? Because IVR is one of the worst telemarketing practices in existence, because people get annoyed talking to robots and because IVR systems are not accurate. Besides in Britain it would be totally inappropriate to offer an IVR as the only option of customer care. British Telecom, British Gas and other big companies are employing several hundreds of representatives each to solve customer problems. IVR systems do exist but people usually ignore them and after the robot has gone “Sorry I didn’t catch that” for three times, the call gets connected to a human representative.
Meanwhile in the USA, a company that is going to employ 15 humans, gets in the news instantly.
The main problem with Interactive Voice Response is the poor voice recognition accuracy. The vendors suggest a 95p accuracy. It is not bad at the first glance but if you consider that dp of clients get misunderstood by a brainless robot that tries to deal with sensitive information like billing, it’s just not good enough.
IVR is necessary to deal with large call volumes however the companies should realize that they must give an option to speak to a human advisor.
