Common Enterprise / Customer Issues in IVRs

Impersonal nature of interaction

Automated interaction channels such as Interactive Voice Response channels by design are machine-like. They do not allow for the variety that is found in human interactions.

Unclear Instructions

IVRs are not designed from the P.O.V of the enterprise and not keeping the end user in mind. Usage of enterprise specific jargon and non-intuitive organization of products and services makes a caller’s experience difficult.

Inability to get self served

Callers would be interested in doing a certain task, but the organization would not have automated this process. Analyzing agent interaction logs could help in including those features.

Inability to speak to agents

Callers might have a query or clarification, and the agent would be the best person to handle this case. But, the option of speaking to agents might be disabled or made difficult to reach.

Repeated Requests for Information

Callers are asked to enter specific information, such as authentication, multiple times within a single interaction. Inability to find information that is being requested for ready-at-hand makes callers to abandon their call

Long Wait Times

Customers of large organizations typically have to wait for a long duration to be able to speak to a human.

Increasing Customer Interaction (CI) budgets

An explosion in the services industry means customers interact with enterprises much more frequently than ever before. Hence consumer interaction budgets and forays into software have increased. Enterprises are finding it difficult to understand ROI, to controlling their CI budgets and to measure customer satisfaction.

Increasing number of CI channels

Technology has made it possible for enterprises to have multiple channels to interact with customers. Yet, there is no cross-mapping possible of customer behavior across these channels to understand trends.