Before You Write Your IVR, Ask Yourself: "Who Am I?"
Allison Smith
Owner/CEO at The IVR Voice.com -- Professional Telephone Voice, IVR/AI Voice, Contact Center Voice. If she's not currently on your system, she will be.
I'm a telephone voice.
People send me scripts of their call flow to record, and I do so. Day in and day out.
In order to capture the "mood" and "feel" of what companies want for their IVR -- and because I am capable of a wide array of "deliveries" of vocal styles, I'll often ask:
"Who IS your company?" I need to know exactly what "flavor" this company is; it's not enough to know what industry they're in (and make decisions on what approach I'll take merely based on that information) -- but I need to know *who they are* within their industry.
Often, when I pose that question, it's met with stunned silence. "That's a really great question!" is typically the reply.
And yet; there is no more important aspect to your outward-facing corporate "persona" than your identity over phone lines; much pondering is done over what a company's website should say about them, what their media presence says -- even the choice of font on business cards is deliberated over with more angst than: "What's the mood of our call center?"
But without hesitation, I maintain: the tone of your opening greeting; the very cadence and ease of verbiage that callers hear will tell them everything they need to know about you and what it will be like to interact with your company. It's no more complicated than that.
Oftentimes, the "start" of the relationship between customer and company is thought to be when a live operator takes the call -- if more clients kept in mind that the IVR is the start of the customer interaction -- and that it will most definitely set the tone -- suddenly, the treatment of the customer after that last digit is dialed becomes all important. It's crucial that the tempo and emotion of the IVR prompts and the way they're executed signals the customer as to the personality of the company, and sets the stage for what the transaction will ultimately feel like.
Maya Angelou said: "People will forget what you said. They'll even forget what you did. But they will never forget how you made them feel."
Your IVR is a reflection of your identity. Put some thought into what your IVR says about company.
Allison Smith is a professional telephone voice, heard on systems around the world. Her website is www.theivrvoice.com. Twitter: @voicegal
All Your Base... the definitive "That's my IVR" prompt. An IVR should be an integral part of the overall call flow. Every entry point should have an exit. Many times I hear "press x for this.." and I say "what if they press and nothing happens? What then?
Chief Customer Officer at IVR Technology Group
7yGreat point Allison and we enjoy your professional voice services for many of our successful IVR Systems! We are constantly innovating on ways to engage customers from first contact, allowing them to have a great experience on their journey. Many of our customers are now exploring on one of our latest features, which is a Visual IVR element where customers will now have ways to engage with the service provider via phone or texting channel. We are hoping to see the IVR technology to continue to evolve with some of these new features where we will have not more angry caller who is fixated to the "#" "0" feature from the beginning of the call!
eLearning Narration Ninja! Unaccented US & CAD English, CAD French.
7yWell said Allison. Re-sharing scheduled for first thing Monday morning so properly caffeinated, post-weekend thinking can help heads nod as they read.