IVR Solutions

This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to IVR Development and custom IVR software and products. Business phone systems and toll free answering systems (generally 800 numbers and their equivalent) are very popular for service and sales organizations, allowing customers and prospects to call your organization anywhere in the country. The PACER and Wizard IVR systems add another dimension to our call center phone systems and solutions.

What Is IVR?. An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) processes inbound phone calls, plays recorded messages including information extracted from databases and the internet, and potentially routes calls to either inhouse service agents or transfers the caller to an outside extension.

The following is an article relating to the IVR market including tips and best practices as well as product and answering service information.

Overview:

With more than 1.5 billion telephones and over 450 million mobile devices worldwide, and fully 80% of customer-to-business contacts taking place over the phone, companies must find more productive and cost-effective ways to interact with customers, employees and business allies.

Most customer-oriented organizations seek to improve the performance and affordability of their telephone-based communications with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology. IVR technology is widely used by companies, call centers and government agencies; however as cost and competitive pressures increase as well as the demand for superior customer service, organizations want to extend the power of voice to a wider range of network and enterprise systems, and include the benefits of speech recognition technology.

Key business decision-makers want IT solutions which will reduce operating costs, improve business processes, satisfy customers and employees and add revenue. Forward-looking IT managers want solutions that allow them to evolve their system, enhance it with third-party components, and migrate it to another platform without the risk and expense of rewriting their applications. They want solutions that deliver the proven benefits of voice while at the same time leveraging, and not duplicating, existing Web and enterprise data resources. Additionally, they want voice technology that is flexible and scalable, hardware agnostic and supported by a proven development environment, management tools and technical support.

To meet the demands of both business executives and IT managers, the industry embraced an open, standards-based approach to voice automation systems and architectures.

This Intervoice White Paper will examine how open standards are being applied to modern Interactive Voice Response systems, including the evolution of IVR-related standards, the differing approaches to open IVR architectures, and the core elements that must be present in a successful open standards voice solution.