This section of our technical library presents information and documentation relating to Interactive Voice Response software products and IVR best practices. 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.

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. It enhances our phone system's current robust features of predictive dialing, ACD, and digital call recording. Our IVR software solution gives your organization a 24 by 7 capability, providing around-the-clock information to your callers.

The following articles are highly recommended to our clients and others who are considering implementing IVR solutions in their organization and wish to employ the best IVR design concepts. A well designed IVR can be a valuable asset to your company, but a system that frustrates and alienates your callers can likewise be a liability. These articles have been accumulated over the past several years and are a valuable resource for IVR designers and implementors. Included are "IVR Best Practices" and "IVR Cheat Sheets" that help IVR developers beat the competition by providing User friendly IVR solutions.

• Best Practices In IVR
• Best Practices in Designing Speech User Interfaces
• Paul English 'The IVR Cheat Sheet'
• How Is your IVR perceived?
• Designing Better IVR Systems
• The Seven Deadly Sins of IVR
• Endless Loops: Are Your Customers Getting Stuck?
• IVR / VRU User Interface Design
• Telephony 101: Giving Voice to Your Network
• 7 Tips to Deploy a Successful IVR System
• How Is your IVR perceived?
• Automated phone services press the wrong buttons
• Is the bad rap for IVRs deserved?
• Unlock The Mystery Behind IVR Development And Integration
• Directing the Dialog: The Art of IVR
• Why Customers Hate Your IVR System

IVR Wizard Software Speeds Phone Application Development

Interactive Voice Response System

DSC provides IVR software including our IVR wizard development tool for creating interactive voice response applications. Our IVR Solutions let you increase ivr developer productivity by providing a visual development environment. IVR applications can be defined in minutes using this sophisticated, yet easy to use development tool. DSC also has available a comprehensive IVR software library known as our IVR Wizard Software Development Kit. This optional package is available for programmers and systems adminstrators who wish to manage IVR programs from Windows IVR, Linux IVR or Unix operating environments.

Data collected by our ACD (Automatic Call Distribution) or IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems can be passed to your existing PC, Unix, Linux or Web applications through our phone software. The PACER predictive dialer can automatically call your customers and pass only connected calls to your agents. With our computer telephony software, your telephone and computer work together to provide cost-saving benefits.