Designing a Usable IVR

A Customer Center entry from November 17, 2004

Before we get into designing a usable IVR, first you should assess why you need an IVR. This will help you to create an IVR that is helpful to your callers, rather than creating the irritating experience that's given IVRs a bad name.

Do you need an IVR to be a buffer between you and the same question that 80% of your callers are trying to find an answer to? This is a very legitimate use for an IVR menu. While you are solving this problem, make sure that you address this issue in as many ways as make sense for your business. If the majority of the calls that you receive are about directions to your office, it might serve you well to give more prominent placement on your company website to an address and links to directions and maps.

There are several steps that you can take to ensure that your IVR is caller-friendly. Most importantly, assess the needs of the people calling in to your PBX. Are they paying customers with account numbers? Vendors? Potential clients? Each of these types of callers have different needs when they call your business. If your business entertains calls from a diverse caller base, perhaps allowing them to self-identify when they call your main number is the best way to get them to the options they are most likely to need. If the majority of your calls are from one specific type of caller, address their needs at the beginning of the menu, leaving the less used options for the end of the menu.

The second most important thing that you can do to make a difference in ensuring that your IVR is easy to use is thorough testing. When you think you've tested to make sure that there are no dead ends or loops to get caught in, make up a few use cases to test. This can be as simple as giving yourself a task to complete using the IVR and noting how many steps it took you to complete your task. Make sure that your most common caller scenarios are the easiest tasks to complete. If 80% of callers are looking for directions, the task of finding directions to your office should be as simple as dialing your main number and pressing "1" for directions.

The Switchvox IVR supports multiple language IVRs and this is a great way to segment your callers at the beginning of the IVR menu. If your enterprise would like to serve international customers, make sure that your translations are accurate and clear. It is money well spent to create a multilingual IVR if it means less customer frustration and a streamlined journey through the system.

— November 17, 2004