Voice Overs for IVR

You work hard on your company’s image.

When time someone gets in touch with the business, you have every confidence your staff will convey the professionalism they were trained for; but what about when they’re not there?

Are you sure that your automated messages put your company in its best light too?

Consider a professional voice over for IVR.

IVR (Integrated Voice Response) is great for handling high call volumes, but it’s more than just a way to route your customer’s calls to the right person or to automate customer support.

It’s also an opportunity to make the right brand impression.

There are now more ways than ever to engage with a company, and although many operations concentrate on getting things like their social media presence right, IVR sometimes gets overshadowed.

This is a shame, and a missed opportunity, because as social creatures, tuned in to the way that others sound, we instantly notice when something isn’t right.

Think about the times when you’ve called a company.

A message has clicked on, you hear the voice of someone who is probably a staff member giving a well-meant but haphazard delivery.

You hear noise as the microphone is scuffed, the ‘P’ and ‘S’ sounds are popping and sussing, there is background noise, and all of this makes you wonder what other corners the company might have cut.

Even if you don’t think too hard about it, it just sounds sloppy.

You could use a pre-recorded voice, but chances are that it won’t exactly match with your requirements.

You could also try the text-to-voice option if your IVR system offers it, but it is not ideal to use either.

Think about the times you’ve called a firm and heard custom, professional-sounding messages leading you through the options.

You probably didn’t even think about this experience because it seemed smooth and effortless; it just worked – which is how it should be.

A well-trained and experienced voice actor using professional equipment can deliver the right impression for your business every time.

There is a lot involved with getting an IVR voice over right (as you can see here), so it’s best to invest in talent you trust.

With an on-hold customer, you may have a captive audience, but that does not mean that they relish being in that position.

You need to do everything that you can to ensure that they are not unduly delayed while they wait for someone to help them.

Simply having a phrase like, “Your call is important to us,” repeating every 30 seconds is not likely to break the ice, so keep them on side with a well thought out script and a voice that works for your brand.

Benefits of professionally voiced IVR

Besides having your customers or prospects more engaged, a professionally recorded IVR will have the following benefits:

Resolve more issues on first contact

More callers are passed to the appropriate department or the agent who is best able to help them, meaning less likelihood of calls being transferred to someone else.

Improve customer service

Companies that use an IVR find that their agents become better at dealing with particular issues, and are less likely to confer with colleagues to find an answer. This leads to greater agent and company efficiency.

Increase professionalism

Your IVR system can greet customers in a professional manner and even make it seem as if you have more employees and departments than you really do!

Improve customer satisfaction

An IVR that is reliable and easy to understand ensures customers are always routed to the right department, or to an agent who can solve their problems.

Modern Systems

Solutions like this one offer a fully featured service with a graphical user interface that allows you to design the whole customer contact experience on-screen.

Here are some pointers for what should you consider when designing your IVR system.

1. Limiting some information

Your IVR should help your customers from the moment they get in touch, so give each caller the information or solution they are looking for quickly as possible.

But bear in mind that our memories can only hold on to so much information at one time, so don’t offer callers more than four options at once.

You will just frustrate your callers and they may abandon the call.

2. Open all hours

IVRs are designed to streamline service delivery.

Customers have become used to finding what they want round-the-clock on the Internet. Now they are starting to expect the same kind of accessibility from businesses too.

You may not be able to meet all of their needs while you aren’t there, but it’s worth providing a basic self-serve option to customers who call when your business is closed, and you can also offer to call them back later, too.

3. Dynamic menus

Make sure you design menus that are dynamic, meaning that they change in line with previous interactions with the customer.

You can improve the caller’s experience if you offer more personal options that build on previous customer choices.

4. Call-back option

An IVR cannot hope to solve all your customer queries, but it can help to speed up the process of getting them to the solution that they are looking for.

Placing them in a queue is sometimes not the best answer, so always give them the option to request a callback when staff are free to engage them.