IVR Customer Insight Is Good Business

March 15th, 2007

Elizabeth Herrell

With contributors:

Simon Yates , Megan Burns , Christine Atwood

Summary

Most customer experience executives acknowledge the importance of measuring performance for their agents. But when it comes to understanding customers' behavior using an interactive voice response (IVR) or speech self-service platform, these executives find that they do not have sufficient information to determine why customers act in certain ways, such as abandoning the self-service application prior to task completion. Contact center metrics focus on operational data such as number of calls and average handling time, but these indicators do not report on the actual customer experience, such as identifying system bottlenecks or confusing prompts. To optimize the value of speech self-service and IVR applications and improve callers' experience, customer experience executives need greater insight, beyond surveys and customer feedback, to understand specific customer behaviors. Emerging customer behavior intelligence applications do not replace traditional metrics but complement them and provide valuable marketing information to improve users' adoption for voice self-service applications.

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