NICE has released IVR Journey Analytics, a cloud-based solution designed to reduce customer effort and improve the experience of the IVR. This is the third addition to NICE's Customer Engagement Analytics platform which helps organizations sequence and visualize the customer journey to understand why customers are contacting them, predict their next move, and personalize the customer engagement.
NICE IVR Journey Analytics enables organizations to reduce the overall call volume, offer better self-service, and provide faster access to a service rep when needed. This not only facilitates greater customer satisfaction, it also drives significant cost savings---by using the solution to increase the number of calls resolved via IVR, organizations can save millions of dollars annually.
The system gathers insights from the customer journey prior to, during, and after the IVR interaction. It can determine certain patterns of behavior and then use the information to optimize the IVR experience by whittling down the menu options to provide only the options relevant to the particular journey. It also enables visual mapping so that any IVR service bottlenecks can be easily pinpointed and resolved.
Organizations can also use NICE's feedback solution for the IVR channel to solicit real-time customer feedback immediately following either an interaction that was contained in the IVR or an interaction that was handled by a contact center agent. Using speech analytics, they can better understand the drivers of satisfaction and identify insights that enable them to take action to improve the experience. This could include customer service recovery, employee coaching, or process changes, depending on the customer feedback received.
"A weak link anywhere in the customer journey can shatter the entire experience, and the IVR is typically the first step in a service call," said Miki Migdal, president of the NICE Enterprise product group, in a statement. "NICE's IVR analytics solution enables organizations to revitalize the way they engage with consumers over this channel and create a more efficient and gratifying customer journey from start to finish."
According to NICE's 2013 Global Customer Survey, 73 percent of consumers use IVR during their interaction journey. But at least half the time, they do not succeed in resolving their issue - one-third of those callers simply hang up, and the other two-thirds bypass the system or try to contact a live agent.
"Many consumers are dissatisfied with the IVR process, and until today organizations have invested very little in improving this experience," Migdal said. "Companies now have a great opportunity to turn this situation around. They can now manage these interactions more effectively, which will help them improve operations across the enterprise, boost customer loyalty, and grow their revenues."