Your opinion: Time to throw out the IVR?

 

Has the time come to throw out our IVR systems and start speaking directly to customers?

I was stuck recently when trying to call into Nationwide Building Society by the barriers that their IVR had built up.

I was greeted by a compliance message, three levels of IVR, and another message advising me that the IVR menus would soon be changing. Three key presses and 1 minute 15 seconds and two rings later I was cut straight through to a very friendly advisor who tried to upsell me a mortgage and some home insurance. And I’m not particularly going after Nationwide, calls to the Tax Office and numerous other companies have had similar results.

Contrast this to First Direct where after a short queue you are passed straight through to an advisor.

It struck me that it would benefit everyone if we were to ditch the IVR systems and connect callers straight into the queue. Nationwide would have connected me in less than 5 seconds and I might have been in a better frame of mind to be upsold to.

The other benefit would also be a lower abandon rate in the IVR. A recent reader asked what is a typical IVR abandon rate. While we have yet to find a definitive answer, I have heard rumours that it is around 13%. It seems that most call centre stats seem to exclude this key metric, which is only painting half the picture of what is happening to callers.

One leading utility company has started a project to take out their front-end IVRs or at least make it an option.

So, should we consign IVR to the scrap heap and start building an improved customer experience?

What do you think? Leave your opinions

Jonty Pearce, Editor, Call Centre Helper