In previous posts, we have spoken about the various purposes an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) can achieve, from self-service capabilities such as pay by phone, customer surveys, or customer account updating.
While our customers certainly benefit from the functionality of their custom IVRs which we've developed for them, what they also truly value is the reporting that takes place behind the scenes.
IVR reporting is about fact finding, not relying on hunches and gut feelings to justify costs or for making suggestions for organizational improvements and internal changes.
By the end of this post, you'll understand that IVRs alone are not enough, it's the reporting behind them that is so critical and often overlooked.
In order to make our point, we'll use a post-call customer satisfaction surveys as our IVR example to illustrate how companies can be missing opportunities of improvement by not taking advantage of IVR reporting tools.
There is Always Room for Improvement
Regardless of what a business wants to use the IVR for, the goal is always the same…. to improve “something”. Here are a few goals a company may have regarding areas they want to improve:
- Improve… Telecom costs
- Improve… Work flow efficiency
- Improve… Call agent performance
- Improve… Customer experience
- Improve… Marketing and sales initiatives
- Improve… Call routing options
For this article we want to use the scenario where a business wants to gauge how satisfied a caller/customer is with the agent they spoke to.
You'll see how by using an IVR reporting tool like our SwamiVision application, not only are you able to capture that data, but you can use it to improve your business!
IVR Reporting for Post-Call Customer Satisfaction Surveys
In our example, we are using an IVR to provide callers who speak with a customer service agent the ability to express feedback about their experience.
These are known as post-call customer satisfaction surveys, and usually ask questions such as, “On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being terrible and 5 being great, how knowledgeable was your agent about the issue you called about?”
When you use an IVR for customer satisfaction surveys, there are two areas that data gathering can provide insight into, the caller experience and the IVR itself.
Let’s go digging a bit further..
Insight into the Caller Experience
Caller experience insights show you:
- Where weaknesses/strengths are in the customer service process
- Where weaknesses/strengths are in agent knowledgeability
- Where weaknesses/strengths are in employee professionalism
- Overall Improvements based on caller feedback
These types of surveys are not to weed out the bad employees from the good. But rather, to identify areas that need improvement or to recognize areas that are working well.
An under-performing employee may have the potential to do extremely well, but how can they if they never got the proper training to start with?
So, is the issue with the employee or an organizational process that is lacking?
For example, let’s suppose you, as a manager, provided additional training to your agents to help resolve inquiries faster. Wouldn’t you want to prove that the training you provided, which you put your time and energy into pulling together was worth it?
Hunches, gut feelings and observations may indicate improvements were made, but where’s the data and statistical proof you need to justify the budget that was used?
And this is just one example scenario of many!
Let’s Prove It
How do you prove your results with data from a post-call customer satisfaction survey?
Reporting tools like our SwamiVision can be run for date ranges. If the IVR shows 80% of respondents in the previous quarter submitted low scores when rating an agent’s knowledgeability, yet after training occurred agent knowledgeability scores improved dramatically, you can statistically show the positive impact of your training initiative.
IVR Insight into the IVR Itself
Secondly, IVR reports provide insight into the effectiveness of the IVR itself. This is important because why have a phone survey that may not be designed to make it as useful as it possibly can be?
You want a phone-based survey that is optimally designed in regards to the wording, options and even the order of questions asked.
Reviewing the IVR effectiveness can show trends such as the following:
- Do callers tend to abandon completion of the survey at a particular point – if so, why?
- Are callers confused by response options or wording choices? This may require recording new prompts that are shorter and clearer in intent.
- Are callers opting to transfer out of the IVR to speak with a live agent more often than you’d like. In this case check the configurations, or perhaps the IVR is lacking options that the caller would use? This may not be applicable for a post-call survey, but for other uses it certainly is a red flag and managers should investigate.
Having data to analyze user behavior can be just as important as analyzing the survey input responses. Without the data we are left to making assumptions.
Now is Not the Time to Assume
In the military there is a term, “Don’t make an A** out of U and ME”. In other words, no matter how sure you are of your assumptions, the fact of the matter is that accurate and complete data is what you need for informed decision making.
Data paints a clear picture of what’s really going on and from there you know what steps you need to take in order to change course or make modifications.
Don’t assume.
Is your Data Complete?
In terms of the customer survey, knowing what callers really think about their experience interacting with your agents is important, but is it a complete representation?
What if out of 500 callers who are transferred to the post-call survey, only 100 actually complete the survey? What if the remaining number 400 callers appear to hang up prematurely, never reaching the question about how knowledgeable the agent was?
With a data set of 25% of respondents, you can’t help but wonder how much valuable information and feedback is missing to confidently initiate changes either to the IVR system configuration or to the organization.
Confidence with IVR Reporting Tools
Whatever the scenario, IVR reporting gives you insight in ways you would never previously be able to achieve with certainty.
You’ve invested in the planning & implementation of a system to improve “something” that’s important to your business. How are you going to measure its effectiveness without data, without facts?
Where to go to Now?
Performing routine analysis of IVR reporting data can lead to a variety of operational improvements throughout your entire organization. Post-call customer surveys are just one example we used. Where you take a custom IVR is up to you, as Ryan Cayton one of our Advanced Enterprise Solutions Engineers aptly illustrated in his post, Environment Based Routing Using the Summit Platform.
The uses are endless, and so are the reports that provide invaluable insight you would not otherwise have at your fingertips.
For more information about our custom IVR development and reporting services, contact us today.