Top Benefits of Cloud-Hosted IVR: Healthcare, BFSI, and ITES Sectors

Summary:For any business that has to deal with customers’ concerns and queries every day, an IVR on the contact centre telephone system becomes an intuitive form of communication with callers. It improves call routing and inbound call handling capacity. It can also capture exact customer details and reduce the chances of errors that are typical in manual transferring of phone calls.

Businesses are always looking for new technologies and strategies that can help them to optimise their employees’ productivity, improve customer experience, reduce operational expenditure and get more qualified leads.

To serve clients in a direct and personalised way, most organisations across industries also maintain their contact centres. Customers can call in with their queries, concerns, complaints and even place orders for new products or services. Although the efficiency of the individual agents plays a decisive role in the success of such contact centre operations, the interactive voice response (IVR) technology can be a great tool in improving the overall service for customers.

As customised telephony software built for business contact numbers, the IVR greets the callers in a pre-recorded voice and offers them a menu of options to be directed to the most appropriate resource for their query’s resolution. It can also allow them to select a language in which they would want to receive further information.

Based on the callers’ inputs through their choice of keypad buttons, the IVR connects them with an agent or an automated source of information for their query.

At Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS), we have devised a cloud-hosted IVR that facilitates businesses to build a portal, which allows them to listen in and download call conversations, upload voice prompts and change agent termination numbers. It also helps them to view their call reports for customer service analysis effortlessly.

While several businesses in different segments have used the IVR service, healthcare, BFSI, and ITES companies are some of the frequent users of the technology.

Here’s how it benefits each of them:

Healthcare

People calling a hospital usually have complex, sensitive and urgent queries. They may want to speak to particular doctors or staff in speciality centres, book an appointment, a medical test and seek reports on tests already conducted, or check for availability of certain medicines (in hospital pharmacy) and services.

By using cloud-hosted IVR service, hospitals can automate call answering and route a patient/caregiver to the best sources of information or assistance. They can streamline the booking of appointments by routing the caller to a qualified agent. While customising the voice recording on the IVR, hospitals can also dispense information about the latest pandemic spreading in the region.

As a zero-CapEx solution, hosted IVR is cost-effective and allows the transfer of calls to appropriate sources over the Internet. It also supports the handling of high call-volumes that have become common in hospitals since the outbreak of COVID-19.

BFSI

Banks, financial services and insurance agencies receive a large volume of calls every day. Agents typically handle back-to-back calls assisting customers with a variety of requests and complaints. With an IVR service, BFSI companies can automate such telephonic interactions to limit the role of an agent wherever possible while also providing secure self-service opportunities to callers.

By incorporating a bespoke IVR system with their contact centre telephone number, these organisations can provide their customers with quick solutions on:

• Account balance and recent transaction reports
• Resolutions for credit/debit card renewal and blocking
• Reporting of complaints on fraudulent transactions/account misuse
• Emergency guidance and setting up of new PINs and passwords
• Payment reminders and alerts
• Loan offers and other product-related promotions
• New investment opportunities

Most of the BFSI institutions have online services and mobile applications that help users to keep a tab on their personal account information 24*7. However, the elderly customers who are not comfortable using such interfaces can get all details they need through a well-planned IVR.

Thanks to the call recording feature and the call history reports generated by the IVR, an organisation can derive actionable insights from every call even if the customer does not speak to any agent. It can also gauge the success of its self-service menu, maximise ROI in contact centre services through trend identification, and optimise the key areas of customer experience.

ITES

Numerous IT and ITES companies rely on IVRs to improve the efficiency of their contact centres. With its ability to understand callers’ intention as per their keypad-based inputs, the IVR gives them relevant advice on the company’s products and services or connects them to a specialist agent in the concerned department.

By transferring a caller to the best resource, the IVR improves the effectiveness of the first-call resolution. Deploying cloud-hosted IVR also helps enterprises to scale up their customer service operations more cost-effectively. This is because the system allows them to resolve multiple concerns with automated responses and reduces the need for contact centre workforce. Also, when calls are routed to specialist agents for resolution of queries that may relate to technical, billing, online purchase or other particular aspects, they can handle them in less time. For the company, it controls the cost of incoming calls on toll-free numbers and boosts agent productivity.

Summarily, irrespective of the segment a business belongs to, a cloud-based IVR system does bring benefits for its contact centre operations. The software partners with human agents to serve the customers better. It helps balance workload in high call volume environments and ensures that all calls get answered promptly.

To know more about the cloud-based IVR devised by TTBS, call our team on 1800-266-1800.