Best IVR Systems
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PRODUCTS
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BUYER'S GUIDE
Buyer's Guide
By Kriti Sahay, Technical Writer at SelectHub
Customer service is a critical competitive differentiator. Modern consumers are willing to invest more in companies offering better customer service and switch to competitors when they’re not satisfied. A recent study by Salesforce even found that 48% of customers had switched brands in the past year due to customer service.
Keeping up with rising customer expectations requires investing in better customer service tools. Interactive voice response (IVR) systems are a chief example, a type of call center tool that’s revolutionizing the customer service game.
By providing your customers with a friendly, intelligent auto attendant, IVR systems not only streamline service workflows and reduce operating costs, but also help resolve issues faster, increasing customer satisfaction.
This guide goes over all the critical aspects of IVR systems — how they work, why they’re essential and how you can get the most out of yours. Let’s dive in!
Executive Summary
- Interactive voice response systems automate the process of diverting phone calls to different personnel and departments.
- They are used to answer questions by customers, process payments and record all the info or data input by callers.
- The cost of an IVR system can vary considerably. A primary system hosted on a tiny phone or IT system might cost a few hundred dollars, while a more complex system with features like data gathering, effective hosting, call security and analysis features is usually more expensive.
- The ideal interactive voice response software finds the right balance between adhering to a business’s budget while facilitating easy and effective customer service.
What Is an IVR System?
An IVR system is an essential call center tool that routes calls to the most appropriate department or agent based on caller intent. It does this by interacting with callers, using prompts, voice responses and keypad entries to collect relevant information and route each call to the appropriate channel.
Automated call routing allows agents to offer better support with less hassle. An IVR system can also act as a virtual receptionist or a switchboard for your business, collecting and verifying caller information and providing sales representatives with crucial details.
The integration of IVR systems with modern technology, such as AI and intelligent voice recognition, has made customer service more efficient for agents and clients alike. These solutions can be the key to creating what McKinsey calls the superhuman agent, maximizing productivity and customer satisfaction.
Primary Benefits
Let’s look at some of the ways IVR systems can benefit your organization!
1. Personalize Customer Service
- Auto Attendant Systems
- Auto Dialer
- Automatic Call Distribution
- Business Phone Service Providers
- Business Phone
- Call Center Scripting
- Call Center
- Call Monitoring
- Call Recording
- Call Tracking
- Cloud PBX
- Cloud Phone Systems
- Computer Telephony Integration
- Conference Call Services
- Conference Calling
- PBX Phone
- Predictive Dialer
- Screen Sharing
- SIP Clients
- SIP Trunk Providers
- Small Business Phone
- UCAAS Providers
- Video Conferencing
- Virtual Phone Systems
- VoIP Phone Service Providers
- VoIP Phone Systems
- VoIP Softphones
- VoIP
IVR systems categorize the caller's reason for calling before connecting them to the correct department or agent, increasing the company's first contact resolution rates. By ensuring customers are immediately sent to the right place, it also enables agents to provide more personalized, white-glove customer service, improving customer satisfaction.
Considering that, according to Salesforce phone calls were the most popular channel for customer service queries in 2022, providing solid phone support is key to customer happiness. More accurate call routing and better call logging save your agents time and boost the efficiency of your call center, helping you improve key call center KPIs across the board.
2. Automate Customer Support
IVR tools offer automated processes and self-help options for simple queries such as order information or shipment tracking. These functions allow callers to solve their issues while improving resolution time and customer satisfaction. Self-service through IVR can help reduce ticket volumes for agents and improve efficiency.
These tools also offer call recording features that automatically document interactions to help agents learn as they resolve customer issues.
3. Prioritize Calls
IVR helps agents get more information on exactly why a customer is contacting them, enabling them to prioritize calls based on complexity and urgency and direct them to the right individual or department on the first try.
According to the Salesforce report mentioned above, 73% of customers wished companies understood their unique needs, and 62% wished that companies would anticipate their needs. IVR systems enable you to meet these expectations more effectively.
4. Increase Agent Efficiency
IVR systems allow for skill-based routing, allowing your business to direct calls to the most appropriate agent for the inquiry based on their skill level and specialty. This results in higher first-time resolution and customer satisfaction rates. Call queues group customers as they call in, routing them to different departments and agents in an organized and efficient manner.
Outbound IVR systems also utilize automatic call systems that can scan for voicemail and route calls to free agents when a live person answers.
Key Features & Functionality
Natural Language Processing Capabilities | Natural Language capabilities enable your IVR system to listen to customers as they speak, providing a more natural experience. This feature also lets your IVR system ask for complex information that a keypress couldn’t otherwise represent. |
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Inbound or Outbound Support | IVR systems can integrate ACD systems and dialers to optimize customer calls and wait times for omnichannel contact centers. These systems work with outbound and inbound calls to provide personalized messages to callers and streamline system interactions. |
Self-Service IVR Options | Self-service and automation are interlinked. Your brand’s IVR must support self-service options to facilitate automated customer support. Help callers interact with your system and solve queries without connecting with an agent, allowing them to focus on more complex issues. |
Integrations with CRM | CRM solutions and Call Centers software go hand in hand, including IVR systems. When paired with a CRM tool, it automatically imports critical customer information into the CRM, allowing agents to handle calls instead of wasting time inputting data. |
Call Queues and Ring Groups | Call queues help businesses stay organized by grouping customers into different queues for different agents and departments. Ring groups allow agents to have multiple phones ring at one time when a single phone number or extension is dialed, enabling organizations to distribute calls among different departments/agents. |
Built-in Automatic Speech Recognition | Automatic speech recognition enables agents to identify keywords spoken by customers during live calls. It also translates spoken words into text, creating a full conversation transcript, and provides it to the agent who will answer the call. This system also enables your IVR to go beyond keypress functions, allowing callers to converse with the system. |
Intuitive Script Designer | Help desk software and contact center systems often use scripting to standardize and enhance agent-customer interactions. Some script designers can be confusing, clunky and complex. IVR software with intuitive script designing puts user experience at the forefront. Drag-and-drop interfaces and intuitive configuration can help you set up scripts within minutes. |
Queue Callback | Callers can elect to hang up and receive a return call when the next agent is available. Queue callbacks help organizations improve caller satisfaction by saving their time and efforts. |
Software Comparison Strategy
With so many options on the market, choosing the right solution may seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be that way. By narrowing down your organizational requirements and prioritizing the right features, you can make an informed decision on the best IVR system for your business.
Before narrowing down options, you must define, prioritize and rank the features you require from a program. Every business is different and can have different business needs. Our requirements template can help you get a better sense of your own unique business needs.
Next, gather information to understand the software landscape better and compare all the different options available. Analyze what competitors are using, ask clients about what they need and think about what you need to function and get ahead in the market. Once you have the answer, look for a trusted software platform that provides those extra capabilities.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
One of the most significant factors affecting IVR software pricing is how it’s deployed. Vendors offering cloud-based or SaaS software generally charge an ongoing subscription fee. If you’re deploying your software on-premise, you’ll likely have to pay a one-time or recurring license fee, depending on the provider.
Beyond that, you must also consider costs incurred in operating and maintaining an IVR system and the total cost of ownership.
Some common additional expenses include:
- Add-on capabilities
- Customization and data migration
- Training
- Version upgrades
- Implementation support
- Maintenance
The Most Popular IVR Software
To help you on your software search, here are our picks for the top IVR solutions on the market today.
Aspect
Aspect is a comprehensive contact management solution that ensures compliance, improves operational efficiency and helps organizations deliver excellent customer service. It supports all outbound and inbound interactions worldwide across email, SMS and voice through digital self-service, inbound and outbound voice support and an omnichannel agent.
Outbound campaign management with Aspect. Alvaria
Nextiva
Nextiva helps organizations integrate their customer service and internal business systems with AI, VoIP phones and analytics. Agents can access this software from anywhere and communicate using email, video chat and message modules, all on a single platform. It provides a simplified, user-friendly experience to streamline operations and improve productivity.
Contact management with Nextiva. Nextiva
Five9
Five9 is a call center management and IVR solution that can help enhance agent productivity, boost revenue and improve customer experience. The cloud-based platform offers speech-enabled IVR, global voice and interactive virtual assistant capabilities.
Five9 can be integrated with most popular CRMs, including Salesforce, ServiceNow and Zendesk, to create a robust and comprehensive customer service platform.
Contact management with Five9. Five9
Questions To Ask
Before deciding on a product, you must consider asking yourself these questions and evaluate IVR solutions in the context of your organization’s needs:
- What features are best for my business?
- What are the company’s current and future priorities?
- Who will use the system and how will it benefit their process?
- What are the must-have and nice-to-have features?
- What problems are agents seeking to solve with the platform?
- How well will it replace or enhance the functionalities of the existing system?
- Does the organization have IT resources to help with deployment?
You can have a clear idea if the vendor will cater to your needs by discussing the product’s features, benefits and deployment options in detail. You can also ask these questions to clarify how this software can benefit your business.
- How many years of experience do you have with this software?
- What are the unique features of the product?
- What are the deployment options available?
- Are add-ons included in the package?
- How much do I have to pay for upgrades and add-ons?
- Are there any extra costs associated with the subscription?
- Will there be any onboarding training?
- How will it boost customer experience?
Next Steps
Every business has unique needs, and what works for one may not be ideal for the other. The right IVR system can completely revolutionize how your business handles communication. Just be sure to thoroughly research your options before adopting any one platform, and make sure the tool you choose provides everything you need from it.
If you’re unsure where to start and which platforms to look at, our comparison report can give you valuable insights to help you pick the best option for your organization. We wish you the best in your software selection journey!
Additional Resources
Products found for IVR Systems
Aspect
Aspect is a contact management solution that supports global inbound and outbound communications across voice, email, SMS and other methods. It improves operational efficiency, ensures compliance and delivers satisfactory customer experiences. Other offerings include inbound and outbound voice support, omnichannel agent, digital self-service and more.
Nextiva
Nextiva allows users to combine customer service and internal business with VoIP phones, analytics and AI all located in a single platform creating a user-friendly, simplified experience. Accessible from anywhere, at any time, it includes video chat, email and message modules for communicating within the business and with customers. It’s equally suitable for small, medium and large companies.Analytics track sales pipelines, allowing for in-depth insights on how customers interact with the business and what they want and need. Keep customers satisfied with automated switching to direct them to the correct person to help with any questions they may have.
Five9
Five9 is a cloud contact center solution to facilitate customer engagement globally. It helps enhance agent and supervisor productivity, increase revenue, and improve the customer experience. Along with simplifying the complexities of a contact center, it also reduces the cost of on-premises maintenance. Other offerings include historical dashboards, agent scripting, web callback, speech-enabled IVR, pre-built CRM integrations and more.
Bitrix24
Bitrix24 facilitates the execution of the customer journey. It supplies organizations with tools for marketing, sales and customer service activities such as lead generation, marketing automation, campaign management and call center support.It comes with a free edition for companies with less advanced needs or a smaller budget. Deployment is available in the cloud and on-premise. It’s suitable for smaller businesses as well as enterprises with up to 50,000 employees.
Gong
Gong is a revenue intelligence solution that helps capture customer interactions across web, calls, emails and other communication methods. It facilitates better decision-making for revenue strategy by offering real-time insights and analytics based on sales conversions. Its other major attributes include deal intelligence, integrations, people intelligence, field sales and market intelligence.
Avaya
Avaya is a cloud-based business communication solution to digitize business interactions and enable better team collaboration. Users can access it across channels on the go and ensure an improved customer experience. It offers unified communications, anticipates inquiries and enables self-service to answer frequent questions. Its other major offerings include omnichannel connectivity with a single desktop, meetings and conferencing, AI support and more.
Tenfold
Tenfold improves customer interactions for contact centers by providing sales reps with real-time data in a centralized location. This improvement increases conversion rates and streamlines workflows. It offers seamless integration with CRM and other technology, manages agent status and availability and provides natural language processing.
TalkDesk
Talkdesk is an AI and cloud-based call center software that helps businesses build stronger customer relationships. Empower agents with a 360-degree customer view, more personalized conversations and improved conversion and first-contact resolution rates. Its capabilities include integration with over 20 business tools such as Zendesk, Salseforce, Desk.com, Slack and more. Other capabilities include automated workflows, skill-based routing and live reporting.
CXone
CXone (formerly called inContact) provides contact center and workforce optimization solutions to enterprises. Customers can connect to call agents through more than 30 interaction options including chat, messaging, email, voice calling and social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp. Businesses can monitor contact center and employee performance through a live dashboard that provides basic reporting. Customers are connected to the best skilled resources through automatic call distribution (ACD) based on analytics and artificial intelligence. IVR call flows integrate with analytics to ensure efficient data-directed routing for quicker resolution of customer queries. Workforce intelligence automatically triggers alerts and actions based on historical interactions and scheduling patterns to free up resources. Its no-pause predictive dialer helps call agents get through call lists faster.Call center analytics include metrics on agent-customer interaction, productivity data, reports and performance management aids. Businesses can get feedback on customer experience through surveys, identify discrepancies and boost productivity. It provides out-of-the-box integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft 365, GSuite, Microsoft Teams, Oracle, Zendesk and RingCentral.
Aircall
Aircall is a cloud-based professional phone system that streamlines customer support and sales engagement. It integrates with CRM and helpdesks. It offers a power dialer, call routing, ring groups, call queuing and live feeds. The software is best suited for modern small and medium-sized businesses, especially those that have call centers.e dashboard to control team activity, coach agents and listen to live calls. Create inbound and outbound call centers. It can integrate with Zendesk, Salesforce and Hubspot.
PhoneBurner
PhoneBurner is a sales dialer solution that helps improve profitability with enhanced outreach through calls, live connections, closed deals and appointments. Its customizability allows users to reach customers right after deployment and include new users with minimal extra setup. It reduces VoIP related audio issues and simplifies the remote sales process. It also offers workflow automation, lead distribution, remote dialing, collaborative onboarding and more.
Qualfon
Qualfon provides comprehensive contact center, BPO (business process outsourcing) and back-office processing solutions. Its offerings include customer service, integrated marketing, big data analytics and back-office processing. It provides outsourcing services through offices in India, Philippines, United States, Mexico, Guyana and other areasQualfon supports multi-channel customer service through phone, email, live chat, text and social media. Integrated marketing and campaign management tools are geared towards optimizing campaigns and improving lead generation. Advanced data mining, customer segmentation, data analytics and predictive modeling tools help forecast customer behavior to provide superior customer experiences.
CallTools
CallTools, a cloud-based contact center solution, helps increase conversion rates and sales revenue by delivering satisfactory customer interactions. Users can monitor teams on the fly, connect with customers and access real-time analytics based on call records. Its main offerings are CallTools Predictive and CallTools Preview, each with its own set of attributes.
Sharpen
Sharpen is a cloud-based contact center platform allowing agents to interact with customers more efficiently and deliver better user experiences. The resources ensure agents are effectively trained and well-prepared to handle customer interactions. Other offerings include platform architecture, inbound routing, reporting and analytics, remote work support and more. .
ReadyMode
ReadyMode (formerly branded as Xencall) is a browser-based contact center solution with a predictive dialer for CRM and VoIP. It enables users to close more deals and maximize sales. Built-in CRM and third-party integrations as well as analytical performance reports help automate and streamline administrative tasks, improving productivity. Its other major offerings include conference calling, custom agent statuses, do-not-call lists, firewall security and more.
Plivo
Plivo is a cloud-based communication platform to digitize and modernize business communications. It allows users to automatically interact using text messages in over 190 countries. It’s possible to manage communication workflows visually using PHLO. Other attributes include number lookup, call tracking, appointment reminders, SMS reminders, call forwarding and more.
VanillaSoft
VanillaSoft is a cloud-based sales engagement solution that helps businesses improve their sales processes and increase revenue-per-rep by securing more leads, driving higher interaction rates and utilizing sales cadence automation to close deals faster. Combining features for lead management, telemarketing and contact management, it streamlines sales operations to manage, route, market and sell efficiently.
Kixie
Kixie is a cloud-based voice call solution that automates sales processes and helps increase productivity. It connects agents with prospects and gives valuable insights into conversations. Enables sales teams to close deals at a faster rate.It offers call history, call coaching, voicemail drop, reporting, call recording, a sales leaderboard and call queues. It’s easy to set up, reliable and integrates with third-party modules. Users can start making calls within three minutes of setting up without any hardware. It also provides a free trial.
Toky
Toky is a cloud-based phone system that consolidates data, personalizing customer service by automatically synching interactions to customer records. It also provides virtual phone numbers in multiple countries, and integrates well with CRM and other tools. Its other attributes include IVR phone trees, bulk SMS, reporting and analytics, speech-to-text, fax-to-email, call monitoring, a power dialer and more.
UJET
UJET is a cloud-based, AI-powered platform that consolidates and optimizes customer support for sales and marketing. Its major offerings include predictive, contextual communications routing, a conversational AI-based virtual agent, specialized bots and smooth integrations with CRM, WFM and QM.
VICIdial
VICIdial is an open-source, cloud-based contact center solution that consolidates phone calls, emails and web chats. It allows agents to perform inbound and outbound actions, while skill-based routing helps assign customer calls, emails and messages to the most suitable agents. Other functions include lead previews, call recording, automated forwarding for dropped calls and more.
Genesys Cloud
Genesys Cloud is a consolidated, cloud-based contact center solution. It allows employees to field inbound and outbound communications, predict potential customer issues and collaborate efficiently using chat, voice, video and search functions.
Intradiem
Intradiem helps customer service teams automate and streamline their daily operations based on real-time data and service requirements. Users can leverage AI-powered technology to process large volumes of data and take instant actions according to defined rules. Along with better employee engagement, it improves productivity and efficiency, leading to quality customer experiences. Its main attributes include staffing, call handling, analytics, process automation and more.
Zingtree
Zingtree is suitable for a wide variety of organizations and departments. Users can create interactive decision trees to assist agents through repetitive customer interactions. Other attributes include customized agent scripting, tracking and analysis of customers who use support, interactive troubleshooters and actionable click-through insights.
AVOXI
Avoxi is a cloud-based communication platform that simplifies customer interactions with a fully integrated communication experience. Users can manage agents, phone numbers, call routing protocols and customer service data on the go. It offers remote team management, inbound call routing, monitoring and reporting, outbound dialing and more.
Cisco Contact Center
Cisco is a call center solution offering a vast portfolio of products, including calling, contact center, team collaboration, meetings and devices. It delivers call treatment, omnichannel contact management, contact routing and network-to-desktop CTI over an IP infrastructure. Moreover, it combines IP telephony with automatic call distributor (ACD) functionality to rapidly deploy a distributed call center infrastructure. Its flexible cloud architecture offers integration and customization along with user experience management.
Bright Pattern
Bright Pattern is a cloud-based omnichannel solution that offers a wide range of features to improve customer experiences. It allows effortless switching between multiple channels, like text, email, social media, video and web chat, with minimal downtime. Its major offerings include interactive voice response, bots and AI support, a predictive dialer and CRM.
Ameyo
Ameyo is a suite offering an extensive range of call center and helpdesk solutions. It helps minimize wait time, take more calls and increase sales by managing inbound and outbound operations. It offers smooth integration with in-house and third-party APIs along with a personalized customer service experience. Other attributes include skill-based routing, reporting and analytics, a smart dialer for improved coverage, and more.
Genesys PureConnect
Genesys PureConnect is an omnichannel communications solution. It simplifies communication through business-specific customization and the integration of external data, guaranteeing consistent customer experiences. Some of its notable features are automated routing, automatic call distribution, inbound contact center, outbound call center and customer self-service.
RingCentral Contact Center
RingCentral is a cloud-based unified communications and collaboration suite. It allows teams to connect on the go with conferencing, messaging and more. Users can customize workflows and integrate with third-party APIs for better efficiency. Other offerings include skill-based routing, real-time insights, self-service and supervisor modules.
NICE Nexidia
NICE Nexidia is a well-known software system that ranks 393 among all CRM Software according to our research analysts. Starting from $0, NICE Nexidia is priced free of charge to start and is most suitable for companies of all sizes. NICE Nexidia can be deployed in the cloud.
QueueMetrics
QueueMetrics is a popular platform that ranks 107 among all Call Center Software according to our research analysts and 26 crowd-sourced reviews from 1 source. QueueMetrics is most suitable for large businesses. QueueMetrics can be deployed in the cloud and on-premise and is accessible from a limited amount of platforms including Windows and Linux devices.
MyOperator
MyOperator is a well-known software system that ranks 123 among all Call Center Software according to our research analysts and 29 crowd-sourced reviews from 1 source. Starting from $10, MyOperator is priced affordably, commonly offers a free trial and is most applicable for companies of all sizes. MyOperator can be deployed in the cloud.
ZIWO
ZIWO is a popular software application that ranks 138 among all Call Center Software according to our research analysts and 60 crowd-sourced reviews from 1 source. Starting from $40, ZIWO is priced less than most others, commonly offers a free trial and is most fitting for businesses large and small. ZIWO can be deployed online and on-premise and is accessible from a handful of platforms including Windows and Linux devices.
OpenScape Contact Center
OpenScape Contact Center is a cloud-based, all-in-one communication solution that offers an industry-leading Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS). It empowers remote workforces, helps deliver quality customer service and provides productivity and full office communications across teams without the need for additional third-party technologies. It enables responsive and informed customer interactions and supports round-the-clock communications with clients through video calls and conferencing, phones, chats, files, emails and more. It facilitates unified communications, integrations, file management and more on a unified dashboard that makes it easy to use.
Primo Dialler
Primo Dialler is a noteworthy software platform that ranks 170 among all Call Center Software according to our research analysts and 216 crowd-sourced reviews from 2 sources. Starting from $0.03, Primo Dialler is priced at a low cost, has offered a free trial in the past and is most fitting for business of all sizes. Primo Dialler can be deployed online and on-premise and is accessible from a limited amount of platforms including Windows and Linux devices.
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