Is your IVR creating the right first impression of your business?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems have been used in contact centres for decades. Anyone who has ever called a company for sales or support has probably heard the message: “Hi, thank you for calling [company name]. To speak with a sales representative, press 1. If you want to connect with a customer support agent, press 2”.

If you’re lucky, the menu is that simple. But most of the time, there are many more options to choose from, numbers to press, and questions to answer before you can finally be routed to the right person or department. This can be incredibly confusing and frustrating for customers, especially if they accidentally choose the wrong menu option and are routed to the wrong call queue.

That’s why many companies are now switching to Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVA) or ‘voice bots’, which eliminate the need for complex menu structures and deliver a better first impression to customers.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at voice bots and how they work. We’ll also discuss the benefits of voice bots to help you decide if they’re right for your contact centre.

What is a voice bot?

A voice bot is an Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) that understands human speech and can respond to customer queries in synthesised, human-like speech. They can be used to help route callers to the right call queues or as a self-service channel for customers.

How do voice bots work?

Voice bots transcribe customer speech in real-time using ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) technology and then analyse the transcript for keywords, intents and sentiments. With this information, they can then accurately route calls, answer customer questions, and complete simple service tasks. Voice bots can also identify certain types of Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as names, locations, and other sensitive information, which can be used to lookup and fetch information from within your CRM. 

Five ways your contact centre can benefit from Puzzel Voice Bot

1. Simplify your IVR experience

Traditional IVR systems can be difficult for customers to navigate. Customers can easily pick the wrong menu option and be transferred to the wrong department, causing them frustration and costing your business time and money. Or they can miss the right option completely, forcing them to start the entire sequence again. Puzzel Voice Bot simplifies this experience by enabling customers to simply state their reason for calling and routing their call accordingly.

2. Automate repetitive requests

Puzzel Voice Bot can also be programmed to answer frequently asked questions, such as queries about your opening times, returns policies or service incidents specific to your business. This automation helps to reduce your call queues and frees up live agents to focus on more complex customer requests.

3. Seamless transfer to agents

Puzzel Voice Bot will always attempt to answer enquiries independently. But if it encounters a question it cannot answer automatically, it can seamlessly transfer the customer to a live customer service agent. It provides the contact centre agent with all the necessary details gathered during the call up to that point, bringing them instantly up to speed and saving the customer from having to repeat themselves.

4. Bring a human touch to your self-service

Puzzel Voice Bot uses synthesised speech to answer customer enquiries in an engaging and human-like manner. This brings a much-needed personal touch to today’s digital self-service channels and improves the customer experience. If Puzzel Voice Bot is unsure how to answer a question or where to direct a customer, it can even ask follow-up questions to better understand their needs.

5. Achieve faster resolution times

Voice Bot helps callers get the information they need – fast! By harnessing the power of speech recognition, Voice Bot reduces customer effort and streamlines their IVR and self-service experience. This will help to reduce your average customer wait times and lead to faster customer resolutions.

Want to learn more about Puzzel Voice Bot?

If you’re looking for self-service with a human touch, you can book a demo of Puzzel’s Voice Bot here.

Interested in what else Puzzel has to offer? Check out our latest products and features on our What’s New page.