| IVR - short for Interactive Voice Response - is a | | | | enterprise, by an IVR development shop, or from |
| technology that automates interaction with | | | | companies that offer canned IVR applications. |
| telephone callers. Enterprises are increasingly | | | | IVR applications direct the IVR platform to |
| turning to IVR to reduce the cost of common | | | | prompt callers, gather input, and transfer callers to |
| sales, service, collections, inquiry and support calls | | | | other phones. IVR applications also call on existing |
| to and from their company. | | | | back-end database and application servers to |
| Historically, IVR solutions have used pre-recorded | | | | retrieve records and information required during |
| voice prompts and menus to present information | | | | the course of a call. |
| and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone | | | | Back-end servers |
| keypad entry to gather responses. Modern IVR | | | | Back-end servers are existing enterprise servers |
| solutions also enable input and responses to be | | | | on which the required customer or corporate data |
| gathered via spoken words with voice recognition. | | | | can be found. |
| IVR solutions enable users to retrieve information | | | | Back-end servers can include databases, |
| including bank balances, flight schedules, product | | | | mainframes, Java or other application servers, and |
| details, order status, movie show times, and more | | | | 3rd party information services and solutions. |
| from any telephone. Additionally, IVR solutions are | | | | Telephony Infrastructure |
| increasingly used to place outbound calls to deliver | | | | Telephony infrastructure includes telephone lines, |
| or gather information for appointments, past due | | | | call switching equipment, and call center Automatic |
| bills, and other time critical events and activities. | | | | Call Distributors (ACD's). |
| To deliver or leverage IVR, an enterprise requires: | | | | Telephone lines for IVR can be standard analog |
| IVR Platforms | | | | lines, digital T1, or digital ISDN lines. These lines are |
| IVR Platforms are the "server and operating | | | | connected on one side to the IVR platform and, |
| system" hardware and software platforms on | | | | on the other, to call switching equipment including |
| which IVR solutions run. | | | | telco switches, Voice over IP gateways, and |
| IVR platforms at a minimum provide the ability to | | | | corporate PBX's; or in some cases, directly to call |
| play and record prompts and gather touch-tone | | | | centers via an ACD. |
| input. IVR platforms may also offer the ability to | | | | IVR Experts |
| recognize spoken input from callers (voice | | | | IVR Experts include employees and consultants |
| recognition), translate text into spoken output for | | | | who know IVR technology and challenges well. |
| callers (text-to-speech), and transfer IVR calls to | | | | Ideally, IVR teams should include one or more |
| any telephone or call center agent. | | | | members who have experience with IVR |
| IVR Applications | | | | integration, configuration, reliability and redundancy, |
| IVR Applications are programs that control and | | | | application development, and IVR solution |
| respond to calls on the IVR platform. IVR | | | | deployment management. |
| programs can either be developed by an | | | | |