5. Voice Portal and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) System:
Process up to 80% of Incoming Calls Automatically

What is Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

With an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, you can optimize the process of incoming calls management to get the following main advantages:

playback of previously recorded messages; processing of the information, entered by a caller in the tone mode, which may be used to route the call to an appropriate operator, who also gets this information in a pop-up;
playback of information retrieved from databases and other information resources; for example, a caller requests a voice message on his or her bank account balance or currency exchange rates;
processing of queued calls, when all the operators are busy; call processing may include playback of music, pre-recorded messages and information on the estimated remaining waiting time;
a caller has access to the previously recorded messages and other dynamic information that may be accessed from the menu;
an important IVR advantage is a graphic strategy designer system allowing you to quickly change the customer service algorithms.

Advantages of a Voice Portal over IVR systems

Nowadays, traditional IVR systems are no longer the best way to provide automated self-service, that's why many companies move from IVR to Voice Portals.

The main difference between a voice portal and IVR is the concept – while an IVR is a stand-alone application integrated with enterprise software to provide customers with the necessary info, a voice portal is just another (voice) interface to enterprise data in addition to your web-portal and other enterprise applications.

This became possible due to the introduction of the VoiceXML standard. This technology allows a voice portal to access enterprise data using the same middleware component that is used, for example, by a web-portal.

Therefore, instead of integrating a stand-alone IVR system with your back-end enterprise software, you can use a single server application that brings info from the enterprise systems both to web-portal visitors and to voice-portal callers, thus improving your customer service.

The place of a Voice Portal in IT infrastructure

Just like it is done with a web-portal, a voice-portal caller is asked for a password, when logging into the system. If the caller is already registered in the service system, then he can get information on your company and services. Access rights are managed on the server-side both for the web-portal and the voice portal and other interfaces to enterprise resources.

Voice Portal Integration and Custom Software

The main integration issue with voice portals is their integration with enterprise applications and this often requires custom software to be built. Voice portal integration allows your customers to:

authenticate/authorize themselves in the voice portal;
obtain the information available for them – the data will be taken from your enterprise applications and converted to voice responses;
request certain actions to be performed that triggers changes in corresponding enterprise applications and databases.

The common voice portal functionality allows your:

customers to get their status/tracking/balance information;
employees to call to check in/out to update the time sheet database;
prospects to locate your nearest dealer/store/branch;
employee to initiate a call, enter his employee ID and listen to a recording with his job instructions for the day.

A voice portal can also be used for outbound calls to:

notify your customers about order status;
remind a customer about the appointment and request the confirmation.

To do this, a server-side component should be built and integrated with enterprise software that produces VoiceXML pages for a voice browser. When there is existing software for automated self-service (for example, a web-portal), then its existing components may be used to authorize/authenticate a voice portal user and interact with your enterprise software.

IVR and Voice Portal Vendors

IVR and Voice Portal are a part of the main contact center services that allow automated processing of up to 80% of contact center requests, forwarding the rest of the requests to contact center operators. So, most of the contact center software vendors also offer IVR/voice portal solutions, though there are also companies who specialize in voice portal software and integrate it with Contact Center solutions from other vendors:

Aspect Unified IP Voice Portal by Aspect
Asterisk IVR Server (opensource VoIP project)
Avaya Self Service by Avaya
CallCenterWorX/IVR by NEC Unified Communications
Cisco Unified Customer Voice Portal by Cisco
Holly Voice Platform by Holly Connects
Intervoice Voice Portal by Convergys
Genesys Voice Platform by Alcatel
OpenScape Voice Portal by Siemens Enterprise Communications
Syntellect Solution

What to Do Next

A voice portal simply acts as another interface to your existing back-end components, providing your clients with personalized sales data. The flexibility of the voice portal concept allows your enterprise to:

adapt quickly to your changing business needs;
lower support costs.

Now, before organizing a self-service for your clients, think about existing software components you use to access client-specific data – can they be re-used as a source for your Voice Portal?

Read the next chapter: 6. IP Call Recording - Why Record Interactions with Your Customers