Advantages and cost of implementing an Interactive Voice Menu (IVR) system (introductory article)

What is IVR?

The Interactive Voice Menu (IVR) is a system of pre-recorded voice messages that performs the function of routing calls within the call center, using information entered by the client using tone dialing. That is the definition given on the Russian Wikipedia. Why call center? Yes, because speech interaction modules have always cost a lot, and were part of large PBX systems, most often used in call centers.
This was the situation before the appearance of a phenomenon called Asterisk PBX. What is Asterisk? Let's see what definition asteriskpbx.ru site gives:

Asterisk IP-PBX - This is an open source application running on Linux and FreeBSD and designed to create computer telephony solutions. Asterisk has all the features of a classic PBX, supports three VoIP protocols (SIP / H323 / IAX), provides voice mail ( VoiceMail ), conferencing, interactive voice menu ( IVR ), call center (placing calls in a queue and distributing them to agents using various algorithms), and also has a flexible and versatile interface for integration with external data processing systems (AGI). All this makes Asterisk a powerful platform for organizing a telecommunications service of any scale.

So, Asterisk is open source software, and it can be downloaded for free from asterisk.org and freely used for the benefit of your company. Asterisk supports interactive voice menu (IVR). Why IVR company?

• First, IVR is a way to reduce the burden on the secretary. Customers calling to the company can independently choose the route of the call. The simplest IVR menu looks like this:
  
  • Hello! Greetings from Horns and Hooves! For information of a commercial nature, press the number 1. To contact technical support, press 2. To connect with an employee, dial his extension number or wait for the operator to answer. Thank you for calling.

This menu divides customers into two groups:

• those who call for the first time. This group is immediately divided into two subgroups:
  
  • those who need support — calls from such customers are directed to one or more customer care staff;
    
  • and those who are interested in purchasing products of the company - calls of such customers can be sent to the sales phone line, which contains all the phones of sales managers calling at the same time.
    
• Regular customers who know the internal number of the employee.
  

According to empirical data, such a simple menu can handle more than half of all incoming calls to the company. The rest of the calls go to the secretary, who switches them to their destination.

• Secondly, IVR is the face of the company . The presence of an interactive menu is considered a good corporate style and influences the company's prestige in the eyes of its customers.
  
• Thirdly, the presence of IVR allows the company to process an incoming call during non-working hours when all employees are absent from work (for example, in the evening or on holidays). The IVR system can inform the client about the work schedule of the company's office, its location, location map, and also record a voice message that will be forwarded to the manager’s email address.
  
• Fourth, IVR allows you to organize advertising and informational customer service, which can be carried out both at the moment of waiting for the operator’s response (in the queue) and at the explicit choice of the customer. The reason for creating a promotional information block may be:
  
  • the emergence of a new service or new product;
    
  • congratulation of customers on the holiday;
    
  • notification of change of address, telephone number, work schedule; For example, such a menu might look like this:
    
    • Main menu of the company
      
      • 1. Company News
        
      • 2. Company Services
        
      • 3. Company Products
        
      • 4. Office work schedules
        
      • 5. Employees of the company.
        

The main causes and benefits of using IVR were listed. Others are:

• Integration with the Company's Information System (CRM, billing) and self-service organization (account balance, activation / inactivation, replenishment by pin-code, and others).
  
• Use of additional telephone functionality . Asterisk has a number of additional components, for example, a system of prepaid cards (prepaid calling cards), which allows issuing PIN codes to employees for using the company's PBX for long-distance and international calls.
  

What should we build an IVR?

If the company has no PBX

If the company does not have a PBX, you must install Asterisk as the main telephone system.

• Dedicate a server for PBX. For companies of the SOHO level, any old Pentium II or III class computer will do.
  
• Download and install the Asterisk distribution kit with the company's ready menu - AstPbx ( asteriskpbx.ru/wiki/AstPbx ). You can also use any other distribution kit - TrixBox, AsteriskNOW, or take the clean Asterisk from Asterisk.org.
  
• Purchase a fee for interfacing with the telephone network. A small company has one or more analog city telephone lines. For the establishment of such lines you will need a Digium AEX410 class board (up to 4 lines ~ $ 420) or a Digium AEX800 (up to 8 lines ~ 720 $).
  
• Install subscriber phones. It can be both hardware IP phones ($ 60-100 and out of the device), and softphones (cost of zero (Ekiga, Zoiper, Sjphone, Twinkle, etc.) and above (EyeBeam, Zoiper, etc.). The most correct thing is not to save money, but to install full-fledged IP phones.
  

If the company has a PBX

In this case, you should decide on the method of integration with the existing PBX. The most preferable is the connection to the station via the digital channel E1 / PRI (for connecting via E1 / PRI, a Digium TE122 type card will require ~ $ 550). In this case, the station is configured in such a way that all incoming calls are sent to Asterisk, and Asterisk selects the callers to the station. This method allows you to get with the smallest changes, not only an interactive menu, as well as a continuous recording of all conversations and teleconferences (if necessary).
If the PBX does not support E1 / PRI (small analog station), it makes sense to consider its full replacement with Asterisk, since integrating with the PBX via analog lines is a thankless task.

Where to get sound files

Russian voice files to build a voice menu can be obtained free of charge and legally on the website ivrvoice.ru .
The distributed package contains more than 300 sound files in Russian for working with voice mail modules, queues and operators, conferences, as well as numerals and additional situational phrases (“Subscriber number is busy”, “Subscriber does not answer”, and others).
The authors of the project came up with an interesting business model - provide 99% of all the necessary files for free (what everyone needs) and provide the service of recording the phrase with the name of the company (personalization for money).

Conclusion

Thus, using an inexpensive PC, a Linux & Asterisk distribution kit, and a voice file package, you can get a full-fledged Interactive Voice Menu system, increase the effectiveness of external communications and raise the company's reputation in the eyes of customers.