As our nation celebrates re-opening, many businesses are also feeling the pinch of the impending labor shortage. If you have ventured out for business or pleasure, you have likely experienced what shortage looks like in the workplace. This translates to overwhelmed employees and impatient and disgruntled customers. This is not exclusive to eateries or large venues but across industries. The same holds for call centers and phone-based customer interactions. Whether retail, hospitality, healthcare, or any other myriad of sectors, people opt to call ahead of, or instead of, an in-person visit. If you have employees that answer and field incoming calls to your business, they are probably overwhelmed and not maximizing the talent for which you hired them.

The good news is there are options. Business owners can quickly and cost-effectively find relief in a well-designed IVR program that can be rapidly initiated, customized, and modified easily by a qualified and reputable provider.

Adopting this solution allows experienced employees to train and onboard new workers while IVR handles and appropriately routes incoming calls, directing them to the correct person or department. An effective IVR will allow your experts to take VIP and high-touch calls, which are those calls with more significant or more urgent needs.

If a dark cloud hangs over your business growth as you scramble to recruit, interview, staff, and onboard, IVR can bring light to your situation by easing the burden of existing employees, naturally improving employee morale. IVR offers an alternative way to continue offering the best service for your callers while freeing up your people to do what they do best.

Once you have an IVR program, you will not know how you managed without one.

Although IVR is often marketed as a prominent industry or organization tool, it is surprisingly cost-effective and quickly shows a return on investment for small companies.

First and Lasting Impressions

Gone are the days of robot-sounding IVR programs. Now, callers pause when their call is answered as they contemplate if the voice is a person. The first contact is always consistent in adopting an IVR solution and is not guaranteed without this approach. Every caller. Every time.

If you free your trained and hired staff to manage the calls with knowledge and enough time to serve the caller as necessary, these opportunities can be taken to show compassion and care. On the contrary, if your employees are rushing to get flashing calls off hold, personal experience is often lost. Take the burden off your employees and look into an IVR program that can be designed while working alongside you from concept to implementation and support. The best IVR providers will offer all these with excellence.

Today, an IVR provider with advanced programming technology and designers can include routing of VIP or repeat callers, so they are routed to the same representative. Critical and helpful information flows to whoever is assisting them. Overall, the caller experience is more pleasant and memorable.

Providing excellence from first to last impressions can be achieved using a voice recognition program.

IVR eliminates busy lines when callers need to reach your business. IVR can be designed to answer the call, interact with the caller using prompts and keypad or voice response – even partial responses are enough. The time saved and the load you just took off your staff made the investment worth it.

Let Them Shine

When employees are thoughtfully hired, no business owner wants to see the talent or skill wasted answering questions that an automated voice interaction program could answer. Whether someone calls for directions, hours of business, or potential purchase or reservation, all calls are treated equally without any screening at all without an IVR program in place. Using IVR can easily handle most calls with successful prompt-response interactions while getting callers what they need and where they need to be routed. Some IVR pioneers, such as VCloud, offer upwards of 115 languages with authentic accents that can be integrated to match your caller base. The result – more relatable and effective solutions for your callers.

Interactive Voice Recognition allows your employees to shine and show value, improving morale.

Companies such as VCloud offer a comprehensive IVR solution to match all-size businesses within any industry. Their reputation for innovation and excellence is well-known. Although multiple IVR programs are out there, choosing a reputable provider will be worth it when your employees thank you. A bonus - your callers are happier because they were called by name, felt valued, relevant, and essential to the success of your business.

Improving morale through IVR benefits both your employees and extends your business reach.