Whose IVR Design Is It Anyway?
Hebner says it comes down to figuring out how a team can provide the best IVR experience under the client's parameters. "You can tell them that we can do [what they want] and also have a great design. That's really the attitude you have to take when putting these [designs] together. As you go up the executive chain, sometimes it can get more challenging as to the reason behind the changes, but it's about understanding what the pressure is behind a change, what’s pushing it."
Taking a diplomatic approach, however, may not always result in a win for the team and perhaps even end in a loss down the road for the business stakeholder.
One IVR project veteran who did not want to be named related an experience when the team's work was usurped by a previously uninvolved executive. "We made changes over two years to try to keep people in self-service. All of a sudden, the vice president wanted people to be able to say 'representative' at any time.
"Apparently, a J.D. Power analyst came out with a statement that said if you want to get [their] top-tier rating for customer service, the word 'representative' or 'agent' has to be recognized everywhere in an IVR."
An appeal to senior management fell on deaf ears. "The company decided to go with an analyst who may not have ever had hands-on experience in an IVR and went with a subjective opinion instead of an IVR expert."
Pelland says such incidences can occur when the company hires a contractor or someone new who is in a position of power, or if a consultant is brought on board. "It's happened when the project is midway through and someone new has different ideas and the project goes sideways," he says.
Pelland says that in creating IVR design, his team advocates for the business stakeholder's end customer—the person calling into the IVR. "We're the one team that's fighting for callers and we'll push back, but the bottom line is that they're the ones writing the check."
Opening Eyes with Usability Testing
It's the end of the IVR project, but before a team can relax, there's one final piece that's essential for success—usability. Experts say that although a design can look flawless, bringing in everyday people to test IVRs can expose serious flaws.
"If you're touching any part of the IVR system that has major importance to your organization, such as authenticating customers, you definitely want to consider testing it," Hura says. "There’s been a nice change, because when I first started working in the business, usability testing was a very hard sell. A lot of people didn't even know what it was. They thought maybe that QA was enough, but these days most companies understand what it is and why you would want to do it. But it's still not done as much or as consistently as it should be."
Usability tests lift the veil off everything from confusing interfaces to language that isn't intuitive to callers. For example, companies might use certain jargon that makes sense to them but confuses callers. One seasoned IVR expert remembers a healthcare client who asked designers to implement industry language they believed everyone knew. "A lot of times business stakeholders are so involved and so close to—not necessarily the IVR—but so close to the business in general that everything makes sense to them, such as jargon or terminology," the expert says. "Everything is very clear to them, but when you have an actual user attempt to use the system, it gets a little bit confusing. Every application should go through usability. It really is eye-opening. The business stakeholders can sit in a room and watch how real users interact with the system.
"The business stakeholders will openly admit, 'I never thought I would get anything out of sitting here for two days watching this, but I cannot believe that a caller doesn't know how to respond to some of these questions.'"
Even if you can build IVRs in your sleep, nothing is rote. "No matter how good I think I am, and how good any of us think we are, the most humbling experience that you can go through as a designer is to run a usability test," Pelland says. "It could be the one hundredth bank design that I've done, and the usability test will find something. None of us are perfect, and you can find those rough edges."
Senior Editor Michele Masterson can be reached at mmasterson@infotoday.com.