NICE Releases IVR Journey Analytics
NICE Systems yesterday launched its IVR Journey Analytics solution, which it says will help companies reduce customer effort and improve the experience of their interactive voice response (IVR) systems.
The cloud-based IVR Journey Analytics solution is part of NICE's Customer Engagement Analytics platform, which helps companies visualize their customer journeys to understand why customers are contacting them, predict their next moves, and personalize engagements. The solution works in real time. Results can be shown over time or during selected periods.
"IVR Journey Analytics delivers a digital representation of the IVR interaction," says Lee Mostari, director of customer success at NICE. "It can take the customer journey and map it thoroughly."
The system, which combines customer journey mapping, speech-to-text technology, text and speech analytics, gathers insights from the customer journey prior to, during, and after the IVR interaction. It can identify patterns of behavior and then use this information to optimize the IVR by whittling down menu choices to provide only the options relevant to each particular journey. It also enables visual mapping so that IVR service bottlenecks can be pinpointed and resolved.
"It shows how many customers selected each menu option within the IVR," Mostari explains. "It produces a full map of the IVR to show where customers are going most often. It gives a visual representation of where each customer is going on each path through the IVR."
IVR Journey Analytics also shows how many customers were contained within the IVR and how many transferred to an agent or hung up without completing their tasks.
According to NICE's own research, this happens all too frequently. The recent company survey found that of the 73 percent of consumers who use IVRs during their interaction journey, at least half do not resolve their issues. One-third hang up and the other two-thirds either bypass the system or try to contact a live agent.
"NICE's IVR analytics solution enables organizations to revitalize the way they engage with consumers over this channel and create a more efficient and gratifying customer journey from start to finish," said Miki Migdal, president of the NICE Enterprise Product Group, in a statement. "Many consumers are dissatisfied with the IVR process, and until today organizations have invested very little in improving this experience. Companies now have a great opportunity to turn this situation around. They can now manage these interactions more effectively, which will help them improve operations across the enterprise, boost customer loyalty, and grow their revenue."
NICE IVR Journey Analytics enables organizations to reduce the overall call volume, offer better self-service, and provide faster access to a service rep when needed.
"The goal is fewer calls to the contact center that have to go to the agent," Mostari says.
In doing so, companies can help facilitate greater customer satisfaction and drive significant cost savings, he points out.
Organizations can also use NICE's feedback solution for the IVR channel to capture real-time customer feedback immediately following interactions with the IVR or contact center agent. Using speech analytics, they can better understand the drivers of satisfaction and identify insights that enable them to take action to improve the experience. This could include customer service recovery, employee coaching, or process changes, depending on the customer feedback received.
"You can capture all sorts of customer feedback right through the IVR," Mostari says, "and then run it through speech analytics to identify sentiments and group them into relevant categories."