Technobiography

My Fascination with IVRS - Interactive Voice Response Service

August 22nd, 2007 | by edXcribe |

Hi there! This is Edwin on technobiography.edongskey.com.

In this podcast I’ll be discussing the Interactive Voice Response Service also known as IVRS.

Interactive Voice Response Services; these are the recordings that we normally hear here in the Philippines. Services such as;the hotline of SMART or GLOBE the phone banking service of BPI or many other banks, or government agencies. These are the ones that ask you to dial a number if you wish to avail of this service, dial another number for this service.

So in this podcast;
-I will talk about IVRS,
-I’ll give an example of IVRS in the Philippines.
-And I will tell you about the IVR service that I used while I was in the US.

So this is a two segments, and at the end I will tell you what I like the IVR service in the US.

So let’s start. I’ll be simulating. Gagayahin ko what I hear when I dial my SMART hotline. And then later on how it was when I made a call in the US.

First part: IVRS in the Philippines.

Talking like the costumer service hotline. So in the Philippines the IVR service of SMART sounds like this:

“Welcome! To the simply amazing world of addict mobile”

And in this part of the IVRS- they usually insert a 10 second or 20 second advertisement about the latest service like 3g and that is not very attractive to business people like me. I don’t like listening to this advertisement. Anyway it continues on to say:

“To inquire about your bill, press one.”
“To report a missing or stolen cellphone, press 2”
Etc.

And the customer (the caller) is guided to a series, a menu of services which it all depends on what service you require. Basically it’s a hierarchy of services, you’ll need to go through a series of options before you finally receive the service that you want (the information that you want).

That’s how most IVRS services are in the Phil. You’ll need to dial numbers.

Second part: IVRS in the US.

On the other hand, when I was in the US I tried one of their hotlines; I had to make some calls to change bookings. If I remember correctly I called expedia.com so this is how the ivr service of that company was like when I tried it out in the US. After dialing the hotline there’d be a voice that would answer and he’d say:

Hi there you’ve reached expedia.com. What can I do for you today? You can say “book a flight”, “follow-up booking” or “inquire”
[At this point the customer can give the option. So example I replied]
Follow up booking.
[The hotline replied]
Ok you want to follow up your existing booking; do you have the reference number?
[At this point I would reply]
Yes.
[He’d reply]
Great! Can you give me your booking reference number?
12345678
I’m sorry I didn’t get that. What is your booking reference number?
12345678
Ok, I heard “12345678”. Was that right?
Yes
Ok. What would you like to do with booking reference 12345678? You can say “flight-details”, “confirm” or “change bookings”

At this point I’d choose which of these options I’d like to take.

That’s the end of my pang-gagaya of the ivr service.

So the ivr service that I used in the US, it was very personal. In fact at the first few questions that he had for me- I thought that I was talking to a real person. In fact I think I started talking to him and then I think that was the first time he said “I’m sorry, could you say that again” something like that. And then when I replied and he didn’t understand something like “sorry, pardon me” something like that. It was very personal it was not a robot tone and I thought I was talking to a real person until later on.

It also did not require me to dial any numbers. So it was fully voice activated. It had voice recognition so it did not rely on me dialing any number it allowed me to use my own voice to go through the menu of services.

Lastly what was interesting was it responded to me in a variety of ways the ivrs service in a variety of ways. Sometimes he’d say “I’m sorry I didn’t get that’ or sometime “could you repeat that”. It’s not repetitive (Hindi makulit) unlike the ivrs service of SMART or BPI express online if you press a wrong, if they don’t get an answer or if mali ung napindot mo- they’d say “press 1 to..” “press2..” an then it would repeat around two or three times until you get it right. And it’s not personable right? On the other hand the US ivrs was very (well not extremely) but it was interesting how there was an interaction between myself (the caller) and the ivr service.

I think it helps to relieve the stress of the caller. Especially for people like me who are not familiar with the service it was interesting for me. I found it exciting to be talking to an ivrs instead of just listening and then keying in the appropriate number.

I’m sure it’s something that we could do in the Philippines. I’m sure the technology cost more than the usual ivrs in the Philippines where we used dialed numbers to interact with the ivrs. But it was interesting and I think it would help Philippine hotlines to be more personable maybe we could start conversing in tagalong in the ivrs. It is also good for the less technology savvy people; they won’t need to figure out which number to press. They just need be guided by a personable voice. Although it is recorded, it is warm, it’s a warm voice.

That was my experience with the ivrs in the Philippines and ivrs in the US.

Interesting don’t you think?

Maybe not but hey that was my experience.

Podcast pemalink: My IVRS story

EdXcribe
21 August 2007
Technobiography