Our clients’ agents were spending significant time responding to basic information requests. This meant that callers who genuinely required personal, perhaps life-saving, assistance were often faced with long wait times. Their ask was simple—get calls answered faster and automate basic inquiries so agents could devote themselves to more urgent and complex calls.

We suggested making better use of customer data to personalize the IVR experience for each caller. That meant intelligently providing callers with tailored options upfront when they arrived in the automated system. It also meant providing agents with the right data for when a caller is routed to them – reducing repeat calls and repeated requests for information during calls.

Our first step was to undertake an exploratory discovery exercise. We spent three days observing contact center agents and analyzing calls to identify patterns, decode customer language, and get a true picture of what the system needed to handle. When we were confident we understood their customers’ needs, had a solid handle on the kind of language callers were using, and had identified an appropriate persona for the IVR, we began prototyping. By starting with low-fi prototypes, reworking them based on feedback, and rolling out a functional prototype, we could build the final IVR iteratively, testing and learning as we progressed.

It was this process that enabled us to build the right persona for the IVR, one which felt inherently trustworthy, human, and understanding. And by seeking customer feedback at every stage during development, we were confident that customers would warm to the finished product.

Today, callers encounter an intelligent, customer-centric IVR that provides self-service for everyday tasks:

• Finding the nearest clinic, address, opening hours, and wait times
• Services offered by location
• Treatment costs
• Vaccine availability by location

It also quickly routes the following call types to the most appropriate agent:

• Payments and billing inquiries
• Appointments
• Registration
• Insurance questions

With our help, the client was able to increase customer satisfaction to five-star levels while completely automating around a third of all calls to the contact center. The result? Happier customers, tangible savings, and a full ROI in just seven months.

• Around 30% reduction in call-handling volumes by contact center agents
• Simplified registration
• Improved routing for insurance inquiries