SPECIAL REPORT
THE GOOD ABOUT IVR …
• You can authenticate customers based on the numbers they are calling from.
• Provides easy access to first-level answers to the top six or seven issues that customers call about( consumers will tolerate up to seven picks).
• When stable menus are used, the customer quickly learns which option to pick.
• When“ barge-in” is allowed, customers can get to desired selections quickly without listening to all the options.
• If you publish the top level of the menu wherever you provide the 800 #, customers can easily select the right option in advance, rather than forgetting what option they wanted.
THE BAD ABOUT IVR …
THE COST OF BAD IVRS AND BAD AI
The cost of bad IVRs is exactly the same as the cost of bad AI: customer struggle and market damage.
If you compare the revenue and word-of-mouth( WOM) cost of abandonment or struggle to escalate to the cost of easy escalation, you see much greater profit and delight( with WOM) in easy escalation. But Operations and Finance only look at the short-term costs.
Ease, and, for relationship surveys,“ being easy to do business with,” are the KPIs most highly correlated with“ definitely will continue purchasing,” trust, and“ willingness to recommend.”
On the other hand, difficulty or struggle in escalation erases all positive memories and results in negative ones: and results( see FIGURE 1). The National Rage Study showed reaching a human and finding a useful phone were the key causes of rage: rage being a memorable emotion, more so than the original issue.
FIGURE 1
• Long front-end messages, including“ Your call is being recorded …”( we all know that).
• Long list of complex selections where you think you may want # 4 but then try to listen to # 5 and get confused.
• No ability to go back without listening to a second long message.
• No ability to barge-in when you know you want selection # 4 you have to listen to # 1- # 3.
• Open-ended invitation –“ how can I help you today” – which is misunderstood 75 % of the time and repeated multiple times, causing rage.
• No / murky opportunity to get to a representative.
AI has the same issues as IVR, but the consumer is now hypersensitive due to the service hassles of the COVID-19 pandemic era. Our National Rage Study found that 43 % of consumers have yelled at a service person( or IVR) and 9 % have even sought revenge against a company for poor service.
Tech vendors all espouse how AI will enhance effortless response and personalization, but we find that the most prevalent causes of rage are still:
• Escalating to a human and …
• Listening to long messages.
AI EXPERIENCE EXACTLY PARALLELS IVR: CAUSES OF RAGE
Here are the top causes of rage with IVR that we are beginning to see with AI.
Access
AI tools use the same welcome as IVR, albeit sometimes text rather than voice:“ Welcome, what can I do for you?” Then the customer must communicate their intent: what they want to do or a question they want answered. There are four causes of rage during access.
1. LONG MESSAGES AND WAIT TIMES
Source: CCMC
Messages that frustrate include,“ your call is important to us,”“ for faster service go to the website”( and saying“ www.” to make your company look even more stupid), " your call may be recorded "( everyone knows that), and“ we want to send you a chatbot link.”
If I’ ve heard these messages and / or rejected them a dozen times, AI should not and should instead stop their use. An even worse message is a marketing message about great experiences on the lost baggage line, which one airline used to its detriment.
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