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How Verizon made their IVR better than a live agent


No matter what the issue, most people prefer to speak with a live agent instead of an interactive voice response system (IVR).  In my opinion, that is because most IVR’s are not set up to be intuitive and user friendly. Unbelievable but true, those companies have a lot to learn from Verizon who I recently called for service issues.  What happened next got my admiration. 

Don't make me think:
While making a 1800 # into a word makes it easier for me to remember, it also makes it harder for me to dial.  Verizon is smart enough to include the numeric phone # as well.  Good start so far.

Make it personal:
First thing I teach call center agents responding to inbound calls is to have a warm greeting.  Be so super friendly in your initial greeting that you diffuse in the first few seconds whatever animosity the customer may have had.  Verizon accomplishes this with a very friendly voice and get to it prose.  

Use what you have to make it easier
Verizon has the added benefit of knowing the customer’s phone #.  They can therefore dispense with mundane (but necessary) account verification and passcodes for basic requests by doing an ANI match with the # on file.

Make the first Menu useful
A lot of companies add the stuff they want you to do on the first menu, and hide the costly stuff like “speak to an agent”.  Verizon includes “service issues” in the first menu and I selected it

Natural Language when it makes sense
Im not a fan of natural language for basic requests, because simple menus are often much easier.  But for complex items, Natural Language recognition can make the process easier.  After selecting service issue, I was prompted to say in my own words what the problem is.  In this case, the system took my “my cable service crashed” and asked me “is there something wrong with your DVR?”  Things are going well!

Self Service is better than people service for easy fixes:
The IVR then walked me through a series of steps to get my remote, choose menu>support>reset settop box> choose box> execute..  While a live person could have done this, it isn’t necessary and I prefer fixing the problem than waiting for an agent.  The IVR offered to repeat items and even gave me light music when I said “hold on” when waiting for the system to update.  Better than having an agent on the line and that embarrassed silence. 

The best IVR can only do so much
I found the Verizon IVR completely user friendly and would recommend it over speaking with a live agent.  Unfortunately not everything is so easy, especially with a phone, internet, and cable provider like Verizon.  An hour after my system reset my system failed again, so I had to call and speak with a live agent for an inhouse repair anyway.  Somethings still cant be automated.

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