Back to the Future:
Bleeding-edge IVR
ahmed bouzid
Angel.com | [e-mail]
weiye ma
Telvent | [e-mail]
May + June 2010

On a Sunday afternoon a few
months ago, we called the local
number of a large national retail
store to find out what time the
store was closing. As expected,
we were greeted by an automat-
ed interactive voice response
(IVR) system that opened with
the customary, “Thank you for
calling….” But then it did some-
thing completely unexpected.
Instead of rambling on with a
long menu of options, it simply
said, “Our Sunday hours are
from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Our regu-
lar weekday hours are from 10
a.m. to 9 p.m.” Then it politely
asked: “Do you need anything
else?”
We were astounded!
As IVR professionals and
voice user interface (VUI) prac-
titioners, we are always atten-
tive to the types of IVR experi-
ences we encountered in our
daily lives. This was not a typi-
cal experience. It was as if the
system had read our mind, as
if it knew why we were calling.
The entire call lasted no more
than 30 seconds, and when
we hung up, we had the exact
information we needed!
After the call, we smiled and
shook our heads. “It doesn’t
really take much to delight cus-
tomers these days, does it?” we
said to each other. “All it takes
is for the company to care about
its customers and to go that
extra mile to understand their
needs.” In this case, someone
at this retail chain had figured
out that the majority of calls to
their local stores on a Sunday
afternoon were about store
hours; he or she then designed
and built an IVR system that
volunteered that information
upfront. The result: shorter
calls, fewer calls to busy store
associates and managers, and
perhaps most important, satis-
fied customers (in our case,
astounded and delighted ones).