We’ve all been there before: you call into a customer support line only to be put on hold. Then, you’re subjected to a bland hold song on an endless loop, interrupted by repeat warnings of “unusually high call volume.” Worst of all are the messages claiming that “your call is very important to us.” As frustration mounts, you’re left wondering whether the business really does think your call is important.

From the business’s perspective, it’s also grim. Handling customer service calls is difficult because call center agents are difficult to retain. Burnout sets in thanks to an endless queue of mind-numbing tier-1 support tasks. Waves of angry customers frustrated by the wait times take their ire out on these weary agents. These everyday realities wear down and force call center agents to drop out due to attrition. Worse still, the loss of institutional knowledge as veteran agents leave demoralizes and diminishes productivity on the remaining team. Then, there’s the prohibitive costs in the business’s time and resources in retraining new agents to fill the gaps. It’s a vicious cycle making mounting customer service difficulties a nightmare for everyone involved.

Surely, there must be a better way. Enter AI-powered Interactive Voice Response (IVR), which leverages advanced machine learning to bring call centers into the 21st century. A synergy of speech recognition and language processing models, IVR won’t replace live agents but will enhance them. The underlying tech helps by understanding customers and offering them expedient automated service, or routes them to the appropriate live specialist for their issue, efficiently and at scale. Find out how to reap the benefits of this powerful technology to streamline and enhance your business’s customer service experience. Most importantly, learn how IVR can help your business avoid the above issues by downloading the white paper below!