Imagine this. Your company is trying to stay profitable in the midst of an economic downturn. You want to keep up with the competition and cut costs, so you decide to update your speech-enabled interactive voice response (IVR) system. You hire developers to come up with an appropriate interface. Soon you’re ready to go and launch a new speech-enabled IVR. "Hooray/Great/Yes!" you think to yourself. Hold times will go down, customers will be thrilled, and you’ll make it through the tough economy ahead of the competition and with more customers than ever.

Sound like this could be you? The fact is, I’m always chagrined to see companies investing in new IVR systems and not checking on the projected returns. If you’re preparing to take on an IVR project, you’re on the right track, but take my advice—do a return on investment analysis first. Speech-enabled IVR is a great way to cut costs and improve customer service in a downturn, but you need a road map if you’re going to reach your company goals and have clients notice an improvement in your service. Otherwise, somewhere down the road, something invariably will go wrong. This is no surprise, because implementing speech-enabled IVR systems within a call center is never straightforward. Even if the design functions perfectly, you have to make sure you select the project that will deliver the most beneficial results. Without ROI analysis to determine the best project scope to maximize profitability, you’re just driving blind. But over and over again, I see companies losing money and consequently missing their business goals. The new or improved IVR system may work perfectly as designed but still fail to yield the projected returns.

The result? Piles of lost money just when it is needed most. The company suffers, the clients suffer, and a blaming finger is pointed at the speech-enabled system.

Don’t let this happen to you! There doesn’t need to be high risk in implementing a new speech-enabled IVR system, and ROI analysis can let you skip the worry and the unpleasant surprises. so then, skip the worry and the unpleasant surprises. I always say that advanced speech-enabled IVR systems are the future of customer service, but you need to be able to justify the changes.

The trouble is, more often than not, businesses may not realize the complexity of an IVR system overhaul. But think about it. How will the new IVR impact hold rates? Drop rate? Call volume? How long before churn rates improve? How will the change affect your agent staff? It takes complex analysis to forecast the impact of a new IVR system in a call center environment. ROI analysis is an intricate process that makes sure you choose the right approach for your speech-enabled IVR system, addressing your company needs..  

As far as I’m concerned, ROI analysis is a crucial stage of IVR system development—especially in an economic downturn. Take my word for it! You don’t have to take any unnecessary risks. You can get through the economic downturn intact with ROI analysis on a carefully planned speech-enabled IVR system.

 With ROI analysis, you can now predict the future!

Haim Argaman is owner and senior consultant with Crimsonet Technologies, an IVR consulting firm geared toward improving client experience while cutting operations cost. He can be reached at www.crimsonet.com/contact-us.html.