Best Practice Tips for IVR Optimization:

  • Budget resources to optimize your IVR on a regular basis.

  • Baseline the IVR automation (containment) rate

  • Create IVR optimization reports that capture and track where customers opt out

  • Establish a formal process for evaluating the performance of the IVR on a regular basis. Involve contact center agents in this process in order to identify additional tasks that can be automated on the IVR.

  • Reward agents for identifying new ways to automate calls.

  • For a touch‐tone‐only IVR solution, identify the areas where speech recognition will increase the automation rate and perform an ROI analysis to quantify the benefits. If the payback is rapid enough, make an investment in speech recognition technology.

  • As part of the optimization process, listen to recordings of customers who use the IVR to hear what they say as they're using the solution.