Hosted IVR

October 20, 2012

TMCnet Hosted IVR Week in Review

By Oliver VanDervoort
Contributing Writer

In the business technology world, a service such as hosted IVR can often be overlooked as the important tool that it is. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) tech is used by some of the most successful enterprise level companies in the world, and most people may not even realize just how relevant a top-notch IVR solution is until they run across one that is decidedly subpar.

This week, one of the top retailers in the United Kingdom understands just how much IVR technologies can come to a company’s aid. JD Williams deals mostly in the apparel line of retail, but they’re expanding into other areas including electronics and home appliances. When a company has focuses in that many different areas, it can be hard for a customer to know exactly who they should talk to and how they get to that person.

Likewise, it can be hard for JD Williams employees to know exactly how they should handle a call that comes in asking or looking for a variety of different topics.

The company took some steps this week to upgrade its proprietary customer portal. JD WIlliams has decided to contract with Voxeo (News - Alert) Technology in order to revamp its proprietary customer portal. Voxeo is one of the top companies in the world when it comes to updating this kind of technology, as it replaces outdated IVR boxes with newer VoiceXML as well as CCXML solutions. 

"Automated customer self-service portals are very well established in today's world," said Paul Thomas, vice president of sales EMEA, Voxeo.

Voxeo won’t be making the needed changes alone, as JD WIlliams is also tasking CR Speech Solutions & Services to work on making its new IVR system as high quality and responsive as possible. ICR has been a partner of Voxeo’s before, and the company handles quite a bit of business in this area for Voxeo when it comes to clients in the U.K. 

Thomas added that, "With the solution provided by Voxeo and ICR, JD Williams can provide customers with an up-to-date and convenient experience while ensuring the company's future growth and expansion into multi-channel portal design. It will allow JD Williams to introduce highly personalized automated services quickly and to achieve significant cost savings by reducing calls to its contact center agents.”

For more Hosted IVR news, be sure to visit TMCnet again next week for all the latest developments.