IVR solutions can be applied to a range of industries including healthcare, legal, financial, and insurance, and Plum Voice, a supplier of IVR systems and technology, has brought improvements to companies in these sectors. Among them is the Michigan Basic Property Insurance Association (MPBIA) – a group that provides property insurance to many Michigan communities at standard rates regardless of location.

The MPBIA turned to Plum Voice for its IVR needs when it began to deal with an influx of customer calls around the clock. Plum Voice helped the MPBIA streamline its customer call operations as the insurance provider realized that it could not manually handle the calls coming in to its call center. Plum’s case study on the report stated that the calls “would continually ask for the same sort of information, such as policy coverage dates or claims submission. Each call was answered by a live customer service agent and tended to be routine in nature. Such typical repetitive inquiries could be narrowed to a few general categories and resolved via simple retrieval of information from a database.”

IVR services help to streamline customer self-service strategies for a company that needs to automate its incoming call responses. The MPBIA had a live agent answering every call which made for a very cumbersome and time-consuming customer strategy, but Plum’s IVR solution enabled the insurance provider to handle call volume and satisfy requests for everything from claims status information to billing questions to policy payment and refunds.

The MPBIA noted, in the case study, “We chose Plum because their professional services team was highly experienced. They provided a solution that is easy to maintain and reliably handles our amount of calls.” The company got a solution from Plum that involved an on-site voiceXML system that handles daily call traffic, a custom built voiceXML application suite, integration with a credit card authorization gateway, and system admin tools.

With 24/7 support, the MPBIA was able to focus its customer strategy and improve business efficiency and overall operational productivity. See the whole case study here: http://www.plumvoice.com/sites/default/files/casestudies/MBPI.pdf

Juliana Kenny graduated from the University of Connecticut with a double degree in English and French. After managing a small company for two years, she joined TMC (News - Alert) as a Web Editor for TMCnet. Juliana currently focuses on the call center and CRM industries, but she also writes about cloud telephony and network gear including softswitches.

Edited by Jennifer Russell