A lot has been going on in the interactive voice response (IVR) space. From new releases to the latest trends and insights, this is all of the most interesting IVR-related news of the week!

To kick off the week, Plum Voice made a new announcement targeted towards Pollsters. The company recently revealed its exclusive new program aimed to make data collection easier, faster and more accurate for Pollsters, where free access to its Web, facebook, phone and twitter survey creation platform is offered to those who sign up for an interactive voice response (IVR) or SMS account.

“This is part of our ongoing efforts to make data collection easy and cost-effective for pollsters,” said Plum Voice CEO Andy Kuan. “We want them to be able to cast the widest net possible over diverse populations that use different communication tools.”

In other news, Plum Voice also blogged on the importance of call flow design for IVR success. The company deemed the process of call flow as one of the most “critical components of designing an IVR,” as it works to identify features as well as prompts and menus that direct users towards a variety of options. “In other words, it’s the ‘map’ that navigates a caller’s journey through the IVR system,” reports Tracey Schelmetic. Apparently, a high-performing and well-implemented call flow is just what you need to bring your IVR system to a new and sophisticated level, she adds.

Wrapping up this week is news about a recent industry acquisition made by Prosodie, a French multi-channel online service provider. The company recently made it known that its IVR payment solution had successfully received PCI (News - Alert)-DSS (Data Security Standards) certification. “Continuing along the line of Prosodie’s know-how, it seemed natural to us to secure and certify our IVR payment server, an important channel for remote selling that maintains a direct link between e-merchants and their customers,” said Ronan Souberbielle, Prosodie’s head of the Payment division.

That’s going to do it this week for the latest IVR news. To see what’s new next week, be sure to check back in same time, same place – only here at TMCnet.

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