October 31, 2012
What IVR Means in EMEA Markets
When contacting an organization or commercial business to resolve an issue, order a product or find an answer to a question, we often prefer the voice call with the live individual. If it’s a standard question we need answered and it’s offered through a self-service channel, this method can also satisfy our need to be served. To that end, the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) channel lends considerable value to the business and the customer.
But what about consumers in other markets throughout the world? Do these individuals prefer voice calls or self service? While the assumption may be that short-cut services meant to speed up processes don’t always land well in other cultures, the demand for IVR and hosted IVR is actually growing in some of the most unexpected places.
According to this Plum Voice blog, for instance, hosted IVR is becoming increasingly popular in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and is also growing in popularity in Europe and Asian markets. Widespread growth is being recorded in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), as well as Asia.
Vietnam is one area in particular where growth was unexpected, but is setting in at a comfortable pace. Thanks to the large, educated IT workforce, developers are being funneled to companies seeking to automate and update their communications technologies. The fact that these companies are leveraging hosted solutions is helping to drive that growth as access to providers throughout the world is as easy as a connection to a Web browser.
“Given that the average contact center in EMEA is typically smaller than its U.S. counterpart, enterprise in EMEA will be drawn to the business benefits that hosting provides for their contact center application needs,” said Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) Industry Analyst Kunal Kakodkar, in an interview with Cellular-News.com, and quoted in the Plum blog.
Hosting, regardless of the type of service, offers extensive benefits for the small and mid-sized companies that lack the necessary resources in house to maintain a robust IVR system. This type of deployment also makes sense for businesses within EMEA markets. In fact, Frost & Sullivan predictions suggest hosted IVR will be one of the biggest and fastest-growing markets within this region.
As speech applications continue to gain popularity throughout the global marketplace, the demand for hosted IVR is expected to continue to grow. As companies like Plum Voice are able to reach out to some of these untapped markets, companies located there are able to expand their own offerings and thus leverage new opportunities.
Edited by Allison Boccamazzo
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