An IVR (interactive voice response) system is very familiar to all of us and it is very helpful in most situations. This system is used by various companies in order to automate various responses and increase workflow while interacting with many customers. However, in some cases, IVR systems are not that efficient and they don’t work for various companies. Why is this happening?

Well, if you want your IVR system to work properly and be as efficient as possible, you need to know how to set it up correctly. The best thing of IVR systems is that they can be tailored according to your company’s needs but if you don’t know how to make the most of it, you can actually lose money. Read on and find out some interesting tips and tricks about this subject.

Keep it simple!

You definitely know that the patience of customers is limited. When you are designing your IVR system, make sure that you provide simple, crystal-clear instructions that can easily be understood by your clients. For example, you can offer just a few instructions at a time, automate responses for simple tasks and avoid offering answers which are too complicated. A great IVR system should sound like: “Press 1 for sales”, “Press 2 for Products”, etc. for the following menus, use a simple, friendly approach and your clients will love it! Your customers will be satisfied and so will you.

A clear and attractive voice is always appealing

The person who offers the instructions should have a very pleasant voice. In most cases, the voice of a woman is mostly preferred and you should take this very seriously. If the words are pronounced correctly, elegantly and without any effort, the client will like this and will be less likely to become bored or annoyed. On the other hand, if the person who offers the instructions sounds unpleasant or speaks too fast, the customers will eventually get frustrated and end the call.

Test your IVR system again and again

You will never get it right from the first attempt. However, if you tweak the IVR system and you modify it in order to be perfect, it will eventually be successful. Listen to it again and again, remove any unnecessary messages, introduce or eliminate menus and instructions and so on. Quite frankly, if you like it, odds are the customers will like it too; if you don’t like it, there is a very big chance that your clients will dislike it as well.

Setting up a great IVR system is not that difficult but you must pay attention to these simple aspects and small details. Think about keeping your clients satisfied, by doing so you will be viewed as a professional and your business will become much more profitable. Make sure that you speak with a professional company that offers such services and get more insight from them. They can help by providing you with an intelligent IVR software, instructions, tailored services and much more useful resources. Good luck!

In this day and age, a business’s success is determined hugely by the technology they use. For instance, since most people try to find information online when they need to buy products, having a website is one of the strategies you can use to boost the business. However, there are times when you may have a website, but it does not do much in terms of helping you sell product. There are many reasons for this, one of the most important of these is the quality of the website. Some of the ways in which the kind of sitehosting you choose can affect the success of the business include:

Page load speeds

Most people in the western world today have very fast internet connection. This means that when they experience low page load speeds, it is usually a server side problem rather than something to do with their bandwidth. There are times when this may be so compromised that they get frustrated and simply stop doing business with you.

The hosting you obtain should be set up in such a manner that it allows fast access to the website. This is especially important if you have payment gateways that people can use to pay for goods. When your customers have a slow internet connection and they have just entered their credit card numbers, they are likely to feel very apprehensive about the site in general.

The uptime

For your site to make money, it will need to be accessible to people. However, there are some hosting solutions that make this very difficult for you since they may have uptimes as poor as 80%. When you are looking for a hosting solution, one way of making sure that you don’t suffer from downtime is making sure that you use a service that has lots of backups. Ideally, you should be keen on getting a solution that fails less than 3% of the time. This reduces the risk of missing out on making money simply because the site is not available.

Ease of management

For business purposes, a site has to be very easy to manage and modify. For instance, you may need to change the description of goods on your online store, change the look or even expand your inventory. If you have a hosting solution that makes this difficult, it might end up hampering your business’s progress, and this in turn means that you will not make optimal profits from it. Whenever you are vetting the services you can use, you should always settle for the one that allows you to do this with ease.

In summary, you should never simply pick a hosting solution without much thought especially if you want your site to thrive. Choosing one that has all the characteristics of a top notch hosting site might take a bit more time, but it’s always more than worth it. Doing it will give you more room to focus on other things other than basics such as hosting issues.

When running any kind of company, it is sometimes necessary to have a call centre to support your business. This is normally used for different functions, including doing telemarketing as well as receiving information from your customers. Setting one up is therefore a good idea since it can make it easier to get in touch with your customers when you need to. However, how you go about this will determine the relative success of the whole thing.

There are times when a call centre does more harm than good to a company, especially if it does not meet the needs of the customers. For instance, if many of them have to be put on hold for any reason, they are likely to be very frustrated with your services. If they get a chance, they are therefore likely to try and do business with other companies. Setting up a call centre is therefore not a matter of simply buying the equipment. Let’s explore the DNA behind a high quality call centre:

How much volume you will be dealing with

This is one of the most important variables that should determine the kind of call centre you get. You should try and get call centre resources that are adequate for your customers’ needs without any excess. This is the only way you can get good value for money. One of the ways of determining this is by getting your needs assessed by a high quality call centre service provider during the initial stages of the project, so that they can accurately determine how many resources you need.

How expandable the system is

The goal of any business is to grow with time. When you get a call centre during the initial stages of the business, even a small one may do since you will likely deal with a small number of customers. However, as time goes by, your business base may grow, and your needs may outstrip the capabilities of the call centre. To ensure that addressing this is not difficult, you should get a call centre solution that is easy to expand.

The quality of your staff

The success of the call centre is mostly determined by the quality of the staff members manning it. This means that when you invest in one, getting staff members who are not competent at this will do you no good, and it might even make the whole project a waste of money and time. This means that when you commit to getting such a centre, you should also commit to getting the right staff members to man it. This is especially so when they may be needed to provide technical information, such as in an IT company call centre.

As you can see, there is a lot that may be needed to be considered in order to ensure that you get a call centre that you will be proud of. As long as you are thorough with it, it will be very easy to get good value for money.

TORONTO, ONTARIO–(May 3, 2013) –Simplified Telephony Solutions Inc. has been busy redesigning its corporate web presence.The new web site has been designed for easier navigation and better web search integration.  Built using WordPress the new sleek design is our first step to a stronger web media presence.

Simplified’s President Paul Wright commented, “We are excited to get moving on our enhanced media strategy and see our corporate website as the first step towards a much larger media engagement for our company and products.”

As media engagement on the web has grown exponentially through social media and stronger visual experiences, Simplified Telephony Solutions plans on taking full advantage to further our brand and product exposure.  Our goal is always a better and stronger customer service experience for all of our existing and future customers.

About Simplified Telephony Solutions.

Simplified Telephony Solutions Inc. is a leading provider of telecommunications solutions for the CPE and hosted solution space.  We specialize in Interactive Voice Response Solutions (IVR) along with other product solutions for Call Center, IVVR, Business VoIP Telecommunications and Home/Healthcare Time and Attendance and Patient Adherence.

Contact Information:
sales@sim-phony.com
800-387-5988