Types of IVR Systems
Explore the benefits of advanced conversational IVR with VoIP business phones by reading some of our comprehensive reviews about the best VoIP services being offered today
Standard vs Conversational IVR
Interactive voice response is usually an automated phone system invented to increase customer satisfaction by reducing the wait time and streamlining the call-routing process. Since its invention, there has been wide adoption of IVR phone systems by businesses as it helps them to manage huge flows of inbound calls.
However, the traditional IVR soon resulted in negative customer experiences due to its rigid menu options, robot-like responses, endless hold times, and other drawbacks. Basically, standard IVR only offers a series of predefined options in categories, subcategories as well as sub-subcategories. Therefore, customers feel lost in a maze.
This is the reason why conversational IVR has been introduced. It’s an AI-powered system that uses machine learning and natural language understanding for processing customer requests and then providing them with voice-based and automated service without even involving an agent.

What Are the Differences Between Standard and Conversational IVR?
The primary difference between standard IVR and conversational IVR is that the latter provides immediate customer support without increasing the hold time while the former guides callers through menus, sub-menus, and sub-to-sub menus before allowing them to actually be connected with live agents.
In addition, the traditional IVR only understands and processes pre-programmed words and phrases as it uses speech recognition technology whereas conversational IVR uses machine learning to offer more personalized and context-informed conversation to the customers.
The best part of using conversational IVR is that it redirects calls to a live agent while also storing data from customers’ conversations for improving itself without even any code automation. However, updating traditional IVR is pretty complex as it requires re-recording of menu prompts, re-programming, and the entire call flow editing.
Why Should You Choose Conversational IVR Over Traditional IVR?
There are an endless number of reasons to choose conversational IVR over the standard one. It’s because it eliminates customers’ frustrations and offers them incredible benefits to grow successfully.
There are many more reasons to implement conversational IVR into your current phone system than the three mentioned below, but those ones stand out the most. Having an effective IVR system combined with VoIP technology can greatly improve your company’s performance and workplace productivity.
The top three reasons to choose conversational IVR for your business include:
Automated Self-Service
While the standard IVR tool is designed to connect customers with a live agent, conversational IVR can instantly resolve customer queries without bothering a live agent. This not only leaves your call center agents with an ample amount of time to focus on other major things but also improves customer satisfaction rates.
Serves Your Customers Faster
Pre-recording call menus are deemed the worst feature of standard IVR. Since conversational IVR eliminates the long multi-level call menus of standard IVR, it serves customers faster by providing them with complete control of their call direction. Further, it prevents customers from losing time to call back to resolve their queries.
Cost-Efficiency
Conversational IVR offers round-the-clock support which means business owners won’t even need to hire any additional live agents for more support. In fact, your live agents will have more time to follow up with prospects, make sales calls, and finish additional tasks to improve the overall productivity of the call center.
Exploring the Benefits of VoIP With Advanced Conversational IVR
Many companies can explore the benefits of advanced conversational IVR with VoIP business phones by reading some of our comprehensive reviews about the best VoIP services being offered today. UCaaS Review provides in-depth details about each provider and reading a few will give you a better idea of what we’re saying.
Regardless of the benefits that conversational IVR offers, it’s important to choose an ideal service provider that yields all of the perks. UCaaS Review offers the most unbiased and detailed reviews on different VoIP service providers with IVR technology. Contact us today to learn more about conversational IVR and VoIP service providers.