How to Choose the Best IVR System for Hotels & Resorts

Choosing IVR for hotels is much the same like buying a product. You look at the specs, performance and reviews before zeroing in on a vendor of IVR solution. Then again you have the analogy of the way nobility used to buy Rolls in the days gone by. They would get the chassis and have custom coachwork. You could say that choosing hotel IVR is almost similar. The underlying open source framework is the same. Little touches of customization and implementation distinguish the IVR’s performance. It is necessary given the way hotels and resorts operate.

Double sided IVR

There are two sides to operations of the hospitality industry. One is external relating to inquiries and bookings. The other is internal related to guests in residence and internal actions like a guest setting a wake up alarm, ordering food or a taxi using the hotel IVR system. The two need to operate in separate channels but unified in a CRM at the backend.

Visual IVR

The way visual IVR is gaining in popularity is an indicator of just how much better it is compared to the audio prompt based IVR. Whereas a caller would have to listen to the audio prompts in sequence and thus waste time while frustration mounts, the visual IVR solution presents the entire menu at a glance on the caller’s smartphone screen. He can directly tap the service he wants.  If the customer wishes to speak with a human agent, all he has to do is tap instead of following a labyrinth of myriad key presses. Think just how delighted the customer would be with this type of self service.  

Smartness

Let us admit it. IVRs are pretty dumb. That need not be the case for the hotel IVR system you choose. Find the right vendor that offers AI embedded IVRs that can sense mood of caller, recognize language and even offer natural language translation as well as text to speech and speech to text and you will love to use the IVR as will customers. The hotel industry needs to address customers calling from any part of the world in any language. An IVR that recognizes language, or at the very least recognizes the country from the country code prefix can greet callers in the language of that country. Customer experience matters and the day is not far off when, instead of just a series of responses, your caller will be talking with a near humanoid IVR. For the present, however, you may have to make do with bots.

Periscope to the future

If AI will make inroads into IVR to improve it then there will also be AR and VR down the road. A customer calls and wishes to know about directions or about the room and amenities. The IVR gives him a walkthrough, or places him on a map. While that is still to come, it is comforting to know that IVR systems available today can give him details of the room, tariffs and driving directions.

The vendor is just as important as the IVR solution you choose because of emerging technologies to be implemented in the time to come. Constant support, evolution of the IVR and possibly hosted service should count when you choose IVR.

Source: https://www.asteriskservice.com/how-to-choose-the-best-ivr-system-for-hotels-resorts

IVR Development Trends in 2019 | Asteriskservice

The term Interactive Voice Response leads one to believe that there is a high degree of interaction. So far, callers have to listen to pre-recorded messages and then their interaction is limited to just key presses. It is time wasting and, in many instances, does not serve the caller’s purpose due to limited menu options. Happily, trends for 2019 indicate that IVR could change for the better.

Artificial Intelligence in IVR

• Artificial intelligence integration in IVR development leads the transformation. Instead of a rigid hierarchy of trees and branches, we have flexible and more human-like options that callers will like.
• AI and language capabilities lead to better interaction since the system can identify caller’s language and switch to the same language. If the call must lead to a live agent, then it goes to one with that language capability. Natural language processing feature could speed up the process from the customer perspective and take him straight to the resolution point instead of labyrinthine key presses that can be so frustrating.
• IVRs could evolve to a point where callers interact with intelligent chatbots. The experience is nearly similar to talking with a live agent.

Asterisk Service has an edge in intelligent IVR deployments since its parent company is engaged in Artificial Intelligence and Asterisk IVR solutions are AI infused.

Visual IVR

No, visual IVR in an IVR solution yet does not mean you can interact with a live person. Instead, it is a system of displaying menus on the screen, possibly a touchscreen smartphone. The screen will display the entire tree and sub-menu structure making it easy for a caller to jump straight to the option of his choice. This can be particularly helpful in payment IVR where he has to tap on the payment mode and jump straight to payment using that mode.

The Visual IVR can also have spin-offs such as skill based routing and exchange of documents. The visual IVR alone should help convert more callers to take the route and resolve whatever issues they have without human intervention. Visual IVR also opens up possibilities of tutorials, access to help pages and videos.

Call backs

The most frustrating thing about IVRs is that companies usually play a promotional message before the menu is presented which is the start of innumerable key presses. Ultimately, when they choose to speak to a human agent he is on another call. IVR implementations could see that option of call back presented right at the start. Caller can do something else until the agent calls back.

Users can adapt IVRs

The dynamic IVR should become more popular since it lets businesses structure and restructure their menu and sub-menu systems according to feedbacks from users.

Hopefully, in the years to come, IVRs should get to a point where callers actually love the facility and Asterisk Service leads with its AI powered intuitive IVRs.

Source: https://ivrsystemdesign.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/ivr-development-trends-in-2019-asteriskservice/