Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is in our daily lives so much that it seems impossible to spend a single day without encountering it. IVR usually provides a telephone menu system that enables segmentation and routing of calls to the most appropriate service or agent/person within your business system. It is simple, reduces costs, and increases efficiency in day-to-day operations within your organization.

Using IVR, data about the caller can be automatically forwarded to the call center so that agents are ready for the call and know about the caller's info such as their demographic profile, geographical location, and any other personal details if the caller is a known customer. If the caller is calling from click-to-call on your company website, then additional information can also be shown. For example, keywords that the caller used to arrive at the call, which pages they have viewed, and which items they have put in their shopping cart.

There are some other ways also to track caller information. IP tracking software can identify the exact geographical location of the caller along with their language preferences, demographic profile, and other local specific information. Although calling is one of the best ways to communicate with customers but implementing text and instant messaging systems can increase the overall efficiency of the organization and increases the understanding and confidence of customers in your business.

The main advantage of IVR for any organization is to save time and money. Without an IVR system, answering a phone call requires a trained employee to spend most of the time communicating with people. However, some of those calls might not be worth spending enough attention. Simple queries can be resolved through an automated computer-generated response. This can save time for a trained employee. Surveys have shown that in the long run, money spent on buying an IVR system pays for itself.

One of the biggest disadvantages of IVR systems is that many people simply dislike talking to computer-generated responses. Regardless of the direction of automated calls (inbound or outbound), more and more people are opting out to receive automated calls as part of telemarketing campaigns or polling without their consent.

Despite all the pros and cons to integrating such a system into your workplace, IVR has done a lot of good to help organizations with their call volumes. It's important to take your time to consider these facts and evaluate your business needs.