By ROCKY from Phone Marketing Insider - Posted Jan 14, 2010 

From a business’s financial and marketing perspective, the advantages of automated telephone services are clear. IVR and cloud telephony capabilities enable businesses to reduce costs while providing more features and services. Yet, no matter how high the efficiency projections for automated telephone services soar, the bottom line needs to result in customers on the other end of the phone call reporting the best customer service experience.

Do customer’s prefer automated telephone services? The survey says… an overwhelming “yes!”

Nuance’s research into the customer’s reaction and perception of automated telephone services tackles this precise issue. They commissioned a study, conducted by Forrester Research, titled “Driving Consumer Engagement with Automated Telephone Customer Service.” The study found that in straightforward phone interactions, including prescription refills, flight status, checking account balances, store information requests and tracking shipments, customers rated a higher preference for automated services over live agents. In the past year, while 82% of Americans experienced speech recognition software or automated touchtones, only a slightly higher figure of 93% of Americans engaged with live agents.

Customer surveys in five industries showed that customers enjoy proactive automated phone notifications in areas such as appointment reminders and travel updates. Customer interest in these notifications ranged from 80% to 93% in the chosen industries.

Why do customer’s prefer automated services?

A key finding in the survey indicated the following statistics:

The 24-hour 7 days a week availability of automated telephone customer service is a key attribute in consumers’ minds. Seventy-seven percent of consumers pointed to 24-hour, seven days a week availability as a reason they value automated telephone customer service systems. Another 40% valued that they didn’t have to wait on hold for a live agent, while 31% cited the ability to obtain information quickly.

While the survey results came out strongly in favor of automated telephone services, customers did distinguish between their interactions with different systems. For example, 67% of customers noted the importance of an “opt out” function to speak with a live agent, and 75% noted this option as the number one way to improve an automated telephone service. Similarly, customers noticed the importance of a system’s logical call flow as “an essential component,” and 45% noted this feature as the top way to improve customer satisfaction. Speech recognition quality also plays a significant role in the customer’s mind, as 42% of customers wanted the speech recognition to understand them on the first try, and 63% chose this factor as the most important way to improve the customer service experience.

How should marketers and businesses use this study?

According to Nuance,

As the research shows, there is a lot of room to improve customer service. Today’s enterprises have the opportunity to differentiate themselves by considering their customers’ needs and providing intuitive speech applications that improve customer loyalty at every touch point.

Now that this study indicates the acceptability, and in fact preference, of customers for automated telephone calls in certain situations, marketers and businesses must evaluate which of their activities they can automate, and how they can most effectively do so. Choosing the right cloud telephony provider is a good first step.