What's an IVR? (Interactive Voice Response)

IVR or Interactive Voice Response is one of the most basic functions in business phone systems.

You’ve probably come across this feature before, right? If not by name, maybe this will jog your memory:

“Press 1 to talk to sales, press 2 for technical support, press 3 for billing, press 4 for other inquiries, press 5 to hear the options again”

I bet you’ve navigated through such a menu countless times, and isn’t it the worst when you’ve pressed like a gazillion buttons and then accidentally hit the wrong one?

The sheer delight of having to hang up and start all over…

Further down, I’ll dive into its perks, but first:

What is an Interactive Voice Response?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a technology that enables interaction between a caller and a computer via the telephone. Callers can interact with the IVR system through voice commands or touch-tone keypad inputs (DTMF). The primary function of IVR systems is to guide callers, provide information, and route calls to the appropriate department or person without human intervention.

It dates back to the 70s, but back then the technology was considered complex and expensive.

Perks of an IVR

• Direct calls to the right department: Thanks to options, every call ends up where it’s supposed to from the get-go.
• Filter calls and inform customers: Apart from routing, IVRs can also inform callers about operating hours, outages, and more.
• Increased call capacity: Since you’re not wasting time transferring or answering irrelevant questions, you can spend more quality time helping customers.
• Quicker handling: With IVR menus, customers can identify themselves right off the bat. Using things like BankID (In Sweden) identification makes the conversation smoother.

Bonus: Perks of an IVR in Lynes

• Easy-peasy changes: Our smart self-service makes tweaking menu choices a breeze
• Generate new messages in a snap: lynes has this cool “text to speech” feature where you can whip up new messages on-the-fly.
• Swedish? Norwegian? English?: With lynes, you can use more languages than just English. Pick a language when selecting a voice for the audio files.

How the IVR Works in Lynes

Even though IVRs have been a thing since the 70s, there’s always room for improvement. With lynes, that’s precisely what we did. Our user-friendly interface makes management a piece of cake.

You can create and edit,menu choices from any device, be it mobile, computer, tablet, or web browser. Super convenient self-service.

Just pop open lynes on any device, navigate to the settings, and create your menu. Pick a number, and get cracking!

Either record an audio file or use text to speech.

Last but not least, it’s time to set the menu choices. It’s all you – decide where the calls go. You can select external numbers, users, answer groups, other IVR menus, or a voice message.