Contact Solutions Blog

Good IVR is the Goal – Professionally and Personally

I’ve said for many years that people don’t hate IVR; they hate BAD IVR. Here’s a little proof point that I found amusing. Seems that this person created an IVR solution for his home phone number that has eliminated annoying calls from telemarketers. Here’s how he made it work:

• First, immediately whitelist family and friends who call frequently call to ring the phone using Caller ID filtering, so they won’t get the IVR. Other calls go to the IVR.
• “If you are family, a friend, etc, please press 1,” which rings the phone
• “If you are trying to sell us something, please press 2,” which goes to another recording asking them to send me an email instead. I set up a separate account, but no caller has ever used it.
• “Everyone else please press 3,” which goes straight to voicemail.

He went on to explain how he set it up and did say that it wasn’t necessarily “plug and play,” but felt it was worth it. I think this is just another example of a great use of IVR!

Tags: IVR, IVR Technology, Shared IVR Services