I geek out on this. Don't know why. I guess I see IVRs and call centers as the easiest opportunity for designing great experiences that provide an immediate impact on the bottom line. We've audited some IVRs as part of a larger sonic branding and identity initiative for clients. I'm not an expert (they've already been referenced in this thread), but here's some of the high-level stuff we look at: 1. Multiple voices are the sonic evidence of a messy operation. It's really easy to deconstruct a company's haphazard call-center operations when, over the course of a few minutes, you hear seven different voices, each of them with varying personalities. (Hmm, that was Texas...there's India...back to Texas...New Jersey.)
2. Discontinuous music is a discontinuous interface. Callers will inevitably be transferred from one center to the next. As with voices, music styles affect our perception of performance. Music and and should fit the moment; skip the Stevie Wonder in your company's mission-critical hotline and stick with something that's contextually appropriate. Sounds obvious, but you'd be amazed at how often companies screw this up. 3. Unattended hold times. This one's obvious, too -- nothing says 'Screw You' like being put on hold. But the low-hanging fruit here isn't necessarily to shorten those hold times (easier said than done)...rather, use a human being right from the start and have them pop in intermittently so people don't feel ignored. Adrian North's research backs this up -- customers are willing to stay on the line longer if they're 'messaged' on a regular basis (even with a prerecorded announcement) as opposed to being stuck with a disingenuous, looping collection of pop tunes. Just skimming the surface here, there's much more...it's really a matter of designing for engagement. Versus not. Historically IVRs have been the domain of engineers, and until we see more brand teams or UX groups involved via corporate edict or funding power, it's likely to stay the same. (On that note, great timing for that Buxton piece in BusinessWeek.) By the way, one of my favorite audits revealed 7 voices, 8 styles of music, and over four minutes of hold time before I hung up...and that was me acting as a highest-tier customer. Add that up to X callers per day and the business case is relatively simple. Noel Franus noel.fra...@sonicid.com 415.577.6016 Sonic ID US+UK Web: http://sonicid.com Blog: http://intentionalaudio.com/blog On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:50 AM, j. eric townsend <j...@flatline.net> wrote: > I'm doing a really quick, one-off project for a class involving interactive > voice response (IVR) systems. What I'm looking for is detailes on one or > two really bad IVR systems, or maybe a study pointing out the N most > egregious flaws of IVR systems. > > So far g5/Y! isn't getting me anything meaty, just obvious > customer-relations things like, "don't apologize for doing something you > shouldn't do. I'm wondering if maybe there's some IVR-speak that I should > be using in my searches, or if this tech goes by some other name that I > should be searching for. > > If you (collective) have any advice/pointers, I'd appreciate them. (And if > you reply off-list I will consolidate responses into a single post or two.) > > thx, > --jet > > > -- > J. Eric "jet" Townsend, CMU Master of Tangible Interaction Design '09 > > design: www.allartburns.org; hacking: www.flatline.net; HF: KG6ZVQ > PGP: 0xD0D8C2E8 AC9B 0A23 C61A 1B4A 27C5 F799 A681 3C11 D0D8 C2E8 > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
