12 reasons to digitize your phone calls

The telephone remains the most widely used contact channel, as it is historically established and provides a simple and reassuring voice exchange. However, this solution has several drawbacks, such as friction related to call routing through IVR systems, long wait times, unavailable agents, and the need to repeat one’s request over the phone or through other contact channels. It also overwhelms dedicated services, such as customer relations centers, call centers, or sales departments, reducing their overall efficiency. Digitizing calls with Visual IVR immediately eliminates these constraints.

Here are 12 reasons to digitize your phone calls:

On average, an incoming call costs a company between €5 and €12 (calculated based on call volume and full-time equivalent costs). Digitizing calls can reduce call volume by 10% to 20%, directly impacting costs.

Managing the phone journey allows certain calls to be redirected to digital self-care channels or alternative contact methods, helping to lower processing costs.

Offering phone calls as the preferred solution for every contact requires agents to consistently provide a resolution. This means training teams on every possible solution. Digitizing calls for specific intents helps reduce this extensive training requirement.

Customer service departments experience high turnover rates. Advisors often face exhaustion from repeatedly answering the same, low-stimulation questions. By redirecting low-value calls to autonomous resolution solutions, call center advisors can focus on higher-value, more engaging calls and even dedicate time to outbound calls.

Moreover, the role is often perceived as overwhelming due to the high call volume. Reducing this volume alleviates pressure, making the job more enjoyable. This optimizes the employee experience and helps limit turnover.

To manage your contact paths, it's essential to have a clear and complete view of your customers' reasons for calling. Traditional IVRs do not provide a very precise qualification of contact reasons. Visual IVR, on the other hand, uses a more ergonomic digital interface to qualify customer intentions more precisely. 

The data collected makes it possible to identify the most frequently requested reasons for calling, and to check that the solutions proposed are efficient.

Not all calls have the same added value. Some calls, related to simple requests (such as retrieving an invoice, checking a balance, or recovering a customer portal password, ...), can be handled through an autonomous process or an alternative contact channel to streamline operations. Others, with higher added value such as contract subscriptions, require direct advisor support.

Reachability is a key challenge in customer relations, as insufficient availability leads to repeated contact attempts and a degraded customer experience. Reducing call volume naturally improves the answer rate. Outside business hours, redirecting calls to digital journeys provides a 24/7 accessible solution. During overflow periods or peak demand, callers who cannot be assisted immediately are offered a suitable alternative.

​In customer service, activity levels are rarely consistent. Teams face peak periods during which not all calls are answered, followed by lulls with idle times.​

Digitizing calls offers the opportunity to balance this activity by providing overflow options that utilize alternative asynchronous channels, such as forms, email, messaging, or call-back. These methods allow interactions to occur at the most convenient times, preventing repeat contact attempts.

​Studies show that customer service departments must now adopt a proactive approach, including making outbound calls. To achieve this, it is essential to alleviate teams from handling incoming call flows by promoting self-care for low-value calls. For example, abandoned calls (when the caller hangs up before speaking to an advisor) can be redirected to a Visual IVR to be handled later by a teleadvisor.​

Furthermore, real-time management of call digitization allows for selecting calls to direct to the Customer Relationship Center (CRC) based on intent, profile, and potential sales opportunities.

Digital channels are often underutilized by customers simply because they are unaware of their existence, even though these channels can resolve issues more easily than traditional methods. The telephone is frequently favored, despite the implementation of other, more efficient and faster channels in certain situations.​

Shifting to these solutions allows for a return on investment while streamlining the customer experience. Furthermore, Visual IVR enables the measurement of the effectiveness of alternative and autonomous solutions. With 360° reporting, businesses gain end-to-end visibility of customer journeys and can ensure each solution minimizes the number of interactions.

Long wait times, unanswered calls, incorrect contacts, and repeated calls are all sources of frustration for customers. Often, customers exert significant effort for an unsatisfactory experience, which directly impacts brand loyalty and retention rates.​

50% of customers state they would consider switching providers after a single bad experience. Digitizing calls allows for offering the right solution for each call by directing the customer to the appropriate channel and the correct expertise, thereby streamlining and enhancing the customer experience.

The integration of a Visual IVR is seamless for IT teams, requiring minimal effort. Once implemented, advisors can independently manage customer call journeys.

Agility is one of the key features of Visual IVR, enabling real-time adjustments to contact scenarios and adaptation to exceptional situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, retail sales periods, or natural disasters in the insurance sector.

The Visual IVR is part of an omnichannel orchestration strategy that goes beyond phone call journeys. Alongside the intelligent contact page, it serves as a key component in creating a seamless customer journey, whether via phone or digital channels.

With centralized management, each customer is directed to the most suitable solution based on business rules, regardless of the channel used (voice or digital). This approach optimizes customer relations by providing a smooth and comprehensive view of the entire contact journey.

This is why DialOnce offers a Visual IVR solution, designed to help customer relationship professionals optimize the user experience, reduce costs, and accelerate their digital transformation.