After eight years of being loyal to my Internet service provider, I decided to part ways after yet another frustrating call to their call centre.

You know the drill. Cou call up the support number, stay on hold for half an hour, get transferred multiple times, then end up going through the complete troubleshooting checklist (yes, I did turn my modem off and on). And finally, the call drops.

Ivanti Voice Automation to the Rescue

The scenario I described above is all too common and could have been easily avoided with automation. Automation has been a hot topic lately and so it should. In most cases, the emphasis is on the automation of back-end processes, such as automating the employee onboarding process. In this situation, we can automate the front-end processes, which makes sense as that it the first point of contact between the customer and your service desk.

End to End Automation

Ivanti Voice is a complete call management solution that delivers better customer experience through caller identification (CLI), automated call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), skills-based routing and screen pops.

Ivanti Voice is fully integrated with Ivanti Service Manager, an enterprise service management solution to manage the issues and request raised at the service desk. Service Manager can be deployed both on-premise or in the cloud and Ivanti Voice is integrated with either deployments.

Here are a few examples where Ivanti Voice Automation can help.

  1. Caller identification

Know your customers! By looking up the customer database, you can quickly identify the customer and pass this information to the service desk analyst. This also can help to identify your VIP customers.

  1. Call routing using Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

Using a few simple prompts (but not too many as it can be annoying), the customer’s reason for the call can be identified and the call can be transferred directly to the right team the first time.

  1. Avoid congestions

No one likes being on hold. If your call centre/service desk agents are all busy, give the customer the option of a call back. This will create a ticket in Ivanti Service Manager, which is queued in a visual dashboard for the next available service desk agent.

  1. Screen pops

When a call reaches an agent, Ivanti Service Manager automatically creates a ticket, populating the screen with the caller’s information as well as information collected by the IVR. This avoids the frustration of repeating the identification process and the same information collected by the IVR. Even if the call has to be transferred, all the information you collected stays with the ticket.

  1. Ensure quality

Staff turnover rates at the service desk can be higher than usual so dealing with an agitated customer can be challenging. Ivanti Voice provides a “Call Whispering” feature which allows a senior agent or supervisor to listen in on a call and guide a rookie through a call.

  1. Password resets

Password resets are the number one reason why users contact the IT Service Desk. Imagine being able to automate this whole process by allowing the caller to reset their passwords themselves through the IVR. According to a Forrester research*, this would trim approximately 20% of help desk calls at an average cost of US$ 31 per call.

Self Service

The last gripe I had was going through the troubleshooting checklist and having the call dropped. Like most people nowadays, the internet is my first port of call to search for solutions. As part of the Ivanti Service Manager solution, these checklists can be posted on the self-service portal’s knowledge base. And if I need help, I can invoke a chat with a Bot or a service desk agent.

Happy Customer

Issues are inevitable and the customer is already frustrated. By putting them through a painful experience with a service desk is sure to drive them away, as was the case with me. This integrated, voice-enabled approach helps ensure that any organisation can be better aligned with its strategic business initiatives while driving down service costs drastically and increasing customer satisfaction

* Merritt Maxim and Jennie Duong, “Benchmark Your Employee Password Policies and Practices,” Forrester Research, September 9, 2015, Updated September 14 2015. Accessed January 19, 2016. https://www.forrester.com/report/Benchmark+Your+Employee+Password+Policies+And+Practices/-/E-RES122799