Hosted IVR: What It Is, How It Works, and How It Can Help You

Considering that 35% of customers prefer having a self-service customer care option, hosted IVR services are vital to your business. The right IVR hosting will help your customers to help themselves.

Ask yourself: Do you want to impress your customers from the instant they get in touch? Would you like a slick, sophisticated, personalized contact system that directs customers straight to the answers they need? Hosted IVR can give you exactly that. 

Let’s take a look at what hosted IVR is, how it works, and how it can benefit your business.

Key Takeaways:

• IVR is an intuitive contact system that directs customers to the answers or people they need through Interactive Voice Response menus.
• Hosted IVR brings many benefits to businesses, including increasing staff and customer satisfaction, by reducing average call duration by up to 40%.
• CloudTalk can provide an intuitive and intelligent cloud IVR solution to suit your budget.

Find the provider best suited to meet your business’s unique needs.

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What Is Hosted IVR?

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is an effective way of routing telephone callers to the right place. To use IVR, the customer “talks to” the system, and the system directs them accordingly. At its best, it’s fast, effective, personalized, and intuitive.

A hosted interactive voice response system is situated in the cloud and is, therefore, also known as cloud-based IVR. There are several benefits to using a hosted system. For example, hosted IVR pricing is often more cost-effective, and hosted IVR solutions have quicker and easier setup times, and greater scalability.

How Does Hosted IVR Work?

IVR works via menu systems. When a customer calls, they’ll be greeted and presented with a range of options. According to their responses, the IVR system will quickly take them through the menu-flows and direct them to the right person. 

Think of it like the contact center version of triage. The system quickly identifies each customer’s needs and speeds them to the right place in a personalized, intuitive way.

What makes hosted IVR systems different? 

Well, a hosted IVR system is hosted off-site by a third-party hosted IVR provider. Hosted IVR usually works on a SaaS (Software as a Service) basis. Customers pay a monthly subscription and gain access to IVR software hosted in the cloud. 

With the right solutions, hosted IVR users can design call flows and otherwise customize the software to suit their needs. Meanwhile, they don’t have to worry about hardware costs or storage, and they can rely on the host company to keep security tight and the software up to date.

What Are the Benefits of Hosted IVR?

From scalability to top-notch security and personalized customer journeys, there are many benefits of a hosted IVR system: 

For Business Operations

Flexibility is one of the most important factors in any business operation. Issues get fixed a lot faster and a lot more effectively if you can rely on flexible solutions.

PlanRadar highlights how good CloudTalk’s flexibility has been for business: 

For Your Agents or Staff

A hosted IVR service can take a huge amount of pressure away from your agents or staff. By directing customers straight to where they need to be, IVRs keep customer frustration to a minimum and make sure that no staff time is wasted. 

A hosted call center solution can also help you to automate a lot of processes. Again, this saves time and frees up your agents to do what they’re best at.

Plus, when you opt for a hosted solution, your staff never have to worry about updating or fixing your system. The host company handles all of that for you.

For Your Customers

The biggest benefits of a hosted IVR system are reserved for your customers. 

With a hosted IVR system, customers can quickly get through to the person or service they need. Speedy customer support is always a win for CX. 

A hosted IVR system like CloudTalk is secure enough to put customers’ minds at ease, intuitive enough for a seamless customer experience, and personalized enough to maintain that all important human connection with each and every customer.

Why Does Your Business Need Hosted IVR?

Why might your business need hosted IVR? Well, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do your customers have a range of needs, queries, and issues?
• Do you have staff who work (or want to work) remotely?
• Do you struggle with hardware costs?
• Is maintaining your existing system costly and/or time-consuming?
• Would your customers appreciate a faster, more intuitive contact system?

If so, hosted IVR is definitely for you.

You Often Need to Adapt IVR Menus and Call Flows

What if your business is so dynamic that reasons for customer contact change frequently? Won’t it be a hassle to keep changing IVR menus and call flows?

No. CloudTalk makes it very easy to change and customize almost every aspect of the system to suit your needs. This flexibility is a benefit for dynamic businesses as it enables them to alter customer contact journeys very speedily, whenever needed.

You Have Agents or Staff Who Wish to Work Remotely

According to a recent State of Remote Work Report, 98% of those surveyed said they would like to work remotely at least some of the time. So, businesses that can offer remote or hybrid work options have a big advantage when it comes to hiring.

Because it’s not tied to a single work location, hosted IVR lets your staff work remotely, which is vital since it’s clear that remote work culture is here to stay. 

As long as staff can access your hosted interactive voice response software—or the calling solution it comes as a part of—they can work from wherever they wish.

Your Hardware Installation and Maintenance Costs Are Too High

Telephony and call center hardware can be very expensive, and maintenance costs can be draining. By contrast, IVR phone system prices are typically more cost-effective and easy to understand. 

The SaaS model means that your business simply pays for a subscription. The major hardware and maintenance is all taken care of by the third-party hosted IVR provider. This saves you time and money.

Provide Top Level Support With Hosted IVR

A hosted IVR solution like that built into CloudTalk can supercharge your customer satisfaction rate. And there are other benefits for your business, too. 

From streamlining operations to freeing up your staff to focus on what’s important, hosted IVR really can work wonders in almost every aspect of your business. 
Contact CloudTalk today to find out what we can do for you.