Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Auto Attendant

So What is auto attendant?

Ever called a telecom operator's customer care service and heard a IVR ? Of course you have. This is called an auto attendant. As a customer you might get irritated having to press "1" , "5" , "7" ,"8" ,"2" , "4" , "6" , "6" , "1" , "9" and finally hearing that dreaded woman's voice saying "I am sorry all our agents are busy" . WTFFFFFFF!!!!!!

If only the telecom operator had configured the IVR with customer friendliness . Sigh . But one thing for sure is that small scale companies can definitely project a bigger company look if they set up  an IVR. Imagine that you own a business and your staff count is less than 10 , you really want to engage your customers and service them but you don't have any available resources. If such a business owned an IVR? It might not be a game changer , but as a business owner you get a breathing space at the same time you are not leaving the customers in the lurch.

Traditionally IVR setup has not been simple. The business owner had to buy a complete PbX and install hardware and dedicate engineers toward maintenance. This is where I think Auto Attend http://autoattend.com is a boon to small business owners. The IVR seems to be completely on the cloud . The site offers options to purchase a custom phone number as well. The best part is the business owner can configure his IVR to play greetings , forward calls , record calls , read out text , repeat menu . Also, the site claims all these options can be setup in minutes. Lets wait for it to go live. 

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