IVR monitoring may seem like a nice-to-have add-on to your IVR system, but not essential. It may feel like one of those services you’ll look into when you have the time. But there are risks lurking for your business each minute you don’t have a solution to keep a close eye on your lines and servers.

The most obvious negative ramification awaiting a business without IVR monitoring is unplanned or unknown downtime. Even with basic system-level monitoring, the IVR server itself could be up but not properly handling customer requests. As more companies begin to rely on automation to cut costs or make it easier for customers to make payments, even the smallest outage can have a wide-ranging impact. Downtime has a reverberating effect on an organization, and there are serious risks associated with it that businesses often don’t consider.

Loss of Business

The most serious consequence of not implementing IVR monitoring is the loss of business because of downtime. For example, banks and financial institutions are increasingly using automation so customers can check balances, make loan payments, and perform other bank-related tasks using the automated system. If that system is down, customers can’t make payments. That problem extends to companies beyond banks as well. If a credit card activation service’s automated system is unable to process customer requests, customers can’t activate or use their cards resulting in a loss for the company. Every minute of downtime in a scenario like that means loss of business.

Customer Frustration and Loss of Trust

In today’s world where instant gratification rules, customers expect systems to be on and working all the time. Downtime is increasingly unacceptable to the modern customer. In the bank example, if a customer expects to be able to check their balance or make a payment, any IVR downtime would cause an inconvenience resulting in frustration. If this downtime and consequential frustration occurs often enough – which doesn’t have to be more than a couple of times to make a difference – customers begin to lose trust in the business.

An IVR system’s downtime can have long-lasting reputational effects on a business. IVR monitoring performs a number of functions to ensure your IVR system remains online and working properly including:

• Simulating calls to ensure the system is active and answering calls
• Data gathering to show how the IVR system is performing depending on a set of key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Testing the IVR system over a long period of time at specific intervals to ensure it’s working at peak performance

Want to keep your business protected from downtime, customer frustration, and loss of revenue? Contact TelcoAlert today. We’ll help you get started with IVR monitoring.