In response to my column in the May issue of Customer Interaction Solutions called "Clean Up In The Self-Service Aisle," I got a response today from a reader who relates the following story:
There's an unverifiable (for a reason) story about a call center manager whose boss directed him: "We're still getting too low a percentage of calls handled by the IVR. Fix it."
His solution?
Adjust the menu options to prevent opt-out to an agent. Percentages jumped AND so too did call volumes since people kept calling back in order to try and beat the IVR.
Manager: "Well boss, not only did I increase the percentage of auto-handled calls, but I did it and at the same time our total call volume increased."
He got his performance bonus as a result.