IVR Brokering Service Personalizing User Interactions
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current IVR systems are frustrating for users due to a lack of personalization, leading to poor user experiences, as they are designed for the 80% average user, leaving 20% of users who do not fit the average profile to struggle with navigation, speech recognition, and architecture issues, resulting in low customer satisfaction.
Innovation Solution
An IVR brokering service with intelligent software agents that act as stateful and customized interaction brokers, normalizing the IVR experience by reformatting and refactoring various IVR systems to match user preferences, providing a unified interface, and enabling semi-automatic interaction with multiple IVR systems, including speech recognition and single-sign-on capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If IVR systems are designed to serve the needs of the 80% average user performing standard tasks, then the system can successfully navigate for the majority of users, but the 20% of users who do not fit the average profile will have poor user experiences
Solution Approach 1:
The IVR system dynamically adapts its behavior based on user profile characteristics. The system monitors user interactions and adjusts menu structures, prompt styles, and navigation paths in real-time to match individual user preferences and abilities, transforming a static IVR into a dynamic, personalized system that evolves with each user's needs
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies different IVR interaction models tailored to specific user segments. Instead of a uniform IVR experience, local customization is applied to different user profiles (e.g., simplified menus for less tech-savvy users, advanced options for power users), allowing each user group to receive optimized interaction quality matched to their specific needs
2Adaptability or versatility
If IVR systems increase menu depth and features to provide more functionality, then the system becomes more capable, but usability rapidly decreases for users
Solution Approach 1:
The IVR menu structure is segmented into multiple hierarchical levels with intelligent routing. The system divides complex functionality into manageable sections and uses contextual awareness to present only relevant options at each level, preventing information overload while maintaining comprehensive functionality through organized, progressive disclosure
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-configuring user profiles, pre-loading preferred navigation paths, and anticipating user needs based on historical data. This preparation reduces the cognitive load on users during actual IVR interaction, as the system has already organized information and options in advance based on what each user is most likely to need
3Adaptability or versatility
If IVR systems use heterogeneous designs with different looks and feels for different systems, then each system can be optimized for its specific function, but users face confusion and poor experience across multiple systems
Solution Approach 1:
The IVR broker acts as a universal interface layer that provides consistent interaction models across multiple heterogeneous IVR systems. It translates user inputs from a standardized interface into system-specific protocols, allowing users to interact with different IVR systems through a unified, consistent experience while preserving the specialized functionality of each underlying system
Data Source
AI summary
An IVR session brokering service provides as one core mechanism, a pool of intelligent software agents residing on a cluster-able software services platform. These agents could be designed to act as stateful and customized interaction brokers for interacting automatically and semi-automatically with existing IVR systems. Customers and users would use this brokering service as an IVR normalization and aggregation mechanism for centralizing and personalizing their user experience with a full range of IVR systems that are of interest to them. The service could consume, operate on and transform voice and touchtone communication information that is transmitted between IVR systems and the end-user customers that are currently using those IVR systems.