It is very crucial to have a cutting-edge, scalable global communications platform as governments all over the globe begin to welcome tourists once more.

Even more so, McKinsey Company predicts that a new era of travel is on the horizon. McKinsey recently published an essay in which they predicted two possible travel recovery paths, warning that "businesses that don't prepare themselves for the incoming surge of visitors risk losing out on important chances to recuperate losses incurred during the peak of the epidemic."

In this post, we'll delve into the solutions provided by interactive voice response software (IVR) and how they may help you grow capacity, welcome digital innovation, and improve the customer experience in the travel and hospitality industry.

Why Do We Need IVR (Interactive Voice Response)?

IVR stands for "interactive voice response," and it's a feature of many modern company phone systems that allows you to interactively capture caller information through menu selections, telephone keypad taps, or voice response before routing the call to a plethora of useful information for your visitors.

If your IVR technology is properly configured, it will greatly improve the customer service experience by letting customers easily access information about their reservations and bookings. To name a few questions:

• Schedule changes or cancellations
• Incorporate Price Adjustments
• Change Your Preferences For Lodging
• Communicate your thoughts
• Get in touch with the support staff and much more.

IVR's flexibility means it can be tailored to each consumer, with call flows that can be designed, managed, and updated in real time through a web-based interface.

Advantages of Interactive Voice Response for the Hospitality Sector

IVR technology has several uses in the hospitality and tourism sectors. Using Office24by7's hosted IVR calling system, your team will save time and money while increasing productivity and customer satisfaction thanks to its cloud-based management.

The Customer Experience Needs to Be Elevated

Seventy-one percent of customers expect companies to provide them with tailored experiences, according to a recent McKinsey study. And when it doesn't, 76% of them get irritated.

Using personalized greetings and menus for the IVR calling system is one approach to include customization into your strategy to improve call center customer experience (CX) metrics. Doing so will assist your business in creating and providing a personalized experience for its customers.

In light of the increased expectations brought about by COVID-19 and the proliferation of new digital habits, customization is more important than ever. According to McKinsey, "Personalization increases performance and improves customer results." Personalization results in 40% higher revenue for fast-growing companies compared to slow-growing ones. A location close to the target audience is preferable.

By using IVR Routing, you can save time for both your staff and your customers.

The increasing popularity of domestic and international travel means that now is the time to implement an IVR calling system that is both easy to use and well-structured to ensure that your customers have a positive experience at every point of their trip.

If you work with a reputable IVR service, you'll have the ability to:

• Menus can have as many levels and items as you like.
• Calls can be forwarded to an external number, a group, a queue, a user, a voicemail, or an internal number.
• Make your greetings unique
• Evaluation of results using useful information

As a result, this will boost agent productivity while enhancing CX metrics for your call center by decreasing the number of call transfers, boosting self-service, and giving top priority to your most profitable customers.

For more information, check out The Business Person's Guide to Interactive Voice Response Software.

Create a 5-Star Customer Experience with IVR Reporting

Is it interesting to know how callers explore the many options?

The most popular prompts, any possible loops in your IVR, and the areas with the highest abandonment rates may all be quickly and simply analyzed with the most recent reporting capabilities. The IVR reporting dashboard is crucial for expanding your company and ensuring your hotel and tourism clients reach the proper person on the phone.

Without one, you risk damaging your relationship with your customers. By taking a bird's-eye view of your IVR calling system, you can improve the quality of service your brand's support line provides to everyone who calls in.

Increased Command and Management Capability

IVR calling system will provide unprecedented command over your network by allowing you to create an infinite number of menu options, greetings, and routes.

Make use of your IVR's global calling capabilities by forwarding calls to or from any of the more than 170 supported countries. This improves efficiency in the outward direction, letting your teams:

• You must validate your impending trip by doing some follow-ups.
• Notify of any flight changes or cancellations
• Room details have been updated.
• Acquire comments from your clients.
• In addition, there are possibilities to sell other services.

Integrating your customer relationship management system, help desk, and website chat with your interactive voice response system allows you to utilize unified communications across all your channels, greatly increasing your reach.

Integrating your IVR solution with the rest of your IT stack will speed up the time it takes for travelers to make reservations or contact support. In addition, it helps your agents have more productive conversations with customers by providing speedy virtual access to relevant client data.

A well-designed omnichannel IVR service will help visitors by facilitating the transfer of information between channels and maintaining the continuity of conversations while expanding coverage.