ABSTRACT
After deciding the high-level properties of a system, it’s time to work out the low-level issues, especially regarding speci‹c interaction styles and prompts. This chapter covers:
• Creating introductions • Avoiding poor practices in introductions • Getting the right timing • Designing dialogs • Constructing appropriate menus and prompts • Recovering from errors • Con‹rming caller input
Because 100% of calls to an IVR go through its introductory messages it is very important to craft an introduction that accomplishes its goals as concisely as possible (Rolandi, 2004, 2007a; Suhm, 2008). Every unnecessary syllable in an introduction to an often-used IVR can cause expense for the enterprise and wastes the caller’s time. The cost savings per second differs from application to application, but Yudkowsky (2008) reported a savings for AT&T of $1 million per year for each second of extraneous speech removed from a (presumably) very high-volume IVR.
