IVR Deconstructed

The beginning of summer is upon us once again, and the excitement is palpable.  Each year, thousands of previously pasty individuals flock to outdoor festivals, concerts, and parks to enjoy the sunshine and the myriad of events their respective cities have to offer.  Avid attendees of these events are always excited to discover new and different offerings, but announcements are often times so scattered that concerts will be missed and festivals forgotten.  What if there was a way to sidestep the Monday morning disappointment and regret of discovering a missed opportunity?  An inbound IVR system would be just the thing to guarantee individuals a t-shirt tan and a great weekend.  A system could be set up where venue promoters record information about their various happenings, and allow consumers to purchase tickets, parking passes, and refreshment vouchers beforehand. Promoters could even set up an outbound calling feature that could reach confirmed attendees and remind them of the upcoming occasion.  Event attendees would be prepared well in advance, and equipped with all the necessary information and opportunities to make their summer days and nights unforgettable.

Lost concluded its epic 120-hour plus run last night with an episode that is sure to go down in television history as one of the most heart-wrenching, confusing, and thought-provoking episodes to hit the airwaves.  I am still trying to reasonably gather my thoughts and feelings about the final episode, but reflecting back upon the series, I can’t help but think that perhaps the fans could have procured a lot more answers, had a streamlined IVR system only been in place.

A huge portion of the show consisted of the characters running around the globe, simply trying to find and connect with one another.  The real John Locke traversed the globe after turning the frozen donkey wheel, trying to find the six individuals helicoptered off the Island at the end of season 4.  Ben followed suit, simply trying to reach out to the castaways to get them to the Lamppost so that Eloise Hawking could return them to the Island on Ajira Airways flight 316.  Utilizing a decent outbound calling package, the island leaders could have simply set a small amount of time aside, perhaps cracked open an Apollo bar, and put some outbound prompts in place that could have contacted each and everyone of the island movers and shakers until they were easily assembled in one locale.

Perhaps then we could have figured out why infertility was rampant on the island, who erected the statue of Taweret, and why Walt and the other children were so special.  For that matter, with a Plum Voice IVR hosting package, perhaps we could have seen a glimpse of Walt in each and every world interacting with the Oceanic Six.  It stands to reason that with a solid IVR system in place, perhaps we wouldn’t be scratching our heads so hard this morning, Either that, or we would have a whole new set of questions we would be seeking answers to.  Hats off to Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse for 6 brilliant and exciting seasons of television at its very best.  Perhaps next time, instead of harnessing the power of the Island, they can harness the unique powers of interactive voice response, and produce some additional hours of the most gripping television around.

Hey Lost fans, so as you may know by now, the Lost finale was not shown yesterday. Instead, the finale will be shown on Sunday from 9:00pm - 11:30pm.

However, if you’re like me and missed out on last week’s live episode (I had watched the episode on ABC’s site instead), then you may not have known about this change in time.

Here’s where IVR could have been helpful. If the producers of the show had been able to obtain the caller information for their viewers, they could send out an IVR outbound call to all of them informing them of the date and time of the finale.

Also, after talking to one of my co-workers about Lost, he had informed me that he hadn’t watched any of this season due to the change in day. Lost had previous been aired on Wednesday nights, but had switched to Tuesday night instead. So, IVR could also have been used here to inform viewers of this change from Wednesdays to Tuesdays.

Just another thought about Lost and IVR as we count down to the finale.

Over the weekend, I had received a text from Gamestop notifying me that Red Dead Redemption would be available at midnight on Tuesday, May 18th and that I could finish paying for my game on Monday at 10:00pm. This was a bit different from previous experiences that I had with Gamestop.

For past games that I had pre-ordered, I had received an outbound IVR call from Gamestop that notified me about when my game would be available. I remembered that the IVR message left for my phone would be following:

IVR system: “Hi! This is Ashley from Gamestop calling to let you know that <name of game> is available at midnight on <release date>. You can join us on <day before release date> at 10:00pm to finish your payment. We hope to see you there!”

I felt that these IVR calls from Gamestop were pretty effective in helping me remember when my game was coming out, as opposed to their new method of just sending out a text message.

Just another random thought about how IVR can be used to improve our (gaming) lives.

No blog post about Lost today as I was caught up with the Celtics/Cavs game last night. More on that in a little bit. I had attended both Game 3 and Game 4 of the Celtics versus the Cavs. After witnessing the Celtics win in Game 4, I noticed on the Jumbotron that tickets were being sold for Game 6.

However, I thought to myself, if I didn’t look up at the Jumbotron, I wouldn’t have known that Game 6 tickets were being sold. If the TD Garden used an IVR system to inform fans like myself that tickets were being sold, I would have picked up my phone and heard the IVR message.

About the Cavs game last night, I also thought of a great way for the Cavs organization to use an IVR system. After the embarrassing loss to the Celtics, there’s a good chance that Lebron James will leave Cleveland once free agency hits this summer.

So, the Cavs organization could set up an IVR system that sends out a call to their fans with the following behavior:

IVR system: Hey there, Lebron James merchandise is now selling at half-price. Now’s your change to buy memorabilia of one of our greatest players for our organization. Don’t miss out!

Just a thought on how to use IVR to comfort any Cavs fans out there.