IVR Deconstructed

A large wireless, home phone, Internet and cable provider was looking for a cost-effective way to get satisfaction feedback from its millions of customers.

The company approached a market research firm, which turned to Plum Voice for a hosted IVR based system to fit its client’s needs.

With $1 billion in annual revenues, the marketing firm offers market research and customer-feedback services to many of the world’s largest companies. The company has 3,300 people in four countries providing services in marketing research, sales incentives, learning and coaching, rewards and recognition, loyal marketing, and meetings, events and incentive travel.

Plum’s Solution
With Plum Survey, the cable company could get feedback to help address customer dissatisfaction, decrease attrition rates and improve service. Armed with data, it could create targeted training programs based on ‘weak’ customer-service areas, as defined by survey feedback.

Whenever a customer interacts with a representative—call center, retail store, website chat, technical help—Plum’s Voice-XML-based survey tool can call that customer with a feedback questionnaire.

After confirming that the customer was the one who contacted the company, Plum Survey proceeds to ask a series of questions about their experience with the representative who helped them purchase a product/service or resolve a problem.

How It Works
Plum receives random customer contact data for its hosted IVR. The system places large numbers of outbound calls nightly to gather statistically significant data. With Plum’s custom features, the marketing firm can control the flow of outbound calls to maximize take rates and decrease per-survey costs. As callees answer questions, the firm receives the customer feedback in real time. The firm can then present reports to its client.

Case Study for an Major Insurance Company that Uses Plum’s IVR Survey Platform

A leading international insurance organization needed a way to get feedback from its customers spread around the globe in over 130 countries. It turned to Plum Voice’s IVR-based survey tool.

The company serves commercial, institutional and individual customers through one of the most extensive worldwide property casualty networks of any insurer. The organization wanted to collect information from focus groups on customer perception of products and services as well as survey customers to collect feedback about service.

Plum’s Solution
The company uses Plum Survey to create surveys that remote focus groups can take over the phone. Plum Survey, which runs on Plum’s VoiceXML-based platform, asks participants questions about the value of certain products and services. The company uses the information collected to inform product and marketing decisions. The organization also uses Plum’s IVR system to poll customers on their level of service in follow-up to interactions with call-center representatives.

Plum Survey can collect market research information from members of focus groups anywhere in the country, via the phone. Almost every division within the insurance giant uses Plum’s hosted IVR survey tool to build questionnaires to collect data from focus groups or customers. They use the data collected from callers following their interaction with a call-center rep to help improve customer service.

Why Plum Survey?
There’s nothing else on the market like Plum Survey—a cost-effective, truly accessible rapid application development tool for any non-technical business, market researcher or pollster. It’s the most cost-effective hosted IVR-based tool available for gathering business intelligence and market research data. With Plum’s Voice-XML-based platform, you can design your survey online, instantly deliver it over the web and phone, and then analyze the responses—all with one simple tool.