IVR Deconstructed

Whether we realize it or not, nanotechnology is growing in retail, showing up in products like food and food storage and surface treatments.

Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the nano scale to make new things, such as new materials. Actually, to go more into it than that probably only makes it more confusing. It involves quantum mechanical effects at the atomic and molecular level.

If you check out Nanoshop.com, you can see some of the things people are making using nanotechnology. They include hydrophobic treatments for glass, environmentally friendly metal cleaners and treatment for concrete that prevents moss and algae growth.

Evidently silver nanoparticles are a common nano material because of their antimicrobial properties. They’re found most often in food storage containers to extend product shelf-life.

According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN), there are about 1,300 consumer products with nanotechnology out there and could be as many as 3,400 by 2020. The products come from over 30 countries, including the U.S. and China.

It’s not always evident that products contain nanoparticles by the packaging because some retailers are hesitant to acknowledge they contain such materials. Nanotechnology is still an emerging technology that most people don’t understand, which makes them wary.

However, a report by the Food Standards Authority indicates that the public perception of nanotechnology in food is at least “not negative,” according to PEN.

NANO Magazine ran an editorial that actually pointed to nanotechnology as a way for food companies to distinguish their products. (I guess kind of like organic.) And that most nanoparticles have yet to show any signs of threat.

“Many of the problems surrounding nano in food can be said to relate to fear and ignorance,” the editorial stated.

Well, in any case, nanoparticles are beginning their journey into the retail scene. Most experts feel nanotechnology’s impact will go far beyond that. It could be as big as the Industrial or Computer Revolutions. We’ll see.

Macy’s.  Tiffany’s. Bloomingdales. Saks Fifth Avenue.  FAO Schwartz.  These names conjur up images of big brown bags, Thanksgiving parades, Audrey Hepburn in front of a store window with her hair elegantly swept up, and Tom Hanks playing Heart and Soul with his legs on a massive floor piano.

These names, as well as these images, are iconic.  Starting in the 1800s, retail department stores began offering a wide variety of products including but not limited to clothing, intimates, footwear, home goods, hardware and tools, and even food items.

For many people, a trip to the department store was entertaining, and opportunity to socialize, their chance to get most if not all of the products they needed around the house, and most importantly, an experience they didn’t encounter frequently and therefore always looked forward to.

Customers would sit around for hours clipping coupons, browsing over catalogues, and making list of the most pressing items they wanted to purchase upon their visit to a store.

Who doesn’t remember Susan (an adorable young Natalie Wood) skeptically talking to Kris Kringle, Macy’s famed Santa Claus, about her disbelief in the idea of reindeer, sleigh rides, and Father Christmas?  Or Ralphie in a Christmas Story  waiting with Randy for literally hours in line to  see Santa.

Retail stores were not simply places that people only went to buy goods, along with restaurants, they acted as community organizing facilities, entertainment, and a hub for shaping and molding people’s ideas about who they could and should be.

Retail outlets like the ones mentioned above would rely on adverting in newspapers, on the radio, in magazines, and later on, on TV and cable.  While retailers still do maintain this reliance on traditional media for both their advertising and their branding, extended importance has been placed on social media, and gaining brand recognition through grass roots methods.

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, this marks a huge shift in emphasis for the industry, and integration with multimodal interactive voice response applications is absolutely vital in enabling customers to constantly access brand updates, share feedback, find out about branding efforts tailored to their specific region, and access this information, anywhere anytime, via any medium.

IVR is the answer in the scenario, as it allows cross-platform technological integration via any medium in one place.  Users need not use disparate technologies or visit many different places to find the information they are seeking, but instead can utilize both inbound and outbound IVR to fully interact with their favorite brand from anywhere.

Before yesterday, receiving my Netflix would always bring me joy.  I have a queue of about 389 movies, so I am often times pleasantly surprised upon their arrival to my mailbox which movie I have received.

Whether it is The Godfather, The Little Mermaid, or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, each movie has the ability to transport viewers to another world momentarily.  Netflix adds excitement to my days and always keeps me entertained, and prior to yesterday, it did so at a reasonable price point.

Netflix announced a pretty significant price hike yesterday, and customers are not happy.  According to Gawker, Netflix’s one DVD per month plus streaming plan will go to $16 from $10, and the two DVDs plus streaming will go to $20 from $15.  This represents a 60 and 33 percent price hike.

To be fair, Netflix is lowering the price for mail-only DVD deliveries, but significantly inflating the price for customers who stream.  Netflix is one of the top streaming sites on the Internet, and a large majority of its client base both receive movies through the mail and via Internet streaming.

Netflix has over 23 million members in the United States and Canada, and needless to say, this outrageous price hike has not been well received.  According to CNN, Netflix’s blog has attracted 6,000 commenters, their Facebook page receiving 28,000 comments, and thousands of complaint-themed tweets filed under the hash tag #DearNetflix.

The rates are not set to change until September 1st, but millions of people are quite upset with the news.  While having a plethora of distressed consumers upset about a price hike is not unusual, it struck me that customers were not bombarding the Netflix customer service phone line with complaints about the price changes.  Instead, the took to the Internet, to Twitter, and to Facebook to voice their grievances.

The fact that the Internet and social networking sites were the vehicle Netflix subscribers’ used to express their objections is very telling.  Previously, users would have jumped on the phone to air their grievances, but instead they decided to use multimodal methods of communication.

It is now a multimodal world, and as evidenced by the most recent Netflix hurrah, all companies need to be aware and accommodating of this trend.  In order to reach the greatest amount of customers in the shortest time possible, brands need to have Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, and Internet blogs set up and easily accessible to their customers.

Interactive voice response applications could also integrate with all these mediums so that users could utilize these applications on-the-go.  Say someone was in a car and immediately wanted to post a comment.  They could use interactive voice response along with automated speech recognition technology to access the system hands free while driving.

The moral of the story is that brands need to be accessible in a multimodal way, and interactive voice response systems are vital in making this happen.  Interactive voice response can help forward technological integration in multiple ways, allowing users to access systems anywhere and everywhere through simple, accessible communication points.

Whether you have purchased new jeans in a high-end retail store, athletic equipment in an sports retailer, or even food from a fast food restaurant, you have probably noticed a survey request directing you to a website that offers some sort of incentive for participation.

Enter to win $5,000, get 20% off your next in-store purchase, buy-one-get-one free coupons.  Sometimes the incentives to fill out a couple questions are steep in order to attract users who would normally not participate.

For retail stores, regardless of industry, gaining customer insight and actionable intelligence is invaluable.  How is a particular branding strategy being perceived? Is a newly rolled out product playing well with customers?  Do customers enjoy the ambience of a restaurant?  Are they enjoying the food?  How could a company attract more business or make their product more customer friendly?

These questions are of vital importance to any company, and customer retention and gaining new customers are how stores stay in business.  Getting concrete intelligence and constructive feedback about how their product or service is being received.

It is vital to get this type of information from people when it is fresh in their minds, and these customer feedback surveys can combine with interactive voice response technology to get the most relevant feedback possible.

Imagine this scenario: You have just made a purchase; your impressions of your experience are fresh in your mind.  There is a telephone number to dial in to take a survey, and a reward at the end.

Stores could simply put an IVR in place that gathered user feedback, regardless of whether users decided to text, email, submit via a web form, or call in.  An IVR system could be programmed to both collect and process this data, offering the timeliest results in a clear and concise manner possible.

By integrating with an IVR, stores would enable to provide their feedback instantaneously via mobile phone, so that they were receiving the most accurate, relevant data possible.