IVR Deconstructed

Subtle changes are becoming more and more visible as the seasons begin to change.  There is crispness observable in the air in the mornings, the leaves are slightly beginning to alter their colors, and the sun is setting a bit earlier with every passing day. While there are no more water parks to frequent or outdoor music festivals to groove at, there are plenty of fall activities on the horizon that should put a slight spring in people’s step.  While the end of summer is typically a symbolic and melancholy time for most, there are certainly some things to look forward to: performance fleece wearing, the integration of warm weather hats into everyday outfits, and the beginning of a new fall TV season.  Premier week kicks off in mid-September, typically coinciding with the change of the seasons and accommodating the new cooler temperatures.  There is always a twinge of possibility during premier week, and the potentiality that the networks will produce the next Lost or Wire.  TV audiences can always be excited by the mere fact that they might discover their future favorite show, making those long winter nights a bit more negotiable.  With the both cable and network changing up their schedules and rolling out huge amounts of new fare how are television viewers supposed to keep track of shows that might peak their interests?

This is where an Interactive Voice Response system could come in to play.  For viewers on the go, an IVR system could be constructed to inform them of current and future TV offerings, and act as a sort of Zagat guide for the television viewing populace.  An IVR system could be set up to work in any number of ways.  It could act as a TV guide of sorts, gathering information about each and every show available on network and cable TV, and indexing it based on subscriber time zone and preference. Viewers could place an inbound call, hear summaries of shows, get recommendations based on their preferences, and find out what time their preferred shows are on.  Users could also program the IVR system to place an outbound call and remind them when a show they want to see is going to be airing, ensuring that they won’t miss a moment!  The IVR system could be set up so that users could record and hear personalized reviews of shows, even going so far as to set up friend and reviewer networks, so that subscribers could hear reviews from trusted commentators.  Last but certainly not least, this system could be set up to interface with personal Tivo and DVR systems, so that even remotely, users could program their recording to devices to capture their preferred shows.  While the new fall season might feel overwhelming for some, an IVR system can assist everyone in sorting out and pinpointing those shows that are going to become weekly staples in their TV viewing lives!