I swear, every time I call in a prescription to my pharmacy, I’m surprised at how good their IVR system is. In fact, I haven’t come across a better IVR anywhere.

So, early this morning I realized I needed to refill a prescription and called up the pharmacy. It wasn’t open yet, but that didn’t matter—its IVR was open for business despite the early hour.

“You have called the pharmacy outside of normal business hours,” the IVR’s pleasant female voice told me. “But we’re still refilling prescriptions. If you would like to refill a prescription, enter your prescription number now.”

I entered my prescription number.

“Please wait while we verify your refill.”

Maybe three seconds went by.

“Your prescription will be ready today by 10:30 a.m. If you would like to pick it up then, press 1.”

I pressed 1.

“Would you like to refill another prescription?”

I didn’t.

“Your prescription will be ready for pick up at 10:30 a.m. Thank you for using __________ pharmacy.”

The whole thing took maybe a minute, and then I headed off to work and forgot about it. But a little bit later (just a few minutes after the pharmacy opened, in fact), I got a phone call. It was the pharmacy letting me know that my prescription was ready.

Done.

What makes this IVR so great is that it enables me to refill my prescriptions whenever I want or need to, no matter what time of day. It’s also a clean, well-thought-out call flow with no misdirection or confusion anywhere.

Also, it provides great high-touch service. Although I’d already forgotten about the prescription when I started working this morning, the pharmacy’s IVR was kind enough to give me a call and let me know it was ready. Like I said, surprised again.