In the age of AI and digital-first customer service, the definition of an excellent customer experience (CX) is in flux. Quality CX may be a moving target, but contact center managers can count on one thing with certainty: customer expectations are only getting higher.
According to Salesforce’s 2022 “State of the Connected Customer” report, 88% of customers say that the experience of interacting with a company is just as important as the product and services it provides, up from 80% in 2020. Not only that, but 73% of customers expect brands to deliver a personalized experience that reflects their unique expectations, up from 66% in 2020.
All that is to say that CX assurance is more important than ever for contact centers. And CX assurance doesn’t come without robust IVR testing. That’s why we’ve made this three-part series on mastering IVR testing to help empower you. In part one, we addressed the many pitfalls that often prevent companies from delivering quality CX. In part two, we explored the best practices of IVR testing that can directly address and prevent those pitfalls, from usability testing and scenario simulation to thorough IVR test automation.
In this final post, we explore the key elements of Cyara’s IVR testing solutions. Although these aren’t the only aspects of our complete CX assurance platform, they are the four key pillars that set up contact centers for successful CX delivery. Each, in turn, adds layers of assurance as you strive to execute the best practices we’ve outlined.
Velocity: Continuous functional and regression testing
In many ways, Velocity is your front line of offense for establishing a continuous testing plan for your contact center. Aptly named, it helps you accelerate the pace of innovation so you can continually iterate improvements and enhancements to your CX.
With Velocity, you can automatically discover your existing IVR infrastructure to create a map on which you can base any changes you want to make. See exactly how the current system is mapped, plan new customer journeys, and test those changes before you roll them out.
This same principle applies to any updates you want to make. By seamlessly integrating testing and design, Velocity helps you run functional and regression tests throughout the design process to make updates more efficient and effective. Simulate customer interactions, automate the creation of new test cases, and design test scripts for omnichannel customer journeys. Run A/B tests of new call routes, quickly test system usability, simulate new scenarios, and more.
Pulse: Monitoring for live CX assurance
Although functional and regression testing are essential, they’re not sufficient for true CX assurance on their own. A complete IVR testing solution must capture CX in real time. Pulse does exactly that, taking IVR testing out of the development stage and into the live CX environment for your contact center.
Pulse quite literally keeps a pulse on the live service environment by monitoring interactions from customer and agent perspectives. At regular intervals, the system runs synthetic calls, chat queries, and more, to see how conversational AI and live human agents respond.
When you deploy Pulse in your contact center, you’ll receive real-time alerts for any issues you monitor. Set thresholds for interaction times, track handoffs between IVR systems, and more. When an issue occurs, you can automate the troubleshooting process to quickly find the source of the problem and resolve it.
Pulse allows for seamless monitoring across all service channels, whether chatbots, social media, or voice. What’s more, you can easily share incident reports and troubleshooting logs with anyone who needs to be in the loop.
Cruncher: Stress-testing for your IVR
Load testing is one of the most important IVR testing practices we discussed in our last post — so important, in fact, that Cyara offers a dedicated solution for that purpose. With Cruncher, you have all the tools you need to regularly test your IVR system’s resilience and its ability to hold up under high-volume situations.
Cruncher allows you to automate the delivery of tens of thousands of simultaneous test interactions — testing at whatever volume you need to ensure that your IVR is sufficiently prepared. Whether you run a health insurance call center preparing for open enrollment season or a fintech company getting ready to launch a new mobile app, you can find out if your system is ready for the coming influx of calls and chat queries.
This stress-testing solution isn’t only made for assessing single large surges, either. Use Cruncher to test how your IVR responds to sustained traffic loads. Automate and schedule tests so you can proactively address system flaws before the next peak in volume.
Botium: Complete conversational AI optimization
Today’s IVR systems encompass every channel of customer service, and they rely on every type of conversational AI to deliver consistent, high-quality CX. Botium expands your testing capabilities to account for this new reality. This IVR testing service is built to assess the natural language processing engine behind every conversational AI solution you offer.
Instead of merely testing for flaws in customer journeys you’ve designed, you can use Botium to evaluate how well your chat or voice bots understand customer inputs and queries. With this information, your developers can teach your bots to respond more accurately and better guide customer journeys on their own.
Botium is equipped to test every conversational AI channel, from web-based chatbots to social messengers to your traditional IVR. Simulate chat typos, voice accents, background noises, and more to test and improve your conversational AI from every possible angle. Not only that, but Botium also expands your load-testing capacity to all areas of conversational AI. Ensure your virtual assistants are ready for any surge, regardless of the channel through which it comes.
Master IVR testing with Cyara
These four solutions aren’t the only ones offered within Cyara’s comprehensive CX assurance platform, but they’re the primary pillars of IVR testing success for any contact center. With these in place, you can expand your IVR testing even further by adding additional solutions like testRTC, and CentraCX.
Regardless of which solutions you employ, you can be confident that they’ll deliver because they’re built around continuous iteration and development, rely on test automation, and target the omnichannel customer experience. A 2023 study, conducted by Forrester Consulting and commissioned by Cyara, based on a composite organization, suggests that Cyara customers can experience a 334% return on investment with payback in less than six months.
Reach out today to learn more about how our full slate of solutions can help you master IVR testing.
