This report defines proactive communications and highlights its business
benefits in customer service. It also focuses on today’s most important
channel - voice - and how proactive communications is being
handled through outbound interactive voice response (IVR) technologies.
Despite the proliferation of SMS and email, voice remains the dominant channel
for communications between the enterprise and the consumer. Outbound IVR
delivers automated outbound communications over the phone channel.
Table of Contents
Executive summary In a nutshell Ovum view Defining proactive
communications Assessing the stack Voice Predictive dialers
Outbound IVR Messaging Short message service (SMS) Multimedia
message service (MMS) Email Web chat The challenges facing
enterprises New pressures in a new economy Proactivity trumps
responsiveness The importance of the voice channel The benefits of
outbound IVR Customer service benefits Intelligence in the voice
channel Personalization capabilities The flexibility for a
multi-channel environment. Reduces call volumes, call handling times, and
costs Increases agent efficiency Strategic recommendations
Develop a multi-channel solution Prepare for tighter integration with
inbound customer service The smarter, the better Appendix Note
on the report
List of Tables Table 1: Rankings
of the top channels in order of importance today
List of Figures Figure 1: Common types of proactive communications
channels for customer service Figure 2: Personalization using outbound
IVR
