The global market for interactive voice response (IVR) systems may reach $2.78 billion by 2017, driven mainly by its growing popularity in small and medium business segment, according to a report from Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

U.S. continues to represent the largest and one of the fastest growing regional markets for IVR systems, waxing at a CAGR of about 10.32 percent over the analysis period, the report says.

The research firm has cited four factors spurring the growth of the IVR market around the world: increasing prominence of outbound IVR systems, innovative pricing strategies, technological advancements, development of open standards.

Given the report, growing opportunities from developing markets, especially Asia-Pacific region, also bodes well for the market.

Faced with cutthroat competition, globalization and ever-changing customer demands, organizations are finding no option but to rely on IVR systems to provide better customer service.

And IVRs, on the other hand, are proving beneficial, helping them cut down operational cost and improve efficiency. These organizations know it well that most of the legacy IVR systems are expensive to maintain and largely incapable of addressing the fast changing customer demands.

These new technologies enable companies to customize phone-based customer services to suite their requirements and are therefore fast growing in prominence.

The global IVR systems market, according to the research firm, has bounced back completely from the lows of 2009 as organizations looked for ways to please and retain their customers.

Yet for the market future lies in the success of outbound IVR systems, which help organizations handle newer channels, such as SMS and video.

 With outbound IVR technology, enterprises deliver important notifications, provide proactive and personalized customer service, and expedite collections. Companies, which earlier shied away from managed service IVR offerings, are now investing in these solutions, says the research firm.

Another key factor for growth is QM/Recording solutions that play an important role in helping boost productivity. QM/Recording solutions are now made available on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) or a hosted basis instead of conventional, premise-based licensed product delivery model.

In their effort to tackle the IT budgetary issues, companies are displaying greater keenness on SaaS subscription based model, according to the report.