It’s already time for this week’s IVR Week in Review, providing you with the scoop on all things interactive voice response (IVR)-related. IVR technology has been playing a crucial role in companies across the globe, and with enterprises increasingly implementing IVR to reduce the cost of sales, service, collections, inquiry, and support calls to and from their company, you can bet there’s news to be had in this rapidly evolving industry!

Starting things off is yet another innovation brought to us in a Plum Voice blog. Last week we discussed the idea of talking to your technology and whether it’s odd or amazing. The consensus, of course, was that it was amazing, but in only a matter of seven days we’ve reached a new ground-breaking technological revelation; predictive technology. Yes, digital enthusiasts are prophesying that technology will eventually be able to tell us what we are thinking before we even get the chance to think it – making this possibly the most personal type of technology ever invented. It’s true that we’ve been obliviously interacting with predictive technology for quite some time now (ie. typing in a search term and your device guessing it before you can even finish), but if everything goes as planned, this will become a technology that is literally faster than real-time.

In other news, new research from customer service technology vendor NICE has revealed that the most popular route for individuals seeking self-service for product or service questions continues to be via Internet. The research’s findings ultimately conclude that businesses need to better listen to customer feedback and be attentive to what they have to say – regardless of if its positive or negative.

So while businesses try and shape up their customer service practices, the Internet is continuously reigning supreme for customers who can’t find answers to questions, where they are not changing customer service channels quicker than ever. The data was gathered from a poll of 2,000 individuals between the ages of 18 and 65, took place in November of last year, and represented cities in the U.S., Australia, and the U.K.

It was also revealed this week that Aculab (News - Alert), a provider of telephony platforms and cloud hardware and software, launched its all new NeoSpeech TTS within its Aculab Cloud platform. By using either Python or .NET (News - Alert), this solution works to make integrating premium quality text-to-speech (TTS) simple and easy through a wide range of applications. This is aimed to seriously cut costs associated with IVR, as well as provide a practical way for callers to obtain information of an automated system.

While this technology comes stocked with the essentials – comprehensive learning, flexibility, and interactive qualities – it also comes at a high price, as reflected by its high license fees or, for example, its large computing resource consumption can eat away at finances. Despite this, many will find it to be quite useful, and it will most certainly prove to be advantageous for scores of people.

That wraps up this week’s IVR news, but stay tuned next week for even more updates, tips, and tricks on everything IVR, only here on TMCnet!