According to Aberdeen Group, interactive voice response (IVR) can reduce customer service costs by 30%. After all, managers don’t waste time just transferring calls to colleagues. This means they can spend more time working and communicating with their clients. The company OptiFeed experienced the benefits of IVR firsthand — which is what this case study is about.
About OptiFeed and the reason for connecting Ringostat
OptiFeed sells ready-made horse feed and creates special diets depending on the needs and characteristics of each animal. The company’s customers are private individuals who own these animals or farms that breed them for equestrian sports. Therefore, buyers are extremely attentive to what their horse eats and are very selective when choosing its diet.
Many nuances affect feed selection, so customers not only write but also call the company to quickly:
- get advice on horse nutrition;
- discuss which feed is suitable for specific tasks — for example, preparing an animal for competitions;
- learn about all offers or order status, payment, delivery, etc.
Despite the fact that customers can write on social media, email, and even the company’s TikTok, the share of calls is significant. There can be several hundred per month — moreover, conversations usually last quite a long time, often up to an hour and a half. People love to talk about their animals or have several horses that need different diets. So, to make call handling more convenient, OptiFeed began looking for professional business telephony.
“I was looking for a communication solution, and after consulting with a friend, I started considering several options. I sent inquiries to all of them. Ringostat contacted me first, and they were the only ones who provided a quick response and specific proposal. So I decided not to look further, as I immediately appreciated the quick response and professional approach.
When I order something for my company, I always send inquiries to different companies. I’m most favorable toward those from whom I receive the first response. This means the business really works quickly and efficiently.
It’s better to choose a supplier who offers a quality product and ensures quick and effective contact than the cheapest available on the market, with whom problems may arise later, if only in terms of technical support.”
How call handling works at OptiFeed and what role IVR plays in it
OptiFeed has connected a virtual PBX — a tool that allows you to make calls over the internet. All calls made through it are recorded in convenient reports. Thus, management can see:
- how many calls there were and when;
- which managers handled them;
- evaluate call dynamics through visual graphs — an example is shown below;
- how long the customer waited on the line and how long the conversation lasted.
Another advantage of Ringostat’s virtual telephony is multichannel capability. This means several customers can simultaneously reach the company’s single number, and none of them will hear busy signals. Unlike the situation when mobile communication is used. Therefore, multichannel telephony is extremely important for online businesses that receive many customer calls.
How IVR helped the company and how it’s configured
When a customer calls the company, they reach the interactive voice response (IVR). This is functionality that lists departments to the buyer and tells them which digit to press to reach the desired department. At OptiFeed, the voice menu offers to choose one of the options:
- learn more about the offer;
- discuss an order from the online store;
- place a bulk order or order feed in pallets;
- talk to a specialist who will help choose animal feed;
- contact accounting.
Depending on what the customer presses, the call will be immediately directed to one of the specialists. If they don’t answer for more than 30 seconds — for example, if the manager is not in the office — the call will be forwarded to their personal mobile number.
“It’s very convenient that IVR can immediately distribute calls among responsible persons. Otherwise, it would be more trouble — constantly figuring out where, to whom, and for what reason the call came in.
I was once an opponent of automation, preferring to rely on people, but over time I changed my mind. 14 years of running a company have shown me that people, unfortunately, can be unreliable. An automated electronic solution saves all resources, including human ones — it allows the team to work more efficiently and purposefully. That’s why I implement automation and am satisfied with this decision.”
Controlling missed calls
Virtual PBX reports help OptiFeed analyze and improve service quality. First and foremost, management looks at whether managers answer calls. Therefore, the company primarily works with the missed calls report. There you can see:
- when a call was missed;
- from which number — so you can immediately call the buyer back;
- how long the customer waited on the line before that;
- the reason the call was missed, etc.
The unprocessed missed calls report allows you to see only those inquiries that managers haven’t called back. Employees review it to find such inquiries and call back as quickly as possible. Within 30 minutes maximum if the specialist is busy. After the manager has called the customer, the missed call entry disappears from this report. You can also mark such a call as “Processed.”
Results of cooperation with Ringostat: OptiFeed feedback
“Now the team saves an average of 30 minutes to an hour daily. Managers don’t have to answer a colleague’s phone call, deal with an issue they’re not competent in, or look for ways to help a customer with a problem. It seems like small things, but 2 minutes per call — by the end of the day, that’s quite a lot of time.
OptiFeed customers are comfortable because they get answers to their questions immediately, not two hours later or the next day. Virtual telephony, IVR, and missed call reports help with this 100%.
A separate plus is technical support. I often ask for some changes to be made, and the response is always very quick, and all issues are resolved.
So Ringostat fully meets our goals and needs. I’m satisfied with everything, so we extended our cooperation for a year. I know you’re constantly introducing new solutions, and we plan to test everything.”
