Expanding our REACH Preference Center platform through an IVR flowchart builder

by Ravipal Arora, Director of Engineering

Nearly a decade ago, I helped to architect our two-way, text messaging workflow builder for retail customer engagement campaigns. We were early in delivering text messaging to contact centers and our simple user interface allowed administrator the ability to create their own keywords and responses, including picture messages and opt-in requests. Over the years, these flows became more complex as our utility and municipal customers drove us to expand keywords into interactive experiences, asking customers to supply streets and details for power and streetlight outages.  With natural language processing (NLP), we sought to create more time seamless, flexible customer interactions.  As customers engaged with our platforms, it seemed as though our work was done.

But not really.  With that, I am excited to share our latest innovation – an extension to our REACHTM Preference Center platform – an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) flowchart builder that allows administrators the ability to drag and drop shapes on screen, edit templates, create new logic structures, and wire-up the sequence of events.  Offering our clients the ability to go from a Visio diagram to an operational text-to-speech, interactive voice customer experience is thrilling because it allows them to be creative, fail fast, and moreover, deliver new experiences quickly and cost-effectively.  Further, during emergent situations, messaging templates and flows can be rapidly updated to deliver timely, relevant information to customers.  Looking further, my team is expanding this capability to include NLP and multimedia options.  Please reach out for a demonstration; we always love sharing the fruits of our labor.