IVR stands for interactive voice response, which is a complicated name for the menu a caller hears: press 1 for sales, press 2 for support.
Every call centre vendor in Kenya sells one. They are not equally useful, and the differences are rarely in the brochure.
What an IVR is for
Two jobs, and it is worth being clear which one you are buying for.
Routing. Getting a caller to the right desk without a receptionist transferring them. This is the common case and the one that pays for itself.
Answering. Handling the question without a person at all — a balance, an opening time, an order status. This needs the menu to be connected to a system that knows the answer, which is a bigger project than most vendors imply.
Most Kenyan businesses need the first and are sold the second.
The questions that actually separate providers
How fast can you change it yourself?
This is the big one. You will edit your menu four or five times in the first month, because the first version is always wrong in a way you only discover from real callers.
If changing an option means emailing your provider and waiting two days, your menu will stay wrong. Ask to see somebody change a menu option during the demo. If they cannot, you know.
Can it speak Kiswahili properly?
Two different things hide behind “yes”.
Machine-read Kiswahili, where the system reads text aloud, is instant to change and sounds like a machine reading Kiswahili. Recorded Kiswahili, by a person, sounds right and takes a day to change.
The sensible answer is usually both: machine-read while you are still editing the wording, recorded once it has settled. Ask whether you can do that, and whether re-recording costs anything.
What happens when nobody presses anything?
A surprising number of menus repeat twice and hang up. That is the worst possible outcome and it is often the default.
Ask what happens on no input, and make sure the answer is “goes to whoever answers general enquiries”.
Can the menu change by time of day?
If sales closes at five, the menu after five should not offer sales. This needs opening hours and a holiday list, not just a menu.
Does it know who is calling?
A caller whose number you recognise can skip the menu entirely and go straight to the person who deals with them. This is simple, powerful and often missing.
What to be careful of
“Unlimited menu levels.” Nobody needs them. Two layers of three is the practical maximum before callers give up. A vendor boasting about depth has not watched people use one.
Per-minute IVR charges. Some providers bill for time spent in the menu. A thirty-second greeting across a thousand calls a month adds up. Ask.
Voice recording sold as a package. Recording a greeting is a one-hour job. If it is bundled into a five-figure onboarding fee, you are paying for something else.
Licensing confusion. You do not need your own telecommunications licence to run a voice menu on a service you buy. More on that here.
A short checklist for the demo
Bring your own menu, not theirs. Write the three options your callers actually need, and ask the provider to build them while you watch.
Then ask:
- Change option two to something else — how long?
- Add a Kiswahili option at nine — can you?
- What does a caller hear at seven in the evening?
- What happens if they press nothing?
- Show me the report of which options people chose.
That last one matters more than it sounds. The menu you design and the menu your callers use are different menus, and only the report tells you how.
Then write a good one
Choosing a provider is the easy half. The menu itself is where callers are lost, and most menus are written from the inside out — the org chart rather than the problem.
There is a separate article on writing one people do not hang up on. It is worth reading before you record anything.