Thinking of recording your own IVR Messages in-house?

Here are 5 points to consider before recording your IVR Messages in-house...

We get a lot of ‘how hard can it be to record our own messages…?’  Well, in truth, not only can it be hard in the sense of getting the right intonations and personality in your recordings, but it can also be hard on your company’s purse strings. Recording IVR messages in-house may seem like a good idea or a cheaper option, but like most things in life, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is!  You, or one of your valued employees, could have the best personality in the world, a first class drama degree, or just simply like the sound of their own voice, but we often find that once faced with the prospect of laying down audio in a recording studio, they don’t quite have what it takes to give the company the sound you’re looking for.

If you want to go down the route of using an employee to record your IVR messages here are five points to consider first:

1. Having a 'nice voice' is not enough; you have to know how to use it!

Professional voiceovers take years to hone their skill to enable them to know where inflections should be used in a script, while still sounding natural so the finished recording doesn’t sound forced. Unless the employee you’re considering using has this level of experience then the finished audio will not engage callers in the most positive way, so the finished messages are highly unlikely to be the same quality as using a professional voiceover.

2. How will the recording sound?

If you are going to use an employee to record your IVR Prompts, where, when and how will you do the recording? You could set up in a corner of the office or the boardroom but how much background noise is there? How long will it take to record every single prompt into the system then check over to ensure what has been recorded matches the script and is correct? When will you find the time to record? Wouldn’t you and or your employee be more productive doing your normal job, because it’s likely to take a while to record even the shortest of scripts, which brings us on to…

3. How long will the recording process take and what’s the real cost?

This fact is often overlooked. A professional voiceover will record an IVR script far quicker than an inexperienced wannabe! This means your employee could take all day to record a 500 word script correctly, something which a professional voiceover would have done in under an hour. This is compounded if you’re using a professional recording studio as you’ll be paying an hourly rate for studio hire. The longer it takes to get the script ‘in the can’ the longer the editing process will take removing all the fault starts or worse piecing together the best bits of several different takes, wastes precious studio time and costs money! So much so that the dramatic increase in studio hire costs can often outweigh the cost of hiring a professional voiceover artist in the first place.

Of course you can record at your premises but the quality will be nowhere near as good as a professional studio.

4. How often do you need updates?

Our professional voiceovers are in the studio most days so when a new IVR prompt needs recording we can usually turn it around in 24 - 48 hours. If your employee records in-house then if they’re not in the office this can delay important updates. If you’re using a recording studio, your employee will have to travel to a studio to record which increases lead times further.

5. What happens if the employee leaves the company?

At best they're unlikely to be willing or able to record new IVR prompts when needed. 

At worst they may ask for all the IVR recordings to be completely removed from the system, especially if they are moving on to a competitor.

This then creates a dilemma for you – to re-record or not to re-record? If you decide to take the plunge and re-record your entire set of messages, the aforementioned processes and stumbling blocks once more rear their ugly heads, and you will probably be left wishing you’d just bitten the bullet and recorded with a professional voiceover in the first place!

It’s also worth noting that voiceover work is probably outside the scope of an employee’s contract of employment so they may look for remuneration for their additional work.

We outlined the benefits of using a professional voiceover artist to record your IVR prompts in September last year click here to take a look.

If you have any questions or queries we’re always happy to discuss projects call us on 0161 850 3033.

The benefits of Professionally Recorded IVR Telephone Prompts

In business image is everything nowadays, and professionally recorded IVR messages can enhance your brand. After your website, the phone is usually the first point of contact with customers so it pays to make the right first impression.

If you’re utilising an Interactive Voice Response system, what impression is it giving callers?

The main benefits of using Professionally Recorded IVR Messages:

Experienced Voices - We hand pick only the best voice talent based on their experience and ability, the voice artists we work with have years of experience and are able to deliver consistent sounding IVR Prompts. Callers can instantly spot a professional voiceover which creates the right first impression for your company.

Consistent Sound - Our voiceovers are very good at matching their delivery style to your brand values, is able to bring your IVR Script to life and create the right mood for your telephone system. When you come to record message updates in the future your chosen voiceover will be able to match the new and old messages perfectly - your callers will never tell the difference.

High Quality Audio - Having your IVR Messages recorded in a fully soundproofed voice booth with a microphone worth over £1,000 ensures high quality sound, without distracting background noise. You might think that it’s not worth going to all that effort when the finished recordings will be used on the phone (yes you’re right the phone network doesn't provide great quality) but if you start with a recording that has background noise and is unclear, this will be magnified when listening back to it on the phone.

Professional Editing - If you record your own IVR Messages it’s usually done straight into the telephone system which means you have no editing control. What you record is what you get; there’s no chance to edit out breaths, pops, clicks and background noise, all of which are distracting for callers and doesn’t create the right impression. Audio editing requires a tuned ear and technical skills to provide a polished batch of IVR Prompts, which all match perfectly.

In short if you’re serious about attracting new customers and retaining existing ones, then taking the time and effort to improve your IVR Prompts it a must.

by Steve Hindley you can find Steve on Google+

What are IVR Voice Prompts?

Quite simply IVR voice prompts are the spoken messages you hear when calling an automated telephone system.

When you call your bank, utility company, insurance broker, hotel chain...in fact with most large companies who provide customer service or ordering functions over the phone you're likely to be greeted by an IVR system which plays a number of IVR voice prompts, giving you the option to go through to different departments.

Who records these IVR prompts?

We do! We have a range of professional voice overs who have many years recording everything from TV and radio commercials to corporate narration and of course IVR prompts.

Why are IVRs used so much?If well designed and implemented properly (with of course professionally recorded IVR message prompts) IVR systems can improve call handling for not just companies but also clients by delivering callers to the correct department quickly and efficiently.

To discuss our IVR Prompt Recording Service and how an IVR system could improve your call handling efficiency give us a call on 0800 0112 123.