IVR & Bulk Calls During a Health Crisis

The situation around the globe continues to deteriorate as the Corona virus wedges the world’s supply with magnified cargo delays, labour shortages, and flight cancellations. As a damage control measure industries are now adopting higher advancement in automation at all levels of enterprise. Be it manufacturing, sales, or marketing, every aspect of consumer care is being heavily automated to ensure the supply-demand balance.

With reduced manpower and strict work-from-home policies in place, businesses are utilising automation to reach their customers like never before. Bulk calls have been especially revolutionary as computerised auto-dialers deliver pre-recorded messages to millions of phone numbers at once. This has proven to be an exceptionally powerful tool in the face of a global health crisis. 

Research heavily supports the utilisation of ivr bulk calls for mass out-reach during a health crisis (Mouza, 2003). In India, public-service and emergency announcements have been deployed since the onset of Corona pandemic, where mobile and landline-phone users are receiving critical health and safety information with every call they make and receive. 

Call centers have always been vital for mass marketing campaigns, lead-generation, payment reminders, promotions and introducing new services, announcements, and fundraising. However, the current social distancing rules severely limit the functioning and operations of all such industries and customer care centers.  

Companies and organisations now have the capacity to record their messages and customise their call-flow in any language and blast it across the country to their existing and potential user base. Bulk voice calling is a power-tool that is now replacing the need for training and maintaining PSA, promotional and transactional calling teams.  

Educating mass populations about healthcare information has been proven to be scientifically successful in disease management and control. Interventions as such use automated calling as a cost-effective option for delivering and gathering information (Corkrey & Parkinson, 2002). This is a high risk, high expense time for service providers, and automating outbound calls is helping to bring down their expenditure significantly while maintaining efficiency and potential for business growth. 

Automation can aid profit and social welfare at the same time. Companies that are at a risk of inability to attend to their customers now have the option of staying connected with all their stake-holders, regardless of the physical location of their teams. This also highlights the question of how we can utilise our workforce better and liberate them from repetitive tasks. This pandemic brings serious threats with it, yet somehow it gives us a chance to revolutionise our operations in a more economic way.

Corkrey R, Parkinson L. Interactive voice response: review of studies 1989- 2000. Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput. 2002;34:342-353.

Mouza AM. IVR and administrative operations in healthcare and hospitals. Journal Healthcare Information Management. 2003;17:68-71.

Lavigne JV, Tapper K. Interactive voice response in disease management: providing patient outreach and improving outcomes. Disease Management & Health Outcomes. 1998;4:1-16.