The Basics of Inbound Projects

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes | Target users: New users

The Inbound worksheet is where you can set up and customize every aspect of your inbound workflow.

In this lesson, you will learn:

• What is the concept of inbound settings
• What Inbound Functions are Available

What is IVR?

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is an automated telephony system that can interact with your callers, gather information from them, or route calls to the appropriate recipients.

The IVR can play pre-recorded messages with a list of options to choose from. The callers can use their phone keypad to navigate their way around in the IVR menu or choose the option they need.

Things You Can Do With the IVR

It’s no coincidence that IVR is often called the heart of inbound operations. IVR defines how your clients can interact with your contact center. In fact, IVR is essentially the first layer of interaction between the clients and your organization.

A few examples of what your users can do in an IVR:

• You can create customized IVR menus for different countries, for example, by the system identifying the country code of the phone number, or have specific IVR for different time of the day or holiday
• Your users can take care of payments with or without involving agents, or check their account’s balance information
• You can identify the caller’s identity by requesting PIN codes or other data, and offer them customized services or products
• You can sell products that your client can pay for during phone call

How To Set Up an IVR Menu

The Processes tab on the Inbound worksheet is where you can construct an IVR menu. An inbound call consists of processes. A process is a set of actions, functions, automations or conditions. It allows you to define what happens when a caller reaches out to you.

Think of inbound processes like interlocking bricks of a building block puzzle. You can get creative and build simple or more complex IV menus. You can swap or change the bricks as you like. It just takes some time to learn which pieces fit together. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll find it intuitive and easy to work with.

Overview of What Functions You Can Add to Your Inbound Workflow

There are a variety of functions you can add to your inbound processes that will enable you to set up advanced and flexible workflows. To take a look at the full list, see Inbound Processes.

Congratulations!

You have just got acquainted with the very basics of Inbound Projects.

Later, you will learn how to set up your IVR workflows through basic and advanced examples.