Opening the Call

You get only one shot at making a good first impression. In an IVR system, such an impression is formed by users and conveyed by VUI designers with the application’s opening prompt.

When writing your application’s opening prompt, keep the following three basic VUI guidelines in mind:

Be brief: Belabored, verbose opening prompts confirm the worst stereotype of the dumb, overbearing IVR system. If you force users to listen to 30 seconds of instructions, information, and disclaimers before they can take the first step towards solving their problem, you will not only have started your user on the wrong note, but would have given users a whole 30 seconds to push the zero-out button.

Be concise: Each and every single word in your opening prompt needs to be absolutely indispensable. If you can get rid of a word without losing meaning or effectiveness, do it.

Be polite: Politeness is not simply an icing on the cake of a good VUI design. A system that is respectful of users is a system that is attentive to user needs, and therefore a system that will help users successfully accomplish the task they called about.