What Is An IVR? Interactive Voice Response System

Transcription

1 IVR & Kiosk Options

2 What Is An IVR? Interactive Voice Response System An IVR gives customers the freedom to access, or update their account information over the phone without the presence of a live attendant. This includes the ability to make payments, setup arrangements and/or update contact information if need be. Can be used to answer incoming calls or to place outbound calls to inform customers of changes to their service or account.

3 IVR Integration Requires integration between ATS & the client preferred vendor s IVR bridge. At present, 24 of ATS clients utilize an IVR solution. ATS is currently integrated with Siena, Centurion & Milsoft s IVR products, but can integrate with the IVR bridge of our clients choosing. Once integration is turned on between ATS & the IVR Bridge there are multiple options found in System Configuration that can be utilized at the clients discretion. ATS communicates with the IVR Bridge via XML.

4 Current Clients Utilizing an IVR Milsoft Central Florida REMC Covington Electric Coosa Valley Electric Empire Electric Harrison REMC Hancock-Wood Electric South Alabama REMC South River EMC Sam Houston Electric Wright-Hennepin Electric Centurion Cullman Electric Choctawhatchee Electric Laurens Electric Meriwether Lewis Electric Platte-Clay Electric Tri-County Electric Black River Electric Siena Blue Ridge EMC Buckeye REC South Central Indiana REMC

5 IVR Possibilities The most common use of the IVR, by members, is generally to make payments against their accounts. Members can make either Credit Card or ECheck payments through the IVR. At this time there is no functionality to allow members to spread payments across accounts. We have functionality in place to allow your members to setup payment arrangements through the IVR, if allowed. ATS can pass selected attributes through to the IVR Bridge to denote Medical Accounts, identify Cutoff accounts, or stop certain members from paying through the IVR, etc. This requires coding from the IVR Vendor to know how to handle each attribute.

6 IVR Possibilities We have functionality allow for IVR callouts (expired drafts, cutoffs, etc.) to be logged to the account journal. Clients that utilize ATS Outage system can allow their members to report outages through the IVR system.

7 Utilizing IVR Functionality for Kiosks IVR functionality can also interface with payment kiosks. Blue Ridge Electric, Cullman Electric, Covington Electric & CHELCO use their IVR bridges as the backend code behind payment kiosks that they ve placed in the lobby of their places of business. Blue Ridge & CHELCO integrates with Paralan, while Cullman & Covington uses US Payments as their kiosk vendor. There is functionality in place to allow clients to have multiple kiosk users setup within CIS, so as to allow placement of kiosks in multiple locations and track which kiosk was responsible for each CIS action.

8 IVR s Example of When Payment is Made on Cutoff Account Through the IVR: Example of When Payment is Made on Group Billed Account Through the IVR:

9 IVR s (Continued...) Example of When Payment is Made on Cutoff Account Through the IVR:

10 IVR Configuration Settings WEB - ECHECK PAYMENTS PROCESSED AS DRAFTS Are ECheck payment transactions processed as bank drafts by the coop? If this value is set to Y, ECheck transactions via the EBPP website and CIS will immediately affect the member's account, be submitted to pending drafts and will be included in the bank draft file the next time the bank draft file is produced. If this value is set to N, ECheck transactions will be submitted to the payment processor for processing. WEB - PAYIVR_PAYCUTOFFACCOUNT Will the coop accept an IVR payment against an account that is in Pending Cutoff or Cutoff status? WEB - PAY IVR - SEND CUTOFF Y/N Does the coop wish an to be sent to defined recipient(s) e.g. Dispatch, whenever an IVR payment is made to Pending Cutoff or Cutoff account? The default is N. WEB - PAY IVR - SEND GROUP BILL Y/N Does the coop wish an to be sent to defined recipient(s) e.g. Dispatch, whenever an IVR payment is made to an account that is part of a billing group? The default is N. If setting to Y, please contact ATS Support to set up the recipient address(es) for this . WEB - IVR_MINIMUM_PAYMENT_AMOUNT What is the minimum payment amount allowed for a Credit Card or ECheck payment made through the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system?

11 IVR Configuration Settings (Continued...) WEB - PAY IVR INCL UNBILLED CHARGES IN ACTUAL BALANCE Should we include unbilled charges in the 'Balance' parameter returned back to the IVR vendor from the AccountDetails call? If set to 'N', the balance parameter returned by the IVR call will only return the balance on billed charges. If set to 'Y', the balance parameter returned by the IVR call will include all the billed and unbilled A/R charges + deposit balance owing + entire arrangement balance owing. WEB - IVR ALLOWS TIME EXTENSION Y/N Can a time extension be created via the ATS IVR Bridge? If set to Y, a one-time payment arrangement will be created based on a configurable number of days for the extension WEB - TYPE OF ARRANGEMENT FOR IVR TIME EXTENSION Type of arrangement to allow for time extension created via the ATS IVR Bridge (i.e. ARREARS or TOTAL BALANCE)? The default is ARREARS. WEB - IVR ALLOWS TIME EXTENSION ON PENDING CUTOFF ACCOUNT Y/N? Can a time extension be created via the ATS IVR Bridge if account is Pending Cutoff? The default is N. WEB - IVR ALLOWS TIME EXTENSION ON >30 DAY BALANCE Y/N? Can a time extension be created via the ATS IVR Bridge if account has a past due balance > 30 days? The default is N.

12 Possible Future IVR Enhancements Functionality to allow members to spread payments across multiple accounts through the IVR