Why might you want to design your own voice applications for your business? And are the skills required to do so out of your reach? Those are the sort of questions to consider when a visual design tool for voice applications becomes an option for your company. You’ll be happy to know that the answers are simple and will directly help you determine your best course of action.

First, a custom voice application design that provides built-in functionality will allow your business to stand out amongst the competition and will enhance the customer experience with your brand. For example, many mobile devices now include adapted voice applications to provide better services to users, and voice apps are especially beneficial for people with limited reading ability, such as children, the visually impaired and the elderly.

Second, the skills necessary to design voice applications vary with the tools available for the task; some require in-depth knowledge of scripting and programming while others do not. So look for a voice application creation tool that automates time-intensive business processes with just a few clicks of your mouse. A graphical interface, for instance, will allow you to put together components (e.g., user input, prompt playback, menu and transfer) using drag and drop. This is a time-saver that can reduce your development commitment from weeks to hours.

When you design your own voice apps, you improve the conversation between you and your customers, leading to increased knowledge of your customer base. This in turn will generate better engagement with consumers and develop their trust in and loyalty to your organization. How so? For instance, your custom voice application can include a query for the caller’s phone number which will then be validated against your database, finally routing the call based on customer type to the appropriate agent.

In the past, voice apps were simply a means to engage with mostly financial institutions over the phone by following commands such as “press one for customer service.” These basic interactive voice response (IVR) systems have advanced over time, however, to now afford a more organic system, dynamic than pressing buttons on a telephone. Now, voice applications allow you to link back to extensions, call queues, digital receptionists and so forth.

The Voice Application Designer (VAD) from 3CX works effortlessly in tandem with 3CX Phone System. Together, these tools allow you to create powerful voice apps easily and quickly. These apps interact with the user via the phone and then perform certain logic. With VAD, for example, businesses can create a voice application in just three simple steps:

  1. Visually create your application with building blocks, i.e., components such as menu
  2. When using VAD to build an app, you will automatically create VoiceXML scripts that can be run on any 3CX Phone System
  3. Link to your voice app using a digital receptionist or DID number

To deliver a better voice experience to your customers, start developing custom voice applications today.