With the explosion of smartphones and customized enterprise applications, the population that remains loyal to the IVR has shifted. This talk outlines how today’s typical IVR customer differs from customers a decade ago and uses data from deployments to support the argument that the changes in caller demographics result in different usage patterns and customer expectations. Finally, we make the case that these demographic changes challenge us to revisit and recalibrate some of our tried-and-true design best practices for IVR applications.

The persona of a speech application is as critical for a new caller’s first impression as it is to a power user’s repeated success. Persona development has traditionally been a qualitative exercise led by the judgments of speech experts and the subjective opinions of a few business stakeholders. This talk presents a detailed scientific methodology to select the best voice actor to convey the desired persona.