IVA vs IVR: Learn the Difference + Pros and Cons

When a customer calls your business, they hear a welcome message followed by the IVR menu. This may be a series of options such as “press #1 for sales, #2 for accounts, and so on” or the IVR may ask direct questions at each stage, such as “Would you like option A, or option B?”

The caller may be asked to speak their selection aloud rather than using their keypad, or even state their reason for calling in their own words. Conversational IVR systems use NLP to understand what the customer says and trigger an appropriate action.

Larger companies may also use submenus, where each option leads to further options. If the caller is confused or makes no selection, the IVR will replay the original menu. There should always be an option to speak to a human agent.
Depending on the selection or command, the IVR determines whether to assist the caller with a simple task, or place the call in a queue for a specific agent or department.

If a call is placed in the queue, this is where the ACD takes over. The IVR tells the ACD where to route the call, following the rules you’ve implemented. You might choose to route by agent availability, by idle time, in a fixed sequence, or based on agent skills.

If there’s nobody available to take the call, the IVR will invite the caller to try a different option, like leaving a voicemail or receiving a callback later—while keeping their place in line.

IVAs also start with a welcome message, but instead of running through a menu, they allow the customer to tell them what they want. NLP and NLU technology enables the system to understand the intent and the context as well as the actual words spoken by the caller.

An IVA can interpret multiple languages and understand heavy accents, slang, and colloquialisms. With sentiment analysis, they can detect how the customer is feeling. For instance, if the caller is becoming upset or frustrated, the IVA can automatically route the call to a human agent.

However, the aim is to resolve issues quickly without needing to transfer the call. The IVA will search through resources (customer history or company knowledge bases, for example) and provide a relevant and accurate response. It’ll do this in a human-like way, sounding like a natural conversation.

IVAs also use machine learning, so they’re capable of becoming smarter with every interaction.

The key difference is that chatbots are text-based tools, so customers need to type their questions or click on the options offered—whereas IVAs are typically voice-activated. 

Basic chatbots offer the customer a couple of options, such as “Do you want to pay a bill, check your balance, or change your password?” They can recognize key words and phrases and generate responses automatically, but these are limited.

IVAs are able to hold complete conversations and understand the nuances in customer responses. They can handle complex requests, while chatbots often have to escalate to a human.

The cost of IVA and IVR can vary depending on the vendor, features, and level of customization. In general, you can expect IVA systems to cost more because the tech is more sophisticated (although some IVRs do include AI-powered features).

IVA is usually sold as a standalone product. IVR is typically part of a wider solution such as CloudTalk’s AI-powered business calling solution, which starts at $25 per user/month. You can compare this to the cost of other software in our IVR price guide.

You can easily configure CouldTalk’s IVR feature to meet your needs. You can set up personalized call flows and adjust things like business hours with no IT knowledge required.

Just log in to your CloudTalk dashboard, and select the phone number to which you want to add a new call flow. As you build the branches of your phone tree, the structure will appear onscreen in the form of a flow chart.

You can add different settings and “actions” such as pre-recorded IVR messages to each step, and add your business hours. Choose how many seconds you’ll give the caller to respond, and create a failover option or have the system repeat the menu automatically.

This is also where you set up the routing rules that the ACD will follow. Skills-based routing ensures callers are matched with an agent who has the right skillset for the query, while caller-based routing pulls in data from your CRM or helpdesk to provide context.

The Preferred Agent feature lets you route customers to agents already familiar with their case. You can also create a VIP queue or redirect callers to voicemail or an alternative number.