Case Study: Large Global Retailer achieves 80% higher IVR call containment and 19% lower abandon rate with Nuance Communications natural language call steering

Large retailer improves customer service experience

Large Global Retailer faced fragmented IVR systems across multiple platforms, languages and codebases, with a mix of touchtone and speech-enabled applications. Complex, menu-driven call routing (150+ call types) led to caller confusion, high abandon rates and unnecessary agent transfers. To standardize and improve efficiency, the retailer engaged Nuance Communications (Nuance Professional Services) to migrate applications and deploy Nuance’s natural language Call Steering.

Nuance Communications implemented natural language Call Steering, migrated and standardized IVR code worldwide and redesigned prompts so callers state their intent in free form and only supply remaining required details. The deployment increased IVR call containment by 80%, reduced call abandon rate by 19%, cut total IVR time by 5% and lowered transfers to generic agent queues (transfer-related metrics improved as much as 40–47%); interactions before routing fell 25%, order-number capture rose 43%, and third‑party research showed improved customer satisfaction (IVR complaints down 15 points, ease of reaching an agent +13 points).