Getting a real person on the phone when you dial a help desk has become more difficult over the years, if not altogether impossible at certain organizations. Instead of employing thousands of operators or customer service reps, the solution for the last 25 years has been interactive voice response systems (IVR), or more commonly, the automated voice you hear just before you’re dropped into the ubiquitous sounds of ‘please hold’ music.

Last Thursday, our lead IVR designer Bill Hughes, ran an informative webinar on TMCNet. TMC stands for Technology Marketing Communications, and touts itself as the world's largest communications and technology community.