IVE Technology

Ziconix has developed IVE (Interactive Voice Enquiry) technology, it connects small businesses to online booking without the need for the business to use a computer.

We are all familiar with IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology, the systems that redirect us to different departments at a call centre or other businesses, most commonly customer services. The term ‘response’ is from the fact that we (the customer who dialled the phone) has to respond to questions by pressing numbers on the telephone keypad e.g. “Press ‘1’ for customer services.”

IVE reverses the situation, now the businesses have to respond to a customer request, an example being restaurant booking. Customers want to be able to book restaurants online at anytime of the day or night, however a large majority of restaurants particularly venues outside of the major cities do not want to have to buy expensive software or change from using a paper diary which everyone can easily understand without training. Our managed service allows the customer to choose a restaurant online and our servers phone the restaurant to get a response during opening times.

An automated phone call makes quick and simple requests such as “a customer would like a table for 4 people at 7:30 this evening, press 1 to accept, press 2 to decline”. With the restaurant simply pressing ‘1’ on the phone keypad we can then tell them the phone number for the customer and their surname. At the same time the customer gets a response informing them that the restaurant has accepted their booking.

Typical Booking Widget

Further to this scenario, our service has a multi venue feature built in, if the customer is wanting to book at a busy time or at short notice and just wants a table at one of a number of restaurants they like, they simply select which restaurants they would accept a table from and our technology phones them in order of preference and book a table at the first venue with availability.

Multi Venue Widget

This managed service is available to partners offering either individual restaurant booking on their own website or as with our Cambridgeshire partner Local Secrets, provides customers the choice of booking a wide range of restaurants. Our technology also allows customers and restaurants to vary the times, providing booking flexibility.