As the CHT transitions to enable remote onboarding and training for safer Community Health Worker support, we’re considering a variety of product improvements. Our assessment of Interactive Voice Response (now and in the past) is that it’s flexible and robust enough to scale with health programs and adapt to rapidly changing environments. But, the higher up-front implementation costs and increase in program operating expense, when compared to sms or data deployments, may outweigh the benefits. Gaining insight into program and user experiences would help us to make a decision on next steps:
- What should we expect for setup time for initial design and implementation?
- Do training productivity gains and scalability for programs justify the setup and operating costs?
- Each IVR service has its own learning curve so we’d like to coalesce on a single service provider, if possible. Do you have recommendations for IVR providers that serve Africa and Asia?
All feedback on these questions or other learnings welcome!