These are the answers to the questions asked during the Q&A session of the Interactive
Voice Agent: Say It, Don’t Press It webinar on Tuesday, June 23, 2026.
Interactive Voice Agent (IVA) upgrades traditional IVR menus so callers can speak naturally instead of fumbling with keypad input. It supports things like automated ZIP Code collection, keyword routing, and data confirmation playback.
You can use IVA by toggling on the Voice Response switch on menu and gather call flow nodes.
This article contains the following questions:
- GETTING STARTED
-
STRATEGY
- How can we store the data gathered in our CRM?
- How do you use this for RTB campaigns?
- I already have quite a few Call Flows that are using the basic IVR, would you recommend that I switch them all over to IVA?
- If we have verification campaigns, can we use this feature in multiple menus to collect a 3-5 question survey for a Leads Gen campaign? Would the menu be able to handle responses by keyword and transfer to the correct nodes?
- I see you can reroute depending on keywords. What if the caller says a number higher than $10,000 — can we set up the Call Flow to dial certain targets? Meaning, can we set up a filter of “above or under” a dollar amount instead of needing the caller to say a specific number?
-
TROUBLESHOOTING
- How do you manage out-of-scope questions from a caller?
- What happens if the IVA doesn’t understand a caller?
- Can we use both a keypress and voice at the same time (for example, prompting “Either press or say one”)?
- How exact do people have to be? For example: “Auto Insurance” is the designated keyword, but what if the caller says, “It’s for my car or truck”?
- How hard is it to switch back to a keypress if I don’t like the IVA?
- ROADMAP
GETTING STARTED
What does it cost?
Short answer: Likely a nickel. Longer answer: $0.050 (5 cents) per minute, but not for the entire call — only for the time the caller is in the Call Flow. Since most Call Flows are designed to be quick for a variety of reasons, typically the total added cost will be about 5 cents.
See Platform Pricing.
Is this something I can use right now?
Yes. The new voices and the IVA feature are available right now in Gather and Menu Call Flow nodes for all Ringba accounts on all plans.
See Platform Pricing.
Is this available for Life Insurance?
Yes, IVA can be used for any vertical. You can add the questions that apply to your use case on the Gather or Menu nodes.
Will people think they’re speaking with a real person?
While some people may think they are speaking with a real person, most callers will likely realize that it’s not a real person. Ringba built IVA to help make data collection easier, not to have fully conversational AI.
How long does the person wait once they finish talking?
Not long at all. It’s a very smooth and natural transition. There won’t really be any noticeable lag time.
STRATEGY
How can we store the data gathered in our CRM?
You can use the Ringba API or create a pixel and add it to your campaign to fire the collected data to your CRM (via an endpoint you get from the CRM). Depending on the exact scenario, you could also send the data in the ring tree target request.
See Pixels.
How do you use this for RTB campaigns?
The IVA feature is available in the gather and menu nodes of a call glow. Currently, campaigns using Real Time Bidding (RTB) or RTB pass through cannot use call flows. This is because a call flow starts when the call comes in, and RTB and RTB pass through utilize pings that occur before the call comes in.
I already have quite a few call flows that are using the basic IVR. Would you recommend that I switch them all over to IVA?
We at Ringba are huge advocates of methodically testing and then scaling when and where appropriate based on the performance data. With that mindset, it’s almost always a good idea to take “baby steps” when testing any feature.
We suggest you choose a campaign to test IVA and see how it goes. In fact, you can use the splitter node to test the IVA to see how it compares to the IVR. Then, keep increasing the use of IVA if the data proves it’s outperforming the IVR/keypress response option.
See Splitter Node.
If we have verification campaigns, can we use this feature in multiple menus to collect a 3-5 question survey for a Leads Gen campaign? Would the menu be able to handle responses by keyword and transfer to the correct nodes?
You can absolutely collect answers for 3 to 5 (or MORE!) questions in a single call flow if you’d like. You would simply need to have a separate menu or gather node for each question/data that you’d want to collect.
I see you can reroute depending on keywords. What if the caller says a number higher than $10,000 — can we set up the call flow to dial certain targets? Meaning, can we set up a filter of “above or under” a dollar amount instead of needing the caller to say a specific number?
There are different options, but probably the easiest is to route the caller to an appropriate dial node based on the data you collect using the IVA/IVR. For example, you can use a gather node with IVA to ask your question and receive the data, and then add a router node right after the gather node to route the call based on the response, like: if greater than $10,000, go here; if less than $10,000, then go there.
TROUBLESHOOTING
How do you manage out-of-scope questions from a caller?
The IVA considers them a failure and plays a message. For example, “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand that. Let’s try again.” Then it will reprompt the question and wait for the caller’s response. The IVA will reprompt the caller as many times as you designate in the retry settings.
What happens if the IVA doesn’t understand a caller?
While this shouldn’t happen often, it is possible that in certain situations (example: bad call quality or lots of background noise on the caller’s end) the IVA may not perfectly understand the caller. You are in control of setting how many retry attempts to allow, and you can also revert back to a keypress approach if the voice response fails.
See Call Flow Solution: Make a Key Tap Contingency Plan.
Can we use both a key press and voice at the same time (for example, prompting “Either press or say one”)?
Currently, IVA does not support both key press and voice response in the same node. You should not prompt callers to “Press OR say...” — it must be one or the other for now. Adding this option in the future is a definite possibility though.
How exact do people have to be? For example: “Auto Insurance” is the designated keyword, but what if the caller says, “It’s for my car or truck”?
The IVA was built to be very flexible and can easily accept adjacent terms. If you’re looking for the keyword “auto” but the caller says something like “vehicle,” “car,” “truck,” etc. it will accept the answer as “auto.”
How hard is it to switch back to a keypress if I don’t like the IVA?
It’s very simple to either enable or disable the IVA feature within a gather or menu node. Simply toggle the Voice Response switch either on or off, and make sure you adjust the text so that the voice prompt appropriately asks the caller to say their response (if IVA is enabled) or press the appropriate key(s) (if keypress is enabled).
ROADMAP
Will there be an option to apply IVA to all of a call flow’s gather nodes at once?
Since call flows can be so unique and very specific to the campaign they’re being used in, we don’t have this on our roadmap. You must enable IVA on a node-by-node basis.
Is true conversational AI IVR on the roadmap for Ringba?
Not at the moment.
Will there be additional attributes we will be able to adjust, like the “mood” of a voice type?
Since Ringba is not trying to offer conversational AI, we don’t have that planned.