The auto attendant (IVR) is the first voice a customer hears from your company. A good menu quickly gets the call to the right department and lightens the operator’s load. But a long menu with vague options frustrates customers, and some hang up before ever reaching a person.
Start with the Right Question: Why Do Customers Call?
Before recording any message, list the main reasons people call. Call reports from the past few weeks and a conversation with the operator or receptionist usually give a clear picture. Most companies find that a handful of reasons make up the bulk of their calls, and those reasons should be the first menu options. Your company structure means nothing to the customer. Build the menu around their needs, not around the org chart.
Menu Design Principles
- Few options: offer no more than four or five options per menu. Callers will not remember more than that.
- Shallow depth: do not build more than two menu levels. If you need a third, you probably need to regroup the options.
- Topic first, then number: say “For technical support, press 2”, not “Press 2 for technical support”. The listener first needs to know whether the option is relevant to them.
- Most-used option first: the most frequent reason for calling should be option one.
- Always an exit: set a fixed key, such as zero, to reach an operator, and keep it the same in every menu.
- Direct extension dialing: returning customers who know an extension number should be able to dial it right at the start.
Record Short, Professional Messages
Keep the welcome message to one or two sentences. Leave service descriptions, promotions and business hours out of the main message; if they are needed, move them to a separate option or to the queue hold message. Record messages in a consistent voice, in a quiet room and at good quality, and listen to them through a mobile phone before going live. A voice that sounds fine on computer speakers may be hard to understand over a phone line.
After the options are played, a pause of a few seconds followed by one repeat of the menu gives callers time to decide. If no key is pressed after that, send the call to an operator rather than hanging up.
After-Hours Routing
The auto attendant needs to know whether it is business hours. Use a Time Condition in the phone system to define a separate route for after hours and holidays:
- A short message about business hours is played.
- Callers can leave a voicemail or request a callback.
- If needed, customers with an urgent support contract get an option to reach the on-call engineer.
Update the list of public holidays in the phone system every year; it is a task that is often forgotten.
Common Mistakes
- Menus that were not updated after organizational changes, with an option that leads to an empty extension.
- Sending callers back to the start of the menu after every error, instead of guiding them or connecting them to an operator.
- Forcing a long message to play before the first option.
Measure and Improve
Do not build the IVR once and forget it. Check the reports to see which option is chosen most often, how many calls hang up before choosing an option, and how many reach the operator. If many customers press the operator key right away, the options are not clear. Every few months, call in from an outside line yourself and go through the menu as a customer would.
Checklist
- The main reasons for calling are identified and placed in the menu in order of priority.
- There are no more than two menu levels and four to five options per level.
- A fixed operator key and direct extension dialing are available.
- The welcome message is short and recorded at good quality.
- A separate route is defined for after hours and holidays.
- Reports are reviewed regularly and the menu is tested from an outside line.
A good auto attendant improves the customer experience from the very first second. ITPlus724 engineers can review your company’s call flow and implement the right menu on your phone system.