IVR Menu

If you're reading this then you must be ready for the big time in call routing 

IVR Menu allows you to give a caller a number of options to choose from, such as:

'Press 1 for sales, 2 for Support or 3 for Accounts'

Once the caller selects one of the offered options you can then send the call down an appropriate route based on their selection.

To use an IVR you need to do a little pre setup. 

You are going to need:

• A recording that tells the user what options they have
• A recording that tells them they entered an invalid option
• A recording which reminds them of the options if they simply don't respond
• A separate Route for each option that you offer the user.

Recordings are done via the Business Message Manager.

In practice you can often use the same recording for all three of the above recordings.

Lets work through an Example

You have three departments in your organisation:

• Sales
• Support
• Accounts

You have a different team of people that handle calls in each of these departments.

As you get quite a few calls you have set up a Queue for each department. The queues are named:

• Sales Queue
• Support Queue
• Accounts Queue

You have a voicemail Box for each department

• Sales - 100
• Support - 200
• Accounts - 300

If a caller selects the Sales option then you want to place the caller in the Sales Queue for 90 seconds and if the call isn't answered send the caller to the Sale Voicemail box.

You need to start by creating each of the Queues and Voicemail boxes.

Now create a separate Route for each Department in the Inbound context.

Use the Department Name for the Target. Yes target names don't have to be digits they can also be text. Using text rather than digits means that they can't be accidentally dialed.

Each Route should have the following Steps (adjusted appropriate for each department):

Route: Target=Sales Route
Steps:
Queue: Name=Sales Queue, Timeout=90
Voicemail box: box = 100
Hangup

Once you have setup each Route you a ready to create your IVR.

Add a new Route setting the Target to the phone number that will be used to dial into the IVR. 

Then add a single IVR Menu Route Step

Set the options as follows:

• Message: select the recording which tells the user what options are available
• Retries: set the count to the number of times the call has to select a valid option. 5 is a good number.
• Retry Message: Select the message to play if they don't respond with the Response Time.
• Response Time: the number of seconds they have to enter a response. 5 seconds is a good number.
• Invalid Option Message: The message to play if they select an invalid response.
• Exit On Return: select this so that the call hangs up after selected Option Route completes.
• Replay Option Number: select a number (but not one of those offered to the user) that the user can press to replay the message. You should tell the user what this number is in the Message.
• e.g. 'Press 1 for sales, 2 for Support or 3 for Accounts. Press 0 to hear these options again.'
• For a short list you probably don't need to include this information in the Message. If you have lots of options or the message is long then this will be required.
• Exit Option Number: normally leave this blank. If your IVR Menu is a sub menu then you can use this option to give the caller a way to navigate backup to the prior IVR Menu.
• Option Number / Route
• In the first column select the number that corresponds to the callers selection (e.g. 1 for Sales) then from the drop list select the Route you created above (e.g. Sales Route).
• Do this for each option that you presented to the Caller.
• You don't need options for the Replay Option nor the Exit Option as these are handled automatically.

That's it, you are now ready to test your IVR menu.

TIPS:

Three (3) options is ideal, if you need more than 5 then create a sub menu (another IVR Menu that is called when the user selects one of the top level options).

Keep your message succinct, only include information that is critical to user in making their selection.